Podcast Transcripts

00:00:00] This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.
[00:00:13] So should we turn, turn cameras off then? ?
[00:00:16] Yes. Oh, everyone . Turn the video off cuz it’s better for the .
[00:00:22] That little, little snippet there gave you a small insight into the type of conversations that I was having with Krissie from Kollectify in today’s episode, which I’m really excited to share with you, Krissie is the founder of Kollectify as Zero Waste digital marketing agency, helping Shopify businesses to market their business at the same time as protecting the.
[00:00:45] we had a really good chat and as you just saw, or as you just heard , it was suggested that we turned off the cameras. So I’m not gonna be putting a video for this one. It’s just audio only because that is better for the environment. Um, it’s packed full of other little tips and ideas that you can take, especially if you have a product, business or you work with those that do.
[00:01:09] I hope you enjoyed today’s episode.
[00:01:10] Hi Krissie, great to have you on the podcast today and I’m excited to get into some questions that have you all about the work you do at Kollectify.
[00:01:19] Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:21] I’m so excited.
[00:01:23] So first of all, I’d love to hear more about your background and how you got into marketing. .
[00:01:29] Yeah, so, um, it’s a bit of a long story , uh, so I’ll shorten my answer. . So back in 2014, I moved to North Devon from North Wales, and I started to notice there were loads of really nice small businesses selling, you know, like handmade crafty products online and I wanted to blog about them to just give them some more exposure. And I really enjoy writing, so that was really fun. Um, and it was all about, you know, inspiring entrepreneurs that are local to me in the outdoor surf industry. And shortly after, it kind of naturally turned into, a Shopify marketplace.
[00:02:15] And yeah, so I was selling handmade beach related products from individual brands in the North Devon area, and then it kind of grew to the uk, many of whom, I’d been writing about on the blog., so I love the feeling of creating and promoting a unique brand and bringing others along with me. and I called it krissea, uh, k r.
[00:02:38] And then sea as in s e a, cuz it was beach related. And I’m Krissie . And, um, through this like journey, I suppose I realized the opportunities that Shopify in particular was providing for entrepreneurs. And I kind of fell in love with e-commerce. and then so my marketplace wasn’t really making enough money for a living.
[00:03:03] And I was still, I had a part-time job and everything but I knew that I loved, like I said, the excitement of marketing and building a brand. So I joined an e-commerce agency as a content marketing manager in Exeter. So I’d get on the train like an hour and a half away from where I live. And fell in love with e-commerce and just websites and tech and everything even more, and marketing as well.
[00:03:28] Literally the tech behind e-commerce just blew my mind. And then six months into agency life, I was like, I need to do this on my own. wanna gather my own clients and decided to go freelance and I started writing for local businesses. , it was kind of generalist and then I found my niche, which I, as I keep talking about as e-commerce, and developing and executing content marketing strategies, uh, and kind of fell into e-commerce tech again.
[00:04:04] I am rambling. You can tell me to stop .
[00:04:06] No, that’s right. So the, is that when you started your own business and you, you then started doing it for clients? Or was that still within the, agency that you were working at?
[00:04:15] Oh, so this is when I did it by myself, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and then eventually I niche even further into just Shopify apps and agencies.
[00:04:27] Those who are building apps for merchants on Shopify, and then agencies as well. So the bigger agencies who were, I don’t know, offering design, marketing, development, website development, and I was writing content for those people. so that they can promote their business, if that makes sense. ,
[00:04:48] right yes. And was it, was it always sustainability minded as I know that’s a strong part of what you do now?
[00:04:54] Um, well, well for me, I’ve always been, you know, thinking about the environment just naturally because I was brought up in the countryside, but as my freelance business started growing, it grew into a remote agency and I started to like realize, Environmental impact of e-commerce.
[00:05:14] And I just was like, right, I need to do something about this. And my way of doing that was through, one thinking, right, how can we have, digital marketing strategies that are good for your business, but also good for the planet? So like, just being mindful of the things that you create online, making sure that your customers actually need. What you are producing or you are publishing and, and it kind of just, yeah, spiraled and then now that’s like what we do now purely is focused on zero waste digital marketing for Shopify businesses. Um, so yeah, it’s always been in the back of my mind because I just, and also I’m a surfer in North Devon and you know, I just want to make sure that we continue to be able to go into the outdoors and it be fresh and clean and nice to be around, and protect our playground basically.
[00:06:08] Yeah, of course. So can you tell me a bit more about what, what kind of, the Zero Waste Digital Marketing Agency, what does that actually mean, and, what sort of things do you do for your clients?
[00:06:18] Yeah, so Zero Waste Digital Marketing is just simply a more mindful approach to marketing online. So it aims to minimize the creation of digital waste. Like I mentioned, making sure that whatever you are producing online is of value to your customers and to your business, and it won’t harm the environment.
[00:06:42] So it’s thinking, for example, if you are, I don’t know, creating a blog, it’s like, do you need all the images that go with that content? Um, or in the first place, do you need to be writing this blog because it is having an environmental impact?
[00:06:58] and also thinking about email marketing. Email has a huge carbon footprint, so do you need to be sending an email every week?
[00:07:08] It’s probably annoying your customers anyway, but also it’s adding to your carbon footprint and, and it’s the same for social media, so like every Instagram post has a carbon footprint. So think about what you are putting online. Before you post it, just think, is this really necessary? Is this gonna bring my business, my customers value?
[00:07:36] And it is the same for paid advertising, everything that you do online. So by adopting a zero waste approach, organizations can not only minimize their environmental, But also enhance their reputation as a responsible and environmentally conscious business because they are. They’re like, look, I’m thinking about this
[00:07:58] I’m not just sending you this email for no reason.
[00:08:02] And I think traditionally, obviously for a lot of marketing it can, it can seem a little bit about do, do, do and kind of put as much content out there as possible or do as much as possible with your marketing. So it seems like you are really trying to strip it back to what actually needs doing, what’s um, right. For the brand and their customers as well. I’m sure. So what, what services do you actually offer? Do you, do you advise people and give the strategy tell me more about the services. .
[00:08:31] Yeah. Yeah. So, we offer digital marketing services, which follow the zero waste process. Um, it’s like, so right from the very start, we do a lot of customer research, so like figuring out exactly what they to be attracted, converted, just basically wowed by your business and the stuff that you’re putting out. , so that, yeah, I keep talking about that so that it’s needed. But like, so from brand positioning, so how are you positioning your business in a way that’s aligned to your customers? and then that follows through to your content marketing strategy.
[00:09:11] So, like I was talking about before, making sure that your customers actually need it and it’s gonna be useful so that this is gonna save you money, it’s gonna save you time, and it’s gonna save you carbon emissions as well. Um, and like you were saying before, you know, there’s lots of people out there saying you need to post every day, otherwise you’re just gonna fail.
[00:09:31] That is not true. , I really wanna put that across because that’s stressful to you and your team. It’s not. Your customers probably aren’t gonna see every single post anyway. Uh, and if they do, it becomes annoying. And that’s really detrimental can be to your mental health and again, your carbon footprint.
[00:09:52] And we also do technical seo. So again, making sure that you are reaching the right customers. So that is not only good for your business, it’s. Good for your planet is that making sense? Kirsty ?
[00:10:10] Yeah absolutely. And I agree. It’s just something that I’ve noticed as well. You can easily end up spending so much time on the content marketing side and if it’s not effective, you are just doing lots of things.
[00:10:21] So I think, the SEO approach as well can be really effective, can’t it? And. Yeah. Of being more targeted as well.
[00:10:30] SEO is a really interesting one as well in terms of like your website’s carbon footprint. So there are all these SEO practices that you can do to optimize your search ranking, but it’s also lowering the impact of your website at the same time because it’s all about optimizing, compressing.
[00:10:52] It’s, Also about accessibility with seo. So if you are, if you are adding alt tags and things like that, that’s gonna help you in your search rankings, but it’s also gonna help your website to be more accessible to a larger audience and those with disabilities. There’s so much crossover.
[00:11:08] It’s like, it’s unreal.
[00:11:10] So I, I wanted to point out with seo, you know, I said like it helps to lower the impact of the website and it’s good for energy efficient websites.
[00:11:22] That’s why it’s good for the environment. So like, One of my favorite SEO tips is to optimize the load speed of your website, because if you optimize your website for faster loading times, you’ll also improve the user experience, which is something that search engines consider like really positive. And this will therefore increase your overall ranking and help the amount of energy required to access your website so it lowers the carbon footprint.
[00:11:52] If someone wanted to move towards making their marketing zero waste, what would you advise they do?
[00:11:58] So staying on the SEO side of things. Um, so some of the most common technical SEO recommendations include like optimizing images to be smaller and encoded into more efficient format.
[00:12:12] And then also reducing unused scripts. So if you’ve got, if you are working with a developer or you are a developer, you can reduce scripts that you’re not using on the page, which slow down the load of a page and takes more energy from the planet at the end of the day. As an example, when we recently did this at Kollectify, , um, our load speed became 700 milliseconds, so that’s four times faster than our old site, and it’s far better than planet.
[00:12:44] So like even though we were mainly focusing on the carbon footprint, we knew it would also improve the speed because it’s so lightweight now. There’s like nothing to it really, but it still gives enough information and we’ve got a blog, you know, it’s still really good in terms. User experience.
[00:13:05] Yeah, it’s a win-win, isn’t it? When you’ve got a better, more usable experience, it’s faster, but also than, uh, lower carbon emissions.
[00:13:13] So that’s great. And your website looks beautiful. I’ve obviously had a look.
[00:13:17] Um, so that’s the thing, isn’t it? You don’t want to take away from the experience in sort of strip it right down.
[00:13:24] Back to sort of basic, but you can still create really beautiful sites and ensuring that they’re sort of faster and lighter, basically. .
[00:13:33] Yeah. Uh, it’s actually better for conversions because like, they’re not gonna be on your website going, what is this? Like, I need to read all of this information. What, what, what do they do?
[00:13:42] It should be like, straight away. It’s like short and to the point. So, our slogan is, let’s get to the point, let’s get straight to the point. Tell them what it is and like, yeah, it’s, it’s good for the user will more likely be going to your booker call button or buy this,, faster. Basically.
[00:14:06] Are you still specializing in Shopify with, uh, the rebranded collect.
[00:14:12] Yes, we are. Yep, definitely. So, um, when I was a freelancer, it was generalist, but when we’ve grown and then I’ve started to niche you for more, Shopify is . Of course. It’s better than the other platforms in terms of their environmental focus.
[00:14:30] So that’s a huge reason why I wanted to niche into Shopify, but also because like, that’s where my journey started and I was introduced to e-commerce and it is just, it improves every single year, and the ecosystem. So if you are interested in becoming a service provider in e-commerce, the Shopify ecosystem of partners is just amazing.
[00:14:51] And it’s like there’s, it feels like there’s no competition because everyone just wants. Collaborate and help merchants, so, yeah.
[00:15:00] Yeah, because they put out there, they’ve got this, like actually you’ve got sustainability statements and things like that, haven’t they, compared to some of the other platforms either just don’t say anything or it’s barely there.
[00:15:11] from what I can tell Shopify are put in more effort and interest in that specifically.
[00:15:17] So they. They’re not perfect, but they’re a lot better than others. they’ve got, their platform is a hundred percent carbon neutral. They have a sustainability fund, which contributes like fif, uh, 5 million annually to support entrepreneurs at like, to reverse climate change.
[00:15:37] And then they’ve got their Planet app, which removes shipping, emissions, and every time a customer places an order using shop pay, which you’ve probably used,, Shopify funds, carbon removal to counteract the impact on the planet. And that’s like no extra cost to the shopper. And they’re also doing lots with like, Carbon removal to eliminate shipping emissions from every order placed on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
[00:16:07] And just as like a crazy stat in 2020 and 2021, they offset a combined total of more than 120,000 tons of carbon . So yeah, they’re doing great. I’m not sponsored, by the way
[00:16:26] just a fan.
[00:16:27] Oh, that’s awesome. And some of the stuff I didn’t realize how much they were doing. I know as well. There’s, um, some, some apps can do things like giving back or planting trees and things like that.
[00:16:38] What are your thoughts on, on apps like that?
[00:16:41] planting trees. Yeah. So you have to be really careful and do your due diligence and make sure that they’re actually planting trees that are going to do positive things. You know, there are other things you can do like use a app called Shopping Gives, or there’s another one called Gives, and there’s another one , which is in the UK called Virtue.
[00:17:05] Um, and they help you, they kind of match you to charities that you or your customers. Depending on the app that you use care about the most. So like instead of planting a tree, maybe you want to donate to a cancer research charity or, you know, whatever you, your values are. So they match you up with a charity essentially.
[00:17:29] And I think that’s really cool. And, and they do also have, you know, the trees and stuff, but they’ve done their due diligence and done their research for you. So I think that’s,
[00:17:40] Okay. That’s a good tip actually. Yeah. What advice would you give to someone who has an e-commerce website? They’ve already got it, but they haven’t really considered sustainability.
[00:17:51] Right. So the biggest thing for me is customer research. Like it always comes back to customer research. So really understanding your customers on a super. Hyper-focused level. So what do they care about? What do they need? What are their values? Like we were talking about a second ago, and that should drive everything that you do. So content that you put out, charities that you wanna work with, um, literally, it always comes back because at the end of the day, they’re the people that are keeping your business going. So you need to make sure that you are providing value to them. And the only way you can really know what they need is by talking to them.
[00:18:33] So, Even if it’s a survey on your website or you send an email out and it’s just, you know, please help us to understand what you need so we can provide you more value. And it will just make sure that you are not doing things that. essentially aren’t going to have an effect for your business. And because if they’re not, they’re just a waste of time, money, and Yep.
[00:18:57] Emissions . I hope that helps.
[00:19:00] Okay, that’s good. Thank you. Um, and you’ve also got a community that you started Mindful Commerce. Can you share more about that?
[00:19:07] Yes. Is that how we met Kirsty?
[00:19:09] It’s, yes. . Yeah, I joined there.
[00:19:13] There you go. Um, yeah, mindful Commerce is a community of wonderful people like Kirsty , um, who just want to make a difference through their business.
[00:19:26] So it’s usually e-commerce in particular. So if you work with e-commerce brands or if you are an e-commerce brand, this is where you can come together and network and. Come up with ideas of how we can help to make e-commerce a better place. And honestly, it’s amazing. Like we last year did meetups every month.
[00:19:48] We are gonna bring that back soon. and yeah, we’ve also got a sustainability framework. So it’s like there’s six pillars to the Mindful Commerce framework, and if you want to have some quick ideas or maybe some bigger wins for how you can reduce your carbon footprint, how you can give back, how you can just do better, then this is the place for you, basically .
[00:20:15] This would be a good place. So if someone has, um, has become more mindful of it, but hasn’t really started to take action yet, they could get so much advice. Are you still, do you still have your like, uh, trainings and the, the, are they called master classes? Yes. Um,
[00:20:30] Yeah, indeed. There is a library of expert training. So if you are in particular, if you’re a merchant or you’re a brand when you’re selling products, You can go to that library and learn a ton of amazing information from like brand positioning through sourcing. How can you find more sustainable materials for your products?
[00:20:53] And then obviously, What I focus on is mindful communication. So how can you be more mindful, when you’re communicating your message, and yeah, your carbon footprint, mindful footprint, deliveries, so if you wanna deliver things, anyway, it’s all in there and it’s great.
[00:21:12] do you think someone should just kind of come and pick and choose what they’re drawn to most?
[00:21:16] And obviously you said about the custom research as well, so if they’re. I’m not sure where to start with the mindful commerce, if with, uh, would you recommend that they go with what they’re interested in or what their customer research has sh has shown as a starting point?
[00:21:30] Um, okay. Uh, that’s good question. Very good question. I think just go in and have a look. and see what appeals to you. Or if you are, say if you’re a service provider and you’re working with some merchants, you could ask them what they struggle with when it comes to sustainability, and then you can like dive into that section.
[00:21:54] So yeah, depends really bit both
[00:21:57] okay. I’m gonna switch it up a little bit and go into a lightning round of questions if you’re ready.
[00:22:02] Oh, I’m ready. .
[00:22:03] Okay. , what drives you to keep going in your business?
[00:22:08] My purpose keeps me going, my purpose, um, which is, you’ve probably guessed it, to make the e-commerce world a better place.
[00:22:17] So, but also, what keeps me going is the freedom of running my own business. So that’s kind of why I wanted. Start my own business because I didn’t want having someone looking over my shoulder all the time. Um, so yeah, cuz we like to travel and surf and things like that with. Me and Rich and the dog.
[00:22:38] absolutely. I think having, often it is that internal, um, drive, but also if you’ve got something more external motivating you, like you’re more purpose driven, that can really help. Keep going, can’t it? ?
[00:22:49] Yeah. Just stick it on your wall. .
[00:22:51] Yes. So what has been the biggest struggle for you as a business owner?
[00:22:56] Oh, golly. Um, , definitely the feast and famine of not well. Yeah, it’s just a lot of peaks and troughs, isn’t it? You can have a really good day. Like most of the time I’m super excited to wake up in the morning and get on with it. Sometimes it can be tricky , you know, not knowing when, whether your revenue’s gonna stay the same or you know, if it’s gonna dramatically decrease.
[00:23:22] But there are obviously things you can do to, alleviate that if you like. Um, and I also think I struggle with marketing , so it’s like my thing and I can help others. It’s like so hard to be consistent, and I think that’s another great excuse to not be posting every day. And you know, , uh, yeah, basically consistency.
[00:23:49] I said this year was gonna be my year for consistency, so let’s see.
[00:23:52] Okay. I’m glad it’s not just me though, because honestly I could devise other people and be like, oh yeah, I think maybe do this and this or like, keep consistent and then yes. Hard when it’s,
[00:24:03] uh, yourself, isn’t it?
[00:24:04] so hard. Yeah.
[00:24:06] Do you feel that as a society and business owners, we are moving towards more ethical business?
[00:24:12] Right. So I don’t know if this is because I’m in a echo chamber and I lit. I just surround myself with people like you Kirsty, and you know, like I hear it a lot because I am on LinkedIn and I’m connected with people who talk about this a lot. But yeah, I do believe, I think. , more and more people are noticing how important it is.
[00:24:37] Um, and I actually think it’s gonna, well it is already starting to be mandatory, so like, you know, the green claims code. I think I said that right. And like more and more consumers are literally begging for it. So if you can be the most ethical, sustainable, mindful, or conscious business, however you want to call it, for a specific problem or desire, you are more likely to receive the business versus someone who isn’t following mindful practices.
[00:25:07] So I really hope. .
[00:25:11] Mm-hmm. . Um, is there a brand that you think does an amazing job with their marketing? And I’m sure they’re gonna be sustainable as well, ?
[00:25:19] Yeah, so I, I really struggle with, you know, there’s, there are so many and I just wanna call them all out. I’ll talk about one, but then also just to let people know that we’ve got on Mindful Commerce’s website, we have a brand directory and it kind of like talks why we think they’re really doing a good job. Not necessarily marketing, but that’s about sustainability. So yeah, but one that stands out for me, and I literally wear their clothes all the time, is bam. So bamboo clothing. They’re just super transparent about the carbon footprint of each product. And they use this really cool solution called Green Story and green Story Measures and communicates product impact in product descriptions and they use like really nice illustrations. , so if you go and check out Bamboo clothing.co.uk you can see that in action and it is great inspiration for any brands.
[00:26:20] Oh, that sounds cool. And that’s a good way to have it, isn’t it, to have, uh, all the details there.
[00:26:25] Yeah, and I’ll, I’ll link the brand directory as well in the show notes.
[00:26:29] Okay. Just to say that, um, you know that that’s, A sustainable brand, but they’re also doing their marketing really well. Cause they’re communicating it to their customers. So they’re transparent marketing and yeah.
[00:26:41] Just wanted to add that. Hmm. Okay.
[00:26:43] What is the main piece of advice you would give to someone who comes to you and they’ve just started their business?
[00:26:49] So, , I’m gonna talk about this again , it’s about getting super clear on who your customers are. So, Like I said before, just go and speak to them. If you don’t have customers yet, have a look at like similar businesses and what people are saying about their business in their reviews or testimonials, I don’t know, forums, things like that.
[00:27:14] And just understand why. The customers choose them over the competitors and like think about how can I tackle those problems, but maybe in a more unique way to make sure that, you are not just like duplicating stuff, but you are being different and there’s a real need for it.
[00:27:37] And then is there something that you find most business owners, so even more established ones, will get stuck on with their marketing?
[00:27:43] Uh, not understanding their customers . Um, and then also not say if they did understand their customers not using that in a way that’s gonna help. So like, they’re not, they’re using that information to drive their positioning and marketing and things like that. And they just assume that they know their customer. Um, just because they maybe, maybe they think they are their customer, but there are lots of things that they’re probably missing and they won’t find that information unless they speak to their customers.
[00:28:15] Do you have any top tips for people to improve their e-commerce business specifically then? .
[00:28:20] So in terms of sustainability, like I would probably just suggest going to the framework of mindful commerce.
[00:28:30] But like, As well as customer research. There’s also like competitors, so spy on them and like obsess over what they’re doing and do it better. So to make sure that you are being unique and more exciting in your products and marketing. So, yeah, I know that’s really, maybe sounds a bit repetitive, but it is so important. So important.
[00:28:56] No, if you’ve got, absolutely, if you’ve got something that differentiates you or that can help you stand out in a market, then I think that’s, that’s a good point. Um, and one final question. What does creating a conscious brand mean to you? or mindful brand, we can switch
[00:29:12] to be mindful of everything you create and everything you create and publish online.
[00:29:18] So just thinking, do I really need this? Do I need to do this? Do my customers need this? Like, just don’t put stuff out there and see if it sticks like. Think , be mindful, considerate, conscious, in terms of how this is gonna impact people and planet. I think, yeah, and also don’t be afraid to just get going, like, and don’t get caught up in what other people are doing because all progress is good progress in terms of like how you are being better. For our amazing world, .
[00:29:59] , that’s some really good advice. Thank you for sharing.
[00:30:02] Did you want to summarize a bit about the services that you offer? I know you’ve covered it with, but just go into a bit more what you can offer people.
[00:30:11] Yeah, so, um, essentially we work in six month sprints. So you will come to us and we would do all of the customer research that I’ve been talking about, all the competitive research, and use that information to build a brand positioning strategy to help you differentiate and stand out from your competitors or, you know, that kind of thing, and then use that information again.
[00:30:38] So, The things that your customers are talking about and have challenges about how can you solve that in your content and in your marketing in order to attract, more customers like those? Um, and in your copywritings, we would do website copy, using the words that they use to describe your service or your product on, in your copy.
[00:31:01] So you weave it in. . It then makes it relatable and unique for your potential new customers. And then we’d also tie in SEO and technical SEO to make sure that you are standing out being discover discoverable for your ideal customers in search engines and things. And obviously every single stage is incorporating our zero waste, process.
[00:31:29] So making sure that all of this. Making use of your time, oh, our time your money, and your carbon emissions at the end of the day. And then we’ll also, uh, create the content on a regular basis. So articles, blogs, eBooks, guides, playbooks, all that kind of thing, to basically help you to be more visible to your customers.
[00:31:55] And we’ll also do audits of your website’s carbon footprint and help you to reduce that carbon footprint in the best way. And, that’s relatively new this year. Purely because we’ve, you know, we’ve done it now and we can help other people to do it. And it ties in really nicely with your marketing.
[00:32:18] Um, what else do we do? Uh, if you’re a Shopify app, we, we specialize in Shopify apps or optimization, so that’s basically like a listing on the Shopify app store and we help that. Merchants, did you discover, discover that app, more easily? Yeah, I think that might be it. But we are launching a , membership soon, uh, which is slightly different.
[00:32:44] So it’s gonna be like, learn with me. and then one-to-one sort of support and coaching to help you get through it by.
[00:32:54] Oh, amazing. So is that, so that would be for the marketing side, is it
[00:32:58] Yeah, a bit of both. So essentially it’s like, here’s what I know, ask me anything. And here’s a load of like well, I’m not gonna do videos this time.
[00:33:07] I think I’m gonna do audio because it’s better for the planet. And, uh, lots of templates and workbooks and homework basically that you hand in to me, and then I’ll review it and help you get through it. But yeah, marketing and a bit of sustainability because, well, a hundred percent zero waste marketing stuff in there.
[00:33:27] Okay. Thank you so much for coming on and being a fantastic guest. How can my listeners connect with you?
[00:33:33] You’re welcome. I hope I haven’t rambled too much. , so you can find me on LinkedIn, Chrissy um, you can go on our website, kollectify.com, K O L L e C T I F Y dot com. And I’m on Instagram, Krissie Claire or Kollectify.
[00:33:53] if they want more tips that to do like zero waste marketing or lowering the impact of your website, there are tons of resources. But also like they can just feel free to email me if they want .
[00:34:06] Great. I’ll put those in the show notes and thank you cuz you did suggest that we turn the cameras off and when I asked you did explain that that was the environmental, so thank you for suggesting that we do that for this episode, .
[00:34:18] It’s one of those things that I just now I’m like, now I know I can’t, I can’t do anymore.
[00:34:25] All right. Well thank you for your time.
[00:34:28] Thank you.
[00:34:29] I wanted to jump in to say that I’m gonna be putting all of the links in the show notes. And another thing I wanted to mention as well is that Kollectify, I have a five part email series that guides you through creating your zero waste digital marketing strategy. So if today’s episode had you feeling inspired and wanting to take some action, I’m gonna put a link for that as well, and I’d definitely recommend you checking it out.
[00:34:52] I
[00:34:52] I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. You can find the show notes at elmleafstudio.com/podcast. I’d love to connect over on Instagram and that’s @elmleafstudio.
[00:35:04] If you’d like to stay updated, you can also join my newsletter. And if you go to elmleafstudio.com/newsletter you can sign up there. And you’ll also get access to my free resource library.
[00:35:19] Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the consciously created brand.

00:00:00] This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.
[00:00:13] Hello. Hello. In today’s episode I wanted to talk about a bit about the myth of build it and they will come and build it and it is done when it comes to your website. So I think whilst we kind of all know this, I’d just take for someone to feel like it’s a one and done thing. You’ve built it. That’s it.
[00:00:32] Good to go.
[00:00:34] However many years that you think it might last Now, there is actually, um, advice around how it, a website typically has a lifespan of around three years. Because by that point you probably need to refresh things. Um, it’s probably as do a redesign for the most part. And obviously things like trends and stuff move on.
[00:00:59] Now you, whilst you don’t want to be following trends for a website, it, it also will just look, start, look dated because, because things have moved on. So that’s what I’m gonna kind of cover today. And. I think, yeah, as I say, it’s, it’s also one of those things that it’s like you can’t just put a website out there and expect people to just [00:01:24] find it without doing anything.
[00:01:26] Now if you’ve optimized it for seo, you might have a chance of being found. If you are regularly creating content like blog posts that are SEO optimized, then you’ve got a better chance of being found. But you still, for the most part, will probably need to be doing marketing to drive traffic to your site.
[00:01:47] There’s critical pieces and that is things like your marketing.
[00:01:52] I think if you think that your website can just be put up there and left, then it’s likely to get a bit neglected. Now, if you are building on something like WordPress or you’ve had some build a website for you in WordPress, it’s even more critical that that website is maintained. So you have to run your WordPress updates, you have to run theme and plugin updates on a regular basis. And just recently, just a few days ago, there was an incident where WooCommerce and Element Pro have been, hacked. Uh, the, sorry sites have been hacked and. Those plug-ins were. Um, vulnerable for a little while.
[00:02:35] There’s patches now, but if someone hasn’t updated their site and they have those plugins installed in that combination, your site is at risk. And so that’s the thing. It’s like [00:02:48] for security purposes, you need to keep your site updated, but also just you get extra features or things like that.
[00:02:55] Sometimes when you update themes and plugins,
[00:02:58] It also ensures that everything’s kept up like compatible, um, with each other. So if you’re running the WordPress core update, then the themes have to ensure they are keeping up with that. And same with the plugins, so that they all work together and it means that they then might release, um, patches for things like bugs or any security floors that have been found, as well as often, improvements. So it helps ensure things like the speed of your website’s running well. And like I say, that there’s not gonna be any issues where things are clashing, like the plugin and the theme are clashing or your theme stops working with the WordPress, core.
[00:03:43] Even if you aren’t on WebPress, say you have a Shopify website. That’s fine. So you don’t have to worry about the maintenance side of it. For running updates, however, you still need to take care of your website. You still need to be refreshing the content on there.
[00:04:01] You need to be checking for things like broken links. I’ve obviously covered some of this before, like in the website auditing episode, and. I think I [00:04:12] might have covered it as well when I was talking about changing things out seasonally. Especially if you’ve got something like a shop or you even other businesses, your homepage probably shouldn’t really just stay static.
[00:04:26] Obviously if you are a shop, then you’re gonna be wanting to reflect the time of year. You’re gonna be wanting to reflect trends in what people are buying or interested in the moment. Or if you have a sale running and things like that, you are probably more likely to be updating your homepage in particular regularly, but even for other businesses, I think that then there’s chances there to showcase a new service or.
[00:04:53] Well, just to rotate things around. And also, search engines love fresh content on websites, they, they don’t like it so much. If your website’s just a static thing that hasn’t been updated, nothing new on it, nothing changes. So there’s multiple benefits to it, including for visitors that come back to see something different, to maybe feel intrigued like, oh, this is new.
[00:05:21] Different to when I was last on the site. And that’s, that is particularly critical again for shops. It’s pretty, it’s really, that is particularly helpful again for shops to have
[00:05:34] Now something that a [00:05:36] lot of,, WordPress, in particular designers and developers offer is a website care plan. And what this usually entails is having your website updates run for you. That’s the theme plugin, the core. And they will also likely have premium plugins that they can, put on your site that’s covered in the cost.
[00:06:00] And sometimes this includes some update hours as well for your website. So if you do have small tweaks, like you want a team member changed for example, or, uh, you need an update to some page content, That’s often covered within a care plan. Definitely something to consider, especially if you don’t have the time, the skills or the team members that could do it for you.
[00:06:25] And like I said, it’s obviously better than neglecting your website and then risking a security vulnerability cause you do don’t want to ruin your reputation if your website got hacked or and was redirecting to something. Or even if your website’s just down for an extended period for, for some businesses that can be so critical because you are, you’re just losing sales at that point.
[00:06:53] I would say as well, that you could also consider having something like a design retainer. And that [00:07:00] could help give you the fresh content to put on there as well as, potentially looking at hiring a copywriter or someone that can create, help you create blog content.
[00:07:13] Because again fresh content is good for seo and especially if it is optimized for seo, but even just having that fresh content on your website, and nowadays of course, we have got things like chat, G p t, or open ai, that if you do struggle with writing, you could maybe get some ideas from there.
[00:07:35] If you kind of think, oh, I dunno what to write. That’s something that I quite like as a use at the moment. Giving me just little ideas and jumping off points and so we can use these tools to help us. There is of course things like Grammarly, so you, if you write, um, your blog post and it’s not perfect, but you can run it through something like that to get a better quality output.
[00:08:01] Another thing is maintaining, obviously the standard on your website. If you do need to add something new, whether that’s products or services, Then I would strongly recommend getting some high quality photography because that really will improve the overall appearance of your website. You don’t want some stuff looking really great. And then another [00:08:24] looking like it was taken with bad lighting on a phone, and less professional. It’s again about realizing the different costs and the things that you have to think about when you’ve got a website. But the thing is, it can be like a salesperson and it’s 24 7 potentially. If it’s done well, if you’re driving traffic to your website and then they’re converting into sales, ultimately, whether that’s customers or clients.
[00:08:54] It’s well worth it. So you’ve got to think of it as part of your sales process. You’ve gotta think or literally selling for shops, and you’ve gotta think of it as part of your marketing as well, because. You can have really great marketing, but if it’s pointing to a website that then doesn’t, doesn’t convert them, um, for whatever reason, if, if things have been left unmaintained, or over time you’ve been kind of tweaking, doing stuff on your website and it’s just not looking as polished, then your marketing efforts are gonna potentially go to waste.
[00:09:28] There is definitely a lot to be said as well about getting it right and having a good starting point. A well-designed website, having good photography upon there and having copywriting, professional copywriting. It’s gonna elevate your website so much and you [00:09:48] know, I know, I know I’ve mentioned these other tools that we have now or about, You know, you could write things yourself, but you could have a okay website, an amazing copywriting, and that’s gonna do better for your business than the most beautiful website ever with bad copywriting.
[00:10:10] It’s been proven time and time again. The copywriting can really help sales, and I say this as a designer, so. I think design is important, um, but I do completely acknowledge how important copywriting is as well. So ideally, to get the maximum, return on your investment for a website, you are gonna need professional copywriting.
[00:10:39] You are gonna need professional photos, and then you are gonna need to spend money. To maintain your website and to keep it updated or at least time if it’s something that you are able to do, you have to spend the time. And the whole point of this was of course, about saying the myth of building it, and they will come.
[00:11:01] The key here is that, you know, it’s, it’s not a one done thing. And of course, You need to be doing marketing well to drive traffic to your [00:11:12] site. It’s not like you can just put your website up one day and the next day sales are just gonna pour in, and I think that’s important to talk about.
[00:11:21] If you have neglected your website for a little while, maybe your marketing too, maybe your branding. I am gonna be running, um, a challenge that I ran in January again, and it’s a 15 day free challenge called 15 Day Brand Presence polish up, which might give you a little hint as to what it’s all about.
[00:11:42] But essentially it’s a email based challenge, where I’m gonna send prompts over 15 weekdays. So it’s over three weeks, but no weekends. And it’s gonna be looking at the aspects of your website, your branding, and your marketing. It shouldn’t take you long each day. It’d be about 20 to 30 minutes to work on.
[00:12:06] And it’s just gonna get you thinking about some of the things that maybe you might need to do to help polish up your brand presence. And so if you’ve been unsure where to start, you feel a bit stuck, things have been left a little while, then this free challenge can give you some accountability and some suggestions of things that you might want to look at and work on.
[00:12:27] I’ve included numerous, um, resources throughout, starting with,, a brand reflections worksheet. I [00:12:36] include a brand board template. So if you’ve DIY designed your brand identity, then that might mean that you don’t have brand guidelines or you might not have a brand board, which is essentially where you have like your logo variations on there, your color palette and your fonts were referencing, and maybe like some photo styles as well.
[00:12:56] So it kind of gives you a reference point essentially for when you’re creating various designs within your business. And then there’s also some worksheets and guides around common mistakes I see on small business websites. A fonts guide as well. Cause these are a lot of things that I spot with people’s, like DIY designs essentially, whether that’s your marketing, your social media, or things on your website.
[00:13:23] A lot of the same issues kind of creep up with people that they don’t have the, maybe the attention to detail that a designer would had for the experience to look for these things. And that is things like space spacing issues or, um, just making fonts not as legible as they could be.
[00:13:43] Or some weird, like color palette combinations and things like that.
[00:13:46] If that sounds like exactly what you need or you’re just intrigued and think it could be helpful, then head to my website at elm studio.com/challenge and you can sign up [00:14:00] there. Like I said, it’s completely free. It starts from the 10th of April, and runs until the 20. It is suitable for e-commerce brands, service-based and online business.
[00:14:14] And I’d love to have you join so that you can work on your online presence for your brand.
[00:14:19] I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. You can find the show notes at elmleafstudio.com/podcast. I’d love to connect over on Instagram and that’s @elmleafstudio.
[00:14:32] If you’d like to stay updated, you can also join my newsletter. And if you go to elmleafstudio.com/newsletter you can sign up there. And you’ll also get access to my free resource library.
[00:14:46] Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the consciously created brand.

[00:00:00] This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.
[00:00:13] So today I think it’s just gonna be a bit of a short episode. I am recording this last minute. Um, it’s Sunday and this is coming out on Monday, but it’s been one of those weeks and, Basically been ill this week and then the week before it I was in Bristol to visit family. So just haven’t had much time to actually sit down and record a podcast episode.
[00:00:37] And I’ve run out of ones that I’ve kind of pre-recorded. So I just thought I’ll come on today and. Actually talk a little bit about, how helpful it can be to batch your content, because if things do crop up and you aren’t there to sit, do it. It’s the same with Instagram as well. I, I’ve had a bit going out, but not much because I haven’t actually sat down and scheduled much for the past two weeks.
[00:01:03] Whereas I find I go in ebbs and flows. So like a few weeks before I’d managed to prepare quite a bit of content and I’d scheduled it out over a couple of weeks, which was really helpful. It’s one less thing to like think about on the day, and then I can just pop on for a little bit and spend some time on there without having to create something like create a reel or create a graphic to go up on the fly.
[00:01:28] Um, and I think as well, because I like to try and make sure they’re really help for the most part, I like to try and create some helpful posts and they sometimes do take a fair bit of time and like we all know, there’s only, um, so much gain, you actually get from putting in a lot of effort on Instagram.
[00:01:47] I think in terms of your content, you know, you can, you could spend two hours on something and it’ll get a couple of likes. Even sometimes you might put, do something that takes you just a couple of minutes and then that will get lots more likes or views. So you never know. Um, but anyway, the, the point really is, I know for a lot of people that batching content is something that they find quite hard, or just finding the time to do marketing.
[00:02:17] And I do think it’s something’s helpful, and I know it doesn’t suit everyone. It doesn’t see every brain. And like I say, I can be quite good at times and then things will slide and I haven’t prepared anything. . It’s funny as well because, , I do do some like social media stuff for the marketing agency. I work at, and it’s because I have to do it and. It’s obviously expected of me. I get it done and I’ve got them, got a number of their clients scheduled up for a couple of months easily. You know, the contents, the captions are there, the contents there. And yet when it comes to myself, I barely managed to get a couple of weeks ahead even.
[00:03:03] And in a way they’re different types of content, so it’s like it’s. a bit trickier. Cause like I say, I’m trying to create educational stuff or helpful things sometimes. But still the point goes to show doesn’t it a bit. And I think it’s something that we can easily end up pushing to the bottom of our priority list.
[00:03:22] Especially if you are busy, especially if you’ve got other commitments and you are doing your business part-time. It can be really hard to find the time to actually get these things done that we need to do.
[00:03:33] But there’s something really reassuring when you actually have stuff that you know is scheduled to go out on social media or if you’ve got some blog posts scheduled up and coming out, or any other like, marketing activity basically that, you know, you’ve got scheduled to go up. So, emails as well, of course.
[00:03:51] And even back in January I was running, a challenge, a 15 day challenge, brand presence polish up, and it was helping people, find some things that they could work on in with their brand, their website, and their marketing. And I knew that that was going, uh, I had obviously promoted it a little bit and then I knew that was going out over 15 days and I kind of thought, well, okay, that’s, that’s gonna obviously reach people on the list. And that’s a little bit of pressure off that. I know that’s going out at least in January and was scheduled to be done and I had some podcasts lined up as well.
[00:04:28] Actually, I’m gonna be running that challenge again in April. So if that sounds interesting, if that’s something that you think would be helpful, if, you know your brand needs a polish and if you’re wondering what that means while, like I say, you are going to, it’s basically a challenge. You get prompts each weekday for the duration via email, and you can also access the challenge via a private podcast.
[00:04:53] and then it covers the three core areas of your brand’s online presence, the website, the branding, and the marketing. So if you’ve been feeling unsure where to start or feel stuck or overwhelmed as to how to review your brand currently, or you know, you need some work to, to do some work on it,
[00:05:11] this can kind of guide you through, and this can be some accountability to do that aspect and real, really, like I’ve said this before and this is the whole point, is that your marketing can be, work, can be amazing. You can have, um, really effective marketing. It could be beautifully designed, but if then it’s pointing to a website that’s not working very well, or if your brand just doesn’t connect with people.
[00:05:38] then you’re not gonna get the sale. Even if you’ve managed to drive all that traffic, even if you’ve managed to drive all those people to your brand and attract them, then if there’s something that’s going to create a disconnect on your website, or if things aren’t working very well or are broken, you’re probably not really going to get sales because people. Are wary still of buying online. Like we’re less so obviously, but if something feels off or, or they suddenly, it’s just not the same sort of look and feel or something as they’ve seen you elsewhere through your marketing.
[00:06:15] Yeah, it’s, it’s not gonna work, is it? So that’s what the challenge will help go through all of those things. I’ll put the link in the show notes and you can join there for the next round, which is in April.
[00:06:29] I’m back to it. Say about what I was saying, um, which is about scheduling your content.
[00:06:34] The pros of it are that relief of knowing that you’ve got stilted and if anything does come up, if you get ill, if your child gets ill, if you have a child, if, , any, anything really that happens that you might need to, you won’t have the time that you usually do. , you’ve still got some, some things happening.
[00:06:53] Now, it depends as well. I know that a week of Instagram probably. Won’t matter too much, for example, but, and maybe even, yeah, not emailing you a list if it depends on if everyone’s used to receiving it on a certain date, but you know, it, a week or two maybe won’t make much difference. But I think things like a podcast for example, I feel the, the pressure that this is supposed to come out weekly, that’s what I’ve got it set as at the moment.
[00:07:22] And maybe I need to rethink that. But if I don’t publish something, then it’s kind of noticeable. It’s not meeting that expectation that I’ve set, that I will send, that I will record something and put it out weekly.
[00:07:36] I know that for a lot of people they’re, they often think like, oh, I don’t really know what to say, or I don’t have anything to post. So I think that comes back to knowing. Under, obviously most people know their brand, but like if you can kind of define your content pillars and think about the type of things that you are going to talk about, that’s really helpful.
[00:07:58] So like for me, I know the content buckets that I have. You know, I talk about brand, um, I talk about visual identities, I talk about websites, e-commerce. I talk somewhat about sustainability Within all of that. talk about marketing as well in in particular relating it to design. They’re the, they’re the thing main things that I cover.
[00:08:21] So it’s, and it’s not, when I think about it, I have a lot of things to actually talk about under each of those. If I sit and write down a list, usually I can think of quite a lot of topics or ideas. So sometimes you think it’s an easy one to say, isn’t it? Oh, I don’t know what to write, or, I dunno what to post.
[00:08:41] But I’m sure if you sat down and, and maybe this isn’t a good exercise to do, just get a big bit of paper or write a list on the computer, however works best for you, and just try and think of some ideas. There’s all those content prompts as well. If you are struggling, there’s so many of those about, um, if your brain works in that way where you can look at something and come up with another idea.
[00:09:05] So there is. There probably is ideas that you’ll be able to come up with. But I know it can be tricky and I think sometimes as well there is extra stuff that kind of comes with it. Maybe it’s, maybe it’s like you are just feeling tired or you’re not really feeling it, or the you are worried about how you’ll come across.
[00:09:24] I know that’s can be a concern, especially if you’re an individual or, you’re just worried about how you’re gonna be perceived. , some of that can kind of come into it more than actually just not knowing what to post. I know that it can be true for me. Sometimes I just feel like, oh, I don’t, I don’t know what to say.
[00:09:42] And it’s, it’s not really true. I’m, they’re just not feeling it, or I don’t, maybe I don’t really want to show up. And I guess I’m talking about Instagram again, really for the most part. But I know for like some, when I’m about to send out an email, , I do have that feeling like, oh, what if I’m saying the wrong thing?
[00:10:02] What if this isn’t, no one wants to read this or not helpful and thinking, is anyone gonna unsubscribe? Which is just not helpful for getting, getting the content out there and getting something that I feel is worth sending. But you can easily overthink everything. And actually I think it is a balance sometimes of wanting to ensure that the stuff you are putting out there is quality, but also you do just need to keep showing up and, um, risking that it may not be perfect and starting conversations and. You know, reaching your potential customers and.
[00:10:46] Often as well, it can be about organizing and something that I personally find really helpful for this is notion. I know I’ve talked about it before, but I love Notion and I have my, all my content in there, so it’s really easy to quickly input any ideas that I have, and I can also track the progress You.
[00:11:04] Like, you know, you can find ways to set statuses or create like a can band board, which is where you can drag and, you know, you can put, have it in a column where it says draft, and then you can drag it into a column that’s like ready to schedule and things like that. , maybe you need to look at getting the scheduling software in terms of for your Instagram or Twitter or TikTok or anything like that.
[00:11:27] They can all be scheduled Pinterest and if you can find a tool, maybe that will help you. Maybe if. If you are ready to, you could in, you could work with a va because then you’ll be able, you will need, you’ll be obligated to someone to send something. So you’ve kind of got that accountability. Um, and same with a social, social media manager.
[00:11:50] They could be really helpful and obviously they’ll give you ideas and they will, they’ll either create content for you or work with you to create it. that can all help you get things out of the door in terms of blog posts and things like that. If you can, you could hire a writer. There’s nothing wrong with that as a business, you know, it doesn’t all have to be done by you, and if it helps you, helps you consistently get your marketing done, then these are all things to think about and they might not be as expensive as you think as well.
[00:12:27] Having templates ready. So yes, for social media, obviously that can be really helpful to have on-brand templates ready to go, either working with a designer like myself, or you can purchase template packs. There’s so many available. I know there’s various like content club type places as well where you can subscribe and then they’ll send, they’ll allow you access to like a huge library.
[00:12:53] There’s all sorts of options for that. There’s people even that will provide sort of some captions for you. Going back to the email marketing, actually something that I’ve recently just signed up for, and I’ve found, I’ve found quite interesting. I haven’t really majorly. I haven’t really made much use of it yet, but I can see the value and I can see how it can be helpful is Liz Wilcox.
[00:13:18] So she has a low cost monthly membership. It’s just $9 and then you get an access to a whole library of, um, email marketing templates and she writes them in different styles or there’s ones that you can sort of fill in and it’s just got like a skeleton of some. and I think, I think there’s different examples for product and services and course creators.
[00:13:45] So whatever type of business you have, there’s probably something there that, well, there’ll be multiple examples there that you can use and they’re just really good jumping off points. Another thing that I’ve just just seen and it’s really interesting actually. Let’s first talk a little bit about ai.
[00:14:03] I know it’s suddenly come into the conversation, hasn’t it? Chat G P T E. And to be honest, I do kind of wanna dive into the ethics more, and I think that’d be a really interesting topic to have on here. But, um, I think more and more people are using it and. The way I’ve often been using it is to kind of idea generation more or for like outlines.
[00:14:27] So rather than me sitting down and thinking like, oh, what should a blog post on a topic I want to write about cover, which I do obviously do as well, and I had been up until this point, I can ask chat, g p t and get a skeleton outline of what I need to include in the blog. and then I can still write it, but it’s just shaved off a bit of the time that it would take, it’s taken a bit of the overwhelm way of all that.
[00:14:54] Oh, I dunno where to start. You could use it for ideas of, and ask like, what could, what blog post ideas could I write? And you’ll get a whole list of different ones relevant to your business. Um, if you, if you input what you do and who you help or. Who your customer is, that kind of thing. Um, and of course this same for any other type of content, you can ask it for ideas for Instagram posts or videos, and it will give you that too.
[00:15:28] So it is a, I think it is a really good tool and I know that there’s some also questionable ethics and lots of things to think about there. So if you’re comfortable with using it, and I think to be honest, probably as small business owners, , there probably is an argument that we, we should use it, um, or we can use it and to not worry about that.
[00:15:52] And there’s different, um, different ways you could access it. So there’s obviously a number of different tools out there. Chat, G P T seems to be the one that’s got a lot of, um, , uh, gaining a lot of momentum at the moment, and it’s obviously free, but there are things like notion that has AI built in if you pay and they use open ai, um, and there’s other ways of doing it that it’s not.
[00:16:23] So chat, G P T will. , use your data essentially. So if you are looking at maybe using a paid tool, then you’re not directly given that, if that makes any sense. So on that note, something that I’ve just seen about recently, um, is a dashboard that’s been created. Um, marketing with Monk, I think that’s how you say her name.
[00:16:50] So she’s created the Marketing Magic dashboard. It looks so interesting. Watch the demo. To be honest, I haven’t, I haven’t purchased it yet, but I’m, I’m hovering on that, on that button. It sounds so interesting. So you put in different, you kind of create, there’s one sheet in the spreadsheet, so it’s like a, it’s a Google Drive spreadsheet.
[00:17:11] you put in a few things that are prompted. So you put in, I dunno, like your service name or there’s gonna be a product one coming out soon for product descriptions. So you put in a few different details and you say who your audience is and you say some keywords of what your brand tone is and then it creates the copy for your sales page.
[00:17:37] It creates copy for, multiple emails. It creates social media captions. And I feel like a few other things that I’m forgetting. And wow, what un how handy is that? So you’ve just put in a few details and it’ll give you just all these. , all these things that will be in pretty close maybe to your brand voice, and then you can just tweak it and make sure it sounds like you, or there’s something that you feel comfortable putting out there.
[00:18:03] You can use it as a jumping off point if you’re not comfortable using it as is. But again, I think that’s something that could be a really good tool. And same,, yeah, like I say, there’s gonna be a product descriptions one. . Now, I can only imagine like that, how handy that would be. I have in the past for, for my illustration stuff, I’ve had to kind of come up with the product descriptions and I’ll be honest, often just did like really basic quick ones or kind of used a bit of a templated example because it’s a lot of work even for a.
[00:18:39] Product range, let alone if you’ve got lots and lots of products in your shop, or that you stock. So yeah, I think I, I can so see the value in that and it’d be interesting to see how what she’s created there develops. Definitely want to check out though if that piques your interest there. I, there’s gonna be other ones within it, so I think like EMA marketing as well.
[00:19:05] and possibly some other bits, like maybe some social media type stuff , yeah, definitely want to have a look at. But like I say, there is other tools out there as well. Ones like Jasper are quite well known for being able to write your content and I think it’s just trying to think about the ways that you can make, creating your content, creating your marketing.
[00:19:29] And making sure that it gets done. And ideally, I do think that batching could be really helpful, , which was kind of the point of this. Um, what else? Something that I’ve also found quite helpful is accountability in some form. So whether that’s posting in an online group that I’m in, that I’m gonna work on something or even I do find quite helpful the, um, co-working virtual co-working or body doubling type of stuff.
[00:19:58] I’ve now joined Flown, which is quite a popular one., I just like that they have a number of different sessions that I could potentially join and it’s quite helpful for getting any sort of work done.
[00:20:10] There’s something, I dunno why it might not work for everyone, but for me, seeing other people sitting there and doing their. That helps me just crack on with getting mind done. Yeah, I don’t think there’s any other, I don’t think there’s anything else that I can think of today. And I feel like I’ve rambled more than I’d, um, more than I thought I would
[00:20:29] but I hope that you found that there’s some helpful tips in there. And I’ll add some links to the show notes about the different things I’ve mentioned.
[00:20:38] I’d love to know if you’ve got any great tips that help you get your marketing done and in particular done and scheduled in advance or ready to go . So let me know if you’ve got any great tips. All right. Thank you. Bye.
[00:20:52] I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. You can find the show notes at elmleafstudio.com/podcast. I’d love to connect over on Instagram and that’s @elmleafstudio.
[00:21:04] If you’d like to stay updated, you can also join my newsletter. And if you go to elmleafstudio.com/newsletter you can sign up there. And you’ll also get access to my free resource library.
[00:21:19] Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the consciously created brand.

[00:00:00] Hi Nash. Great to have you on the podcast today, and I’m excited to get into some questions that I have for you about the work you do as a sustainability consultant, strategist, and writer.
[00:00:11] So first of all, I’d love to hear more about how you became a sustainability consultant and what your background is.
[00:00:18] Oh, great question. Um, uh, thank you for having me today. Um, you sent over some brilliant questions and, um, yeah, this, this one actually, I found the most difficult . Um, as someone who’s about to turn 40 this year and who’s started their business within the last five years, it’s been quite a winding road up to this point.
[00:00:40] And I think probably a lot of people who have started their own businesses, maybe a bit later on in life, have that similar kind of winding road to it, you know, is something that I can definitely relate to when it’s something I hear over and over again. You know, like, I, I started as this and then I found my way to this, and it’s not always a straight road.
[00:01:02] Yeah. but I started my business. Um, it, it was, and again, you’ll hear at climate again, when my first, child was born, um mm-hmm. , I was very much sort of like activated in a way where I wanted to do something really meaningful. And I wanted to know how that related to lots of things that I’ve done in the past.
[00:01:20] But I also wanted to be around for my, for my [00:01:24] kids, but also now kids. Um, and it’s like everything is stacked against you when you are in sort of regular employment. , a school day, uh, runs like between like nine and three ish, uh, a work day’s, kind of in a nine hour slot of the day. It’s a logistical nightmare.
[00:01:40] It’s an expensive nightmare. Um, and it, it sort of all came, you know, out of this kind of need for balance. Yeah. Uh, in some form. Um, so, so like that’s the logistical aspect. I, I’m sure if you’d have asked me 10 years ago, uh, can you ever see yourself having your own business? I would’ve been, I would’ve sort of laughed in fear.
[00:02:06] Yeah, I’m sure a lot of people relate. Like that’s, that, that’s a really adult grownup thing. And all I could see were these words floating around tax, H M R C accounts, uh, , you know, that kind of thing, responsibility. Um, and, and I was like, oh no, that, that, that, that’s not for me. Um, but then, you know, I sort of, I, I became involved with a couple of communities, so like, Instagram was like really helpful.
[00:02:35] And the internet generally and sort of being on maternity leave, you have a bit of time to explore that kind of thing. And you find communities of people who are going through the same thing. And that sort of, um, [00:02:48] came together. Cause I was finishing my masters. I mean, we won’t get into, um, having a, a baby and doing your masters at the same time.
[00:02:56] And I was, you know, I was kind of like, Thinking about doing a PhD and then thinking, right, this, doing an MA is so difficult with a baby. I don’t think that’s the right way to go at the moment. And the thing is, I love research so much. I was thinking, right, so actually I could, could set up on my own. I’ve got these examples of people who are out there doing this very different types of business, but it feels much more accessible to me than it did before as a woman, as a mom, as someone sort of at this point in life where things were changing for me and you, you know, you’re sort of like finding your new identity and things like that at that time.
[00:03:39] And I definitely found that I started to warm to the idea . and there were some really attractive things about, moving into sustainability because that’s not really where I’d come from. .
[00:03:56] So what was, what was your master’s in? Was it relevant or No, , no. Ok. ,
[00:04:00] but it’s in a way, so, I mean, um, I didn’t know exactly, um, with this question where to like where to start in the whole thing, , but I suppose it all becomes relevant, [00:04:12] you know, if we kind of work backwards in a way.
[00:04:15] Um, I was, so, I was a, a musician, from about the age of about 18 for about, yeah, for about a decade. And, I had like recording contracts we toured in the UK and outside of the UK and things like that. And so I didn’t do, uh, like go to university and stuff at the usual time because that’s the time that people usually go.
[00:04:39] Um, that came to me more when I think I started my, um, BA when, um, I was 27 and it was, English, I was d I was. Managing a bookshop at the time as well, and I was just devouring everything and I was like, I need to be somewhere where I can sit in seminars and like discuss all these big ideas. I just had such an appetite for it and it was a long time coming and being, you know, in the sort of arts and humanities side of things, like you’re sort of grappling with these I complex ideas and you’re finding ways to communicate them back.
[00:05:16] Mm-hmm and I found that, you know, and I was very good at connecting things. So my passion then became research. . Okay. Um, so, so then, um, an opportunity came up, to do a master’s degree in a renaissance studies. , . You see why? Didn’t know where to start with this question. [00:05:36] It’s like already we’ve done like musician, um, sort of academia.
[00:05:40] I can see the threads though. There’s the threads isn’t there? Some people can something in the writing and the research, so.
[00:05:46] Exactly. . I don’t, I mean, trust me, I’ve thought a lot about this, but it was, to me it makes perfect sense. But, um, for a lot of people, and I speak to a lot of people, you know, who are kind of interested in doing my line of work and they’re like, I don’t know where to start.
[00:06:01] I, I’m, I, I don’t have an environmental science, you know, degree. You know, and, and to be honest, you know, so many sustainability jobs, they only exist now. They’ve only existed yeah. In the last sort of five or so years. And what you’re finding is a lot people pivoting. Into these jobs from a different background.
[00:06:20] Um, and being a good communicator is such a massive part of that. And cause I work with lots of marketing communications teams, um, you, you, you don’t want to be all, you know, if you’re someone that can only talk about things on a kind of scientific level, um, it’s, it’s gonna be difficult to work with businesses that are not operating in that type of arena.
[00:06:44] So you will have sustainability consultants that work in the more kind of industry based side of things. But if you are working with, um, sort of businesses that are more like same service industries or sort of brands and things like that, it, you don’t [00:07:00] necessarily need to have that background. You need to have a good, solid understanding of those issues,
[00:07:05] but again, you have to be good at like, as an intermediary between. , being able to read all the scientific papers and studies and then being able to communicate those in an accessible way. Um, , so where were we? I was at the point where, um, yeah, I was doing my master’s, in Renaissance studies and I sort of had the baby break.
[00:07:31] I was sort of in my sort of, uh, early to mid thirties at this point. Mm-hmm. And again, I was on this kind of like, I, I’d love to do a PhD in this subject, but there was something nagging at me that, you know, it was, it, this was in, in about 2015. This is before my son was born, but this is basically when it all happened for me.
[00:07:53] I had my kind of awakening, my sort of environmental awakening where. . I never lived a particularly, um, uh, high consumption kind of lifestyle, you know, being a musician. Mm-hmm. , you’re sort of living out of a bag a lot of the time. being a student, um, even a mature student, you’re still working jobs in the daytime.
[00:08:10] You’re paying your student fees, you don’t have a lot of disposable income. You know, I was, I was sort of in this, this kind of period where though it was being talked about a lot more. Mm-hmm. , the zero waste [00:08:24] movement, you know, was beginning to be a bit more known about. It was kind of more based in the US a lot of bit, but it was, it was coming around, there was a lot of talk about minimalism, decluttering, all these kind of movements kind of came together.
[00:08:36] And I definitely found sort being someone busy, sort of working, studying and all that, I just really wanted to simplify, um, my life. And I found that by sort of going through these kind of thought processes where you start to consider everything, um, you, you, you just kind of get. Down to the issues. You know, you start to think, where’s this packaging?
[00:09:01] What am I doing with it? I like, I always really found recycling really, you know, it’s really, um, time consuming. And it’s a bit of a conundrum because it depends where you live. Like say you move house, the rules are different. You move to a different borough. In London, the rules are different. Whether you have curbside collections or then you move into a flat or, you know, it’s just, it’s, it’s just a bit of a minefield.
[00:09:25] And I was like, you know, if I can kind of manage waste out of my, um, life, I mean it’s, I was a bit in this kind of a perfectionist mode at the time and you sort of quickly realize it’s not entirely possible. Um, I was at least exploring the options and I was understanding things about the materials and the cycles and the processes and I just found all [00:09:48] of this stuff fascinating.
[00:09:49] And then obviously I kind of went into research mode, , and I was like, hang on, this is. , I can use these skills, you know, I can use these skills, the research skills to, to do something that for me felt really important. Mm-hmm. , um, I would love to do a PhD in sort of medieval renaissance, history and literature, but I have lots of friends that obviously who are still involved in that line of work.
[00:10:17] So to me, I mean, it is so valuable to be working in the arts and humanities. It’s constantly undervalued and underfunded and it is such important work. But for me, like I had something else going on at the same time, you know, I just had a child, I was thinking about the world around me and what kind of future a children are gonna have, and I just felt really activated by that and really motivated to, I thought, well, I’ve got these skills.
[00:10:45] How can I use them and actually make a sort of tangible change that have, results that you can see quite quickly. . And that was really attractive to me. So you kind of
[00:10:57] started, so what, did it come a little bit from having a child then that got you thinking about the world? Um, it, was it differently and from that perspective,
[00:11:06] or, well, yeah, that’s kind that yes and no.
[00:11:09] So all of this sort of started in [00:11:12] 2015 where I started to open my eyes a bit to, to the issues. Um, and then I had my first child in 2017, so I think they were, we have all those things where, it had been bubbling up for about two years. Right. And then having my child and then sort of being on maternity leave and then sort of meeting these communities of people over those years.
[00:11:38] And then it all kind of came together. Okay. Yeah. To this point where I was getting to the end of sort of the traditional maternity leave period and I was like, I’ve done my ma or I’ve pretty much finished my ma. , I know it’s not necessarily going to work to do a, a PhD. And then I was kind of thinking, you know, um, I just had this pool.
[00:11:59] And I was like, right. Let, let’s see where this can go. Um, and then I sort of, I had this sort of community on Instagram as well. I sort of built up, I don’t really like the term followers, , but, you know, cause they, they’re sort of like contemporaries as well of yours. It’s like readers.
[00:12:15] Cause I was writing a lot of the time. It, it’s a community basically. Um, but people would comment about, oh, I just love how you’ve put that idea together. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. Um, it sounds like I’m being like working, like bragging, but you know, people No, no at all. You, uh, [00:12:36] you’re very eloquent, you know, and, uh, you know, you’ve sort of distilled that idea down, into a way that is, Easy to understand and it, that just kind of motivated me to, to kind of keep on that path and set up a website, do bits of sort of writing and things like that.
[00:12:54] And I suppose it took me a while to understand what my business was going to look like.
[00:12:59] Yes. Was it initially that you were more, it was more talking to people, so kind of giving tips on an individual basis rather than as businesses then as well on your Instagram?
[00:13:12] Yeah. I mean it ki yeah. I think , and this is probably quite relatable, when you are, when you are a new mom, you are kind of trapped, um, nap trapped and you’ve got your phone usually not with much battery.
[00:13:26] So I learned pretty quickly mm-hmm. to get a long phone charger, . Um, and I would, I would talk to people a. and I were, you know, online and, I’d be creating posts. So a lot of it was quite social media based to begin with, but the having a community is a really good space to try out ideas and also to keep on top of like, trends and, uh, the, the burning issues of the day and getting that real time response so you know, how people are feeling [00:14:00] about certain issues.
[00:14:00] And I think that’s really important to always have like your finger on the pulse, you know, and you can also identify gaps that way. You know, like, oh, hang on. Oh, there’s a need for this, or people don’t know so much about this. And yeah, it kind of, um, came from this, this part of like having a child, finding a community, finding that I had a voice in that community and.
[00:14:27] Knowing that I could use that voice to affect change on a bigger scale. Now I would, I love sharing like, recommendations and things, so I would do that online quite a lot. Um, so it kind of came from that side of things. And I would work with businesses like occasionally on more of a kind of small scale, you know, sort of just kind of like the most kind of simple aspects of environmentalism and how to do things in an sort of eco-friendly way.
[00:15:01] And then as my passion for the topic grew and I was thinking, you know, I would like to start consulting on this topic, I eventually , it was, it was 2019 by this point. And I thought, right, I’m gonna, I’m gonna set up as a soul trader. Cuz that was, that felt like a really big step, you know, to actually make it official.
[00:15:22] Committing to the fact you’re going to [00:15:24] be doing a tax result at some point in near future. My son had like a day and a half in, nursery and I remember just feeling so, um, having been looking after my son full-time, it was all I could get so much done in this kind of period of time and I started to really think about what I wanted to do with my business and, you know, creating my website was a really important part of that and creating a, a roadmap of the type of work that I’d be offering.
[00:15:57] And that all took off it quite quickly. But then you remember what happened in early 2020 and Yeah. Course that was pretty short lived. We were sort of, I was just a couple of months into. my business really. And, um, actually, you know, interestingly, as we’re doing the podcast today, in that time, because again, I’d gone from having zero time to having this sort of day and a half, I created my own podcast.
[00:16:25] And it was only ever gonna be a five part podcast, but I put everything into it and I, I think like got up to about sort of like 10,000, like downloads like pretty quickly. And then I was like, wow, this is great. And I just really wanted to build on that. But you, you know, when you’ve, when you’ve got a little kid who’s, we then had to take our child out, I’m nursery and everything, like closed down lockdowns and everything [00:16:48] like that, you can’t, obviously can’t do things like that anymore.
[00:16:50] not easily. Um, we were living in a, we were living in a tiny, tiny flat at the time, it was actually a 35 square meter flat, so it was tiny. It’s not like you could have the other room and there’s a bit distance between you and you. We were on top of each other. . So, so,
[00:17:06] and then the mics pick up
[00:17:08] everything.
[00:17:08] Exactly. Um, so that kind of, yeah, things just, I, I kind of ended up using the time to, to upskill really. And just kind of, Like sort of really deepening the knowledge around a lot of things and Yeah. And then just things sort of picked up again and I, and I think, uh, the year, the year after, in 2021 is when bigger projects started coming in.
[00:17:34] So did you, you took some specific courses, um, about sustainability and how to help businesses or when, when you say upskilled or was it more of your own learning?
[00:17:45] Yes, bit of both. It’s actually funny thinking back now, so I remember sort of doing, It was more business related courses. Actually, at the beginning I was sort of just learning the basics, like how to run your own business.
[00:17:59] So a lot of it was, was the logistical side of things. So learning about how to do tax returns and at the time I wasn’t outsourcing things like that. I, because I hadn’t, [00:18:12] you know, had, uh, much time in my business. You, you’re sort of trying to kind of, minimize costs as much as possible. So, so I was doing a lot of learning around that and how to, you know, I spent a lot of time working on my website and I was still sort of promoting certain things like my Podcast as a lead magnet and things like that.
[00:18:31] And, um, I was doing quite, quite a lot of interviews actually during that time because you, you remember, you know, everyone was doing Zoom meetings and everything for work. I know that at that time we, um, I, there was a lot of, um, people in the communities, like business communities and stuff like that, doing podcasts and, and those kind of things to you know, break up the kind of lockdown life really. And so I actually ended up doing, I haven’t actually, um, been on a podcast for a little while, but I remember like in tw in 2020, I, I appeared on quite a few, you know, and I, there was a lot of collaboration, a lot of IG lives and things like that.
[00:19:13] There was a lot of, um, a lot like that going on. But I’m just trying to think what I was doing as well on a more kind of, sustainability related level. I think it’s just constant, you know, uh, reading a lot, reading a lot. Yeah. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of really interesting books and documentaries and things around.
[00:19:31] A lot of it is not, not the most exciting stuff, but , you know, I’m [00:19:36] actually can be quite dry. . Yeah, exactly. So, if you’re a member of the British Library, you can access, um, lots of papers and things through, through. through those kind of portals. And I know that when I was, doing my master’s, you have access to like j s O and all those types of things and you can read lots of studies and things.
[00:19:54] So it was, it was just that kind of continuous thing, but it was mostly guided by me. Mm-hmm. . It’s more in, uh, recent times in my business that I’ve been doing the more, structured. There’s sort of, um, the global reporting initiative. I’m currently doing that training. It’s kind of like you un backed, sorry, my throat and things like that.
[00:20:14] I’m also working towards being a carbon literacy trainer with the Carbon Literacy Project. There’s like a, a bunch of things that you can do now, um, and some things that I wasn’t necessarily aware of right at the beginning. So, um, it’s just, it’s kind of where the wind takes you a little bit.
[00:20:29] It sounds like you kind of took all of your kind of background and your interest in research, but then had different chances to kind of hone your own perspective and voice as you went along through sharing content and through having these conversations with people then
[00:20:44] Exactly.
[00:20:45] For someone though that doesn’t know what a sustainability consultant actually does, can you con explain a bit about the type of work that you do for businesses and who you help?
[00:20:54] Yeah, absolutely. This is, um, so , if it sounded a bit kind of [00:21:00] windy until now, what, what was really useful about that period is that it allowed me to condense everything down and create a framework to work with clients.
[00:21:09] So I’ve, um, strangely found myself in a niche. So I’m working in the food and events industry mostly, not exclusively. But that tends to be where I get most exposure. Mm-hmm. . So therefore you get, um, you know, the word gets around. So, basically, I, I’ve be, what I was really pleased about is I found a framework that can fit onto almost any industry. And so that’s really helpful to me because. it, it’s nice to just sort of have that about your business and to have a framework to work within. Because when you’re in just starting a business, you’re not entirely sure what kinds of inquiries are gonna come your way.
[00:21:50] You don’t know what industries you’re gonna start working in, and it kind of starts to reveal itself to you. And it did, you know, um, pretty quickly. But it’s the sort of thing that you, you work out as you go. , so I don’t go up to someone and say, looks like you’ve got quite an unsustainable business on your hands. Um, let me fix that for you. It doesn’t work like that. I mean, you could do that. , but that’s not really what I do. So, so generally speaking, someone will, come to me. They’re already usually a value, [00:22:24] values-based business. , if you are on their radar, if they’re looking, if they’re searching for a sustainability consultant.
[00:22:31] For me it’s generally, I have a website, I have LinkedIn and stuff, and people will come to me. So usually if that’s the type of thing you’re searching, you have an understanding, you’re a values-based business.
[00:22:43] They know that they need, they have, um, goals and aspirations to be more sustainable. But in terms of what a sustainability consultant does, I tend to look at the industry that the business is operating within. And I will do, uh, a review to, to look at any precedents for, for things that other, businesses, competitors are, are doing.
[00:23:08] Like what’s possible within that industry projections of, environmental things that may affect that business. So it’s kinda like a risk management thing. You kind of look to legislation that’s coming in, or current legislation. And so you, you’re doing that kind of stuff that might not be like immediately that interesting to a business, but you’re doing kind of the legwork there so that you kind of have a really good handle on the industry.
[00:23:35] And the thing that I really like to do with a client at first, is to write a kind of sustainability like, um, fantasy wishlist.
[00:23:46] Oh, interesting. Okay, so [00:23:48] like, yeah, you’ve gotta explain what that means. Yeah.
[00:23:50] So, so yeah, this is my secret source. So , um, it, it’s like, um, it’s really a strategy, but I think that can be quite an off-putting term sometimes.
[00:24:01] Cause it sounds really sort of setting stone and Yeah, really active. And, it’s like once you start on this path, , you just have to keep going. Um, so I, I like to say, you know, like, where do you see your business in X amount of time? So it could be like five years, 10 years, one year, you know, and you can say what other things, if money were no object time, if you didn’t have to worry about what your, other employees or, uh, the rest of your team, the rest of the board, your shareholders or anything, you know, don’t worry about anything else.
[00:24:37] What’s on your wishlist and essentially you. , you find out what’s really important to them, what are their values, how does that fit with the values of the business? It also gives you an insight into what they’re aware of. Mm-hmm. and maybe things that might affect their business. And then obviously, like with, uh, somewhat of a light touch, I then use that stuff that I did in the review period to say, also, if they haven’t mentioned it, here are some other things that are available.
[00:25:07] These are some things that you might want to look at. Some of them will be like, you will have to look at [00:25:12] this because you know, this is gonna affect you, legislation’s coming in here. but most of the time it’s like, here are some things that you could also look at and you, and you can kind of gauge whether that’s important there.
[00:25:23] It doesn’t need to be like a, a yes or no straight away. You’re just kind of floating ideas. Yeah. Usually what I like to do is then write, uh, an environmental policy or strategy. Um, both, both together. Cause a strategy’s different, like you can do, do your main points and how you might work that in over the coming years, as a kind of roadmap.
[00:25:45] But your environmental policy is the thing that goes up on your website and, you know, customers or other clients of yours can look and see, you know, exactly what you’re doing. And the thing is, a policy has to be things that you are doing now.
[00:26:00] I was just gonna ask that. You see, so yeah.
[00:26:02] So you can’t is greenwashing if you’re saying like, yeah, next year we’re going to be doing that, that’s more a strategy based thing.
[00:26:08] Like next year we’re, we’re in starting to implement our net zero strategy and stuff like that. You mm-hmm. you, you don’t want to, you don’t, you can talk about things like that in strategy, like your goals, but when you have that environmental policy, which is kind of the wishlist that I’m making, because I’ll know what’s possible.
[00:26:26] I then, you know, use something like a Trello board and you, you can kind of like say, right, these are all the different parts and then you can have a column where you can, it’s really [00:26:36] satisfying to be like, yeah, we’ve done that. We’re gonna move that into, this is gonna become part of your policy.
[00:26:41] Yeah.
[00:26:41] So that becomes your roadmap.
[00:26:43] It’s actually quite a nice moment when you hand over that fantasy draft policy and you say, look, this is what it could look like. And depending on the values of, uh, your client, it can be really exciting to see them say, yeah, actually, you know, working with these charities is really important with us.
[00:27:02] Cuz obviously, The sort of, corporate social responsibility goes hand in hand with, um, sustainability. So quite often, you know, there’ll be a cause close to like a founder’s heart, so you kind of like pull that in. And so it’s, it’s not just about the environmental side, it’s about all the other good work that they’re doing, things that they maybe are already doing.
[00:27:21] And when they start to see, see it as a whole, it’s very motivating.
[00:27:28] Yeah, I think,
[00:27:30] I suppose part of what you do is then bringing clarity, isn’t it, to what, what people actually are hoping to achieve. And I like that you take the approach of the wishlist first because then you can get the aspirations. Yeah.
[00:27:41] As well as incorporating, well, here’s what you actually need to do, and then defining it and does that. Then you then end up obviously changing over time, like the environmental policy and things like that,
[00:27:53] It’s so fast moving sustainability are on a bit of a deadline here, . So it, it’s kind of [00:28:00] like, things, things are always changing.
[00:28:02] In fact, one of my clients , I’m gonna talk to them in a, in a, in a week or two and say, alright, we’ve got this strategy, but actually certain things have come up. I’ve been kind of keeping notes off to the side and I’d rather have a meeting go, like, here’s some stuff that’s coming up or on the horizon.
[00:28:18] I think we should adjust the strategy and adjust the environmental policy to eventually include these things, because actually that’s where the conversation’s going. Mm-hmm. . So again, that takes me being like, ahead of the game and, and saying, look, here’s something that, that we should be looking at. And it it, sometimes we, there has to be inbuilt flexibility.
[00:28:41] You can’t be sort of like really tagged to a five year strategy because so much is gonna change in five years. And opportunities sometimes come up where, where you think, actually we weren’t gonna do that, for another three years, but actually we found we can do it now.
[00:28:57] And that’s really nice as well when you’re kind of jumping ahead a bit.
[00:29:02] So do people typically hire you on a kind of retainer basis then, so that you can be a continuous advisor,
[00:29:09] um, back and forth with them? You know, actually that’s a conversation I had recently. Um, I had, I don’t have any experience of working,, on a retainer in like with that, terminology, let’s [00:29:24] just say.
[00:29:24] Okay. So, I was talking to a friend who works, as a brand sort of strategist, advisor in fashion. And I was sort of helping her out with , the, uh, supply chain of semi pressures, like gems and stones and things like that is really complex stuff and really interesting, a really interesting area.
[00:29:43] But we were discussing, uh, you know, this idea of working on a retainer and things like that. and I’ve been a, been very fortunate in my business to have, when I have, clients, it’s mostly long-term ongoing permanent work. So right at the moment I have set days, like mostly set days. There’s a bit of flexibility there because you know, that’s part of the perks
[00:30:13] so I generally will, have like, all right, so I’m doing two days a week for you. I’m doing a day week for you and this, that kind of thing. But the thing is, you get to a point that you run out of days,
[00:30:30] That’s why this conversation was really interesting and it’s something that I’m sort of looking into more because it works in that way a bit, but because the, the strategies and policies I’ve actually got for certain clients are kind of, kind of quite big. You are, you are kind of doing a lot of work every week on an ongoing [00:30:48] basis.
[00:30:48] But, it was really interesting that idea to me because it’s looking like there are opportunities coming up where people might want my advice and a retainer might be a more appropriate model going forward for some, for some situations for me. So, it’s something I’ve sort of entertaining at the moment.
[00:31:05] But yet I, I hadn’t really gotten to that point until I was on maternity leave again recently, and I sort of came back to work in November. And things got a lot busier than I was expecting. . That’s good. . Well, no, what it meant was I hadn’t quite applied for as many, uh, nurseries and nursery dayss as I should have done.
[00:31:27] And I live in an area, which there are a lot of families, so we’ve sort of found ourselves in a bit of a fix there, you know, where it was like I was getting these offers of work and I was sort of trying to, to kind of juggle it and I ended up working, still am working lots of evenings and weekends. So, you know, these childcare places don’t, it’s not a sort of a, uh, you request one and one comes, there’s so many waiting lists and everything involved.
[00:31:52] So, yeah, I, I kind of was sort of at that point where I was thinking, right. So if my business is growing, what’s a, what’s a good way? Of being able to, to grow and, you know, not be kind of turning down work. Yeah. And, and being able to, to be kind of flexible and, and make it work. And I [00:32:12] think that’s a really interesting point.
[00:32:13] And I remember when I, when my friends sort of mentioned it, I was like, that makes so much more sense ,
[00:32:19] because you do, so you do see the strategy, but you also are a writer and so you are creating content for some of your clients as well. Is
[00:32:27] that right? ?
[00:32:28] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So that’s something that was a bit quite a natural fit.
[00:32:32] So my, um, this, yeah, well, particularly one of my clients social pantry, they, they have a really good online presence and they’re very sort of vocal about the people that they’re working with. And they have a very active blog, which is great for their SEO and all the, all of this stuff. And, it means that I’ll write a, a blog for them once a month generally
[00:32:57] and maybe other bits and pieces here and there, and, , it’s, it’s really good for my work as well. And it’s good to kind of keep that writing muscle going and yeah, it, it means that, I get to, yeah, I do, I do take commissions as well sometimes, um, for writing work as well. But generally speaking, I do writing work for my clients as well because again, with sustainability related issues and a lot of, um, like greenwashing claims being around and a lot of, um, advertising guidelines coming into play.
[00:33:32] And, uh, there’s been a few high profile cases [00:33:36] of businesses being fined by advertising standards and stuff. But being misleading, you wanna get it right. So it is a, it makes sense for someone who isn’t gonna fulfill of those things to. those pieces, if you see what I mean.
[00:33:56] Yeah, absolutely. And you already know a lot about the brand and you also know the strategies of what you’re trying to achieve with them.
[00:34:03] Exactly.
[00:34:03] Um, when it comes to like working with your clients, what do you find are some common challenges that businesses face when trying to implement sustainable practices?
[00:34:14] Ooh. Um, I think, no, that, that is really interesting. So you don’t necessarily have, uh, what’s the phrase? Everyone singing from the same Himm sheet.
[00:34:25] So you, you might have, someone who is, uh, it could be a founder or it could be someone else in the business who’s got the, authority to, to bring this into a business. And that could be, someone quite high up, a director or something who wants to bring you on board. Mostly it’s been kind of founder based for me, so that, cuz that’s their vision for the business.
[00:34:49] And, so, so you already have that buy-in, so, so it’s more a case of everyone else falling into line with that vision. [00:35:00] And, but traditionally, I mean, so the, these are businesses that are not necessarily like, um, so if it’s like catering or, you know, events, they can be quite, , emissions heavy industries.
[00:35:12] They, they weren’t built, cuz these businesses have been around for quite a long time. They’ve been built on the passion for what they do, whether it’s food or entertainment and sustainability is the kind of thing that, because they really care about it, but it’s kind of being added onto that. So what’s happening is, uh, it, it’s new to quite a few members of a team.
[00:35:36] you know, especially when you, when traditionally in a business, it’s always been kind of about the bottom line and everyone sort of trying to work, you know, to make it work financially. It’s, it is very much about that kind of thing. Now, luckily, a lot of sustainable, uh, options are, uh, like usually being more sustainable means like you have to invest more, you have to spend more money to be more sustainable, which is true in some cases, but it’s actually a lot more accessible than it was.
[00:36:07] And if you think about offsetting, or, you know, being almost like a, an environmental tax, it actually works very well to to lower your emissions. So your offsetting costs are lower too. but that’s kind of a long conversation. isn’t . [00:36:24] Um, but, but yeah, I’ve never really had to like work to change people’s minds.
[00:36:27] It’s the, the, like I said, the, the businesses I work with, they, they’re very, very value driven anyway, but it, there’s sometimes, um, they’re also working to the constraints within their departments, which is not that, you know, someone doesn’t care about the issue, but it’s, they’ve got to make it work financially.
[00:36:45] Also, they need to make it work for customers, for instance, or how that message works within the business. So, so yeah, I mean, it, it, it can, it kind of can be a, a very new way of working for some people and you have to make sure that everyone, um, in a team, in all the different departments, have an understanding of it.
[00:37:06] So training’s a really important part of what I do, and making sure that everyone feels and is involved, has a voice. I always say, anyone, you know, come and talk to me about ideas. Or if there are any issues that come up. And it’s been great actually, like having, someone like social pantry, you know, you have like people in the kitchen saying, oh, this would be really good if we did this, or actually we have a lot of this, what can we do there?
[00:37:30] And there’s been a lot of really creative solutions. So yeah, I think that would be the biggest challenge. It’s just, just making sure everyone’s sort of on board. But having that understanding of why it’s, it’s, it’s not always, um, like you can put a strategy in place, but you have to [00:37:48] also have that understanding on both sides that, that a lot of things have have to happen in the machine for those things to happen.
[00:37:55] I guess that’s the benefit of bringing you in as an external person as well, in that maybe it’s, enables the conversation to be opened up a bit more than it might be if it was just internally brought up and people would bring their, already their own, like kind of how they’ve been sort of perceived in the company already, or exactly, you know, different, um, relationships.
[00:38:15] You can maybe help open up the conversation
[00:38:17] more. I think that’s really important because, there’s a lot of opportunities that have come my way where people are like, oh, well we actually want an in-house person. And I was like, I’m, I actually really like what I’ve created for my own business now , I would never say never, but I don’t, I don’t really think that’s where I want to go.
[00:38:39] Because I think there’s an advantage to being an outsider . If your job security is entirely dependent, you know, is completely wrapped up in an employer or employee relationship, you can’t always feel as free to voice certain things.
[00:38:58] You, I think there’s a difficulty there. It might not be the case in every business, but certainly a consultant type role. Um, a consultant needs to be external, but generally speaking, but you, you can have your, like your [00:39:12] sustainability officer as part of your business. I actually think it’s really important, and that’s another thing that I sort of advise a lot is.
[00:39:18] it’s really nice to have people in the business taking, I think every business should have, um, sustainability written into their job roles. There are environmental aspects in every job role, any job role. And it’s great to be able to have little teams, little groups of people. It’s their responsibility to kind of deal with those environmental issues in the office, even if you do have a sustainability consultant, because then, then they are like men on the ground, you know, as such.
[00:39:47] And, we have certain people in having certain responsibilities, then quite often they’re volunteering for it, you know, because it’s exciting what we’re doing. They want to be a part of it. And it works really well because then you have your go-to person, like I say, in this kitchen dealing with the food waste.
[00:40:03] And, that’s a, a responsibility that’s not only really, really important, but. , it really helps employees to build their own skills and skillset as well. So, there’s so many benefits to people being able to take ownership of, um, uh, environmental matters in their job roles.
[00:40:23] Yeah, I imagine then you get kind of the buy-in a bit more, and also as you say, they’re, they’re like in the business every day and might spot different things like that could be improved or made more sustainable.
[00:40:35] [00:40:36] Just that they noticed day to day like, oh, we’re doing a lot of this and could it be improved and optimized, I guess. Exactly. Is there, do you find, is there anything that you think more businesses need to know when it comes to, to sustainability?
[00:40:49] I’ll tell you something that is . It’s kinda like one of my bug bears
[00:40:55] Ok. So I, I, I’m hoping this is kind of relevant to the question if I’ve understood it correctly, but, um, I have to, as part of my role, I’ll look into the supply chain of,, the people I’m working with. So that means that for every business I’m working with, I’m looking at, you know, anything between 10 and a hundred other businesses in the supply chain.
[00:41:21] So I’m looking at the websites, what their messaging is like. Cause they, they make up your kind of scope three emissions. So it is what your suppliers are doing. That’s what it’s impacting. So, so I’m looking at what your messaging is on, on your website, because that’s the place people put things.
[00:41:38] Now that’s where your policy’s going and what really, what really annoys me is some people can be doing some really great stuff. They just are a bit, you know, they don’t really update things or they don’t shout about it, or, I mean, that, that’s a different issue, but most. most of the time these days, uh, websites are pretty, uh, well [00:42:00] updated or can be.
[00:42:01] And especially for products, people don’t, consider the, end of life mm-hmm. or the basically the disposal of a product. And I feel like there’s room in every product description, rather than having it buried away in an FAQ somewhere down in a footer that no one’s ever gonna look at. Yeah, it should be right there, you know, just as a line at the bottom of a thing.
[00:42:27] Like you can dispo, I mean, obviously some things, um, depend on your regional borough, but generally speaking, if, if it’s not recyclable, you should ride. This product is not recyclable. Or, you know, this is, you know, recyclable or. Compostable, but you have to say what type of compostable it is and something like that.
[00:42:45] So, cause that’s a minefield as well.
[00:42:47] Of course. Yes, definitely.
[00:42:48] But it’s just so that people know, like when, when you are buying something you, you should be able to know. And I think that there’s not, I I, what I’ve found is so many so-called eco companies and stuff like that, they, they really, there’s a lot of greenwashing in, in that, and you kind of look at where the product’s made and they don’t really, they’re kind of, again, wash over a lot of stuff.
[00:43:13] And I think even if you are saying something that’s not particularly, um, great, I think you need to be upfront. I think you need to own it. I think you need to say,[00:43:24] , because quite often people buy things and disposing of something, incorrectly is, you know, it, it’s, it’s bad, you know, and it has, an impact.
[00:43:34] So basically more transparency
[00:43:35] basically more transparency. And, and I think you see so many people trying to cover it up by just saying the right words, but without having any of the action and people, um, yeah, they, they make it quite difficult and it, it’s a bit heartbreaking really.
[00:43:53] Yeah.
[00:43:54] Um, when you see how it makes you feel a bit hopeless, , to be honest,
[00:43:58] Cause even the people sort of who know the right words to say they’re, they’re not helping things at all. They’re hindering. So, but it’s not like a lost cause. It’s a lot of the time, the criticism that I’m giving here, it can be fixed. You know, you can get someone to help you with that stuff.
[00:44:20] Um, and it doesn’t have to cost the earth. You can do a short project with someone, get someone to do a deep dive into your own supply chain or, you know, just kind of like, look at your offering and say, look, is there another way we can do this? Because quite often it’s just not knowing, you know, and it’s sometimes, you know, I, I’m, I made it sound like, you know, I’m really demonizing, uh, businesses here, but people have got a lot to do in their business, and it’s not necessarily top of mind as a priority, but it’s gonna come [00:44:48] to the point where all businesses are needing to report on their emissions and people are gonna have to kind of catch up with this stuff pretty quickly.
[00:44:57] And they’re not necessarily going to get away with this kind of stuff for that long. Even if it’s not like coming from a, a place of deception. It’s just, yeah. You know, they don’t really know. Um, it’s the kind of thing, there are solutions out there and.
[00:45:11] Yeah, no, when you were saying it, it got me thinking like, you know, there’s, with food, there’s like obviously the traffic like thing that never used to be there, kind of the color coding of nutrition and stuff. And I wonder whether there might be more sort of labeling going on in future. And like you say, it’s, people will choose to maybe put like the little recycle symbol or highlight certain aspects, but Yeah.
[00:45:36] I wonder whether there’ll be some sort of system or, or, um, or maybe there even is. I don’t, I might be missing. Yeah. There are
[00:45:43] actually regulations and.
[00:45:45] There is a kind of financial barrier. Obviously, I understand to some businesses, not everyone can say, I’m gonna get an expert in to kind of tell me how to do this.
[00:45:52] So I am sympathetic to it, obviously. But a again, if you are at the point where you’re already greenwashing, it’s like, do, do you see what I mean? It’s like, it’s not just an oversight. This is a bit of a deliberate thing.
[00:46:04] Yes. It’s like a marketing thing
[00:46:06] and it is exactly irresponsible marketing. But, the thing, uh, where [00:46:12] there is a kind of traffic light system you might have seen about somewhere that sometimes people are introducing this, information onto menus, like is, what, what’s the carbon footprint of this meal?
[00:46:27] I think people can be a bit, um, uh, sort of understandably. Kind of skeptical about some of these things because yeah, it’s very, reminds people, you, you know, like there’s a lot of, you remember when there was a lot of talk about putting, calories on every meal, every menu, and you’re like, I just wanted a night out.
[00:46:43] everyone wants to be looking at that, um, information. But of course there’s like a, a responsibility towards health and things like that. You can see like various sides of, the conversation. But when it comes to something like, , the carbon footprint of food, it’s really interesting. So, there’s a tool out there called Clem.
[00:47:04] I think it’s, it’s either cli, Marto, or Clamato with a K. And, uh, it’s a tool and I think there might be various tools, but this is just one I happen to know of. And they, you can kind of go into their database and they will be able to, if you are using tomatoes from this country versus that country.
[00:47:23] Actually it turns out that having this, uh, a European country. , it might be better because of all the energy used in growing them in this country, cuz of greenhouses and [00:47:36] heating and, and all of that. So it’s really, it’s clever and you can calculate the emissions of a meal and, you know, obviously the emissions, , you know, like I, I know from doing scoping for, for a catering business that because you use meat and dairy, your emissions are sky high, and if you, uh, you could slash that by 50% if you move your offering to 50% more plant based options.
[00:48:03] You know, that is kind of quite simple in some ways. Yeah. And it could be cheaper, you know, to, to do that as well. So there are some situations where you think, yeah, it can be beneficial or round. Um, but the, there is that kind of, that I, I think some people in canteens and stuff show that in a kind of traffic light system.
[00:48:23] So, you’ll have a green meal, you know, and then, you know, you’ll have like, you’ll probably have like the, the super delicious cheesy lasagna, , with lots of meat in it and that’d be a big red. So it always works quite similar to the calorie ones as well. Probably there might be a bit of a crossover . .
[00:48:40] But uh, there are things like that coming in. And I think probably more things like that will come in because I think tech-based companies in that are, are, are quite important in the conversation going forward. Again, it’s like communicating what’s an easy way of communicating this really, complex algorithm that people have been working behind the scenes to create that information.
[00:48:59] But then you have like a [00:49:00] nice, neat kind of traffic light system providing,, all of the, uh, research and the, the way they work to make that information is solid. There can be really good tools so that a consumer level works really well. There’s another thing as well, you know, the supermarkets as well, they’ve had a big responsibility to, to kind of like, make sure that their options are, have certain certifications and things on food.
[00:49:26] So, the consumer choice, you know, that I think people get kind of all into all these kind of ethical conundrums and it’s very, heavy on the decision making process that no one really wants to have to go through every time they go into the supermarket with, I dunno.
[00:49:43] Especially if you’ve got your toddler Yep.
[00:49:45] you know, you don’t wanna be standing there going, what’s the best, worst option? Yeah. You know, but again, you have to trust the systems in place. I remember, being in a meeting with, uh, I remember there was a, a, like someone quite high up in Tesco saying, look, we’re making sure. All of this product at least has this standard so consumers don’t have to worry.
[00:50:06] They then, whatever they buy across the range is going to at least be at this standard, you know? And it’s like, that’s kind of what we want to get to at the end of the day when we’re having to have all of these, , complex, conversations in our heads when we’re just trying to kind of like do the shopping
[00:50:23] Well, that’s the [00:50:24] thing, isn’t it? Otherwise, a lot of the onus has then put on the consumer themselves to people give up, look stuff up, and try and research it, as you say, when they’re just standing there in the shop and trying to weigh up their options or having to go on, like read things. Like not though I’m seeing obviously read things like ethical consumer, but try and take the time and compare your various different options as to what ones might be the best choice.
[00:50:45] And Exactly. Now that you said, I, I have my copyright here. Oh, nice. Yeah, I’ve got that one. And for anyone that hasn’t seen and might be watching you do, you do have these charts. You know,
[00:50:55] and I was visualizing, I didn’t expect,
[00:50:57] well, , I’ve actually got one right here. And it, it’s, yeah, I, you know, if you find that thing sort of thing interesting as I do and you do, it’s like you look at it, you can get really into it and you can decide what’s the best thing that works for you.
[00:51:11] But most people don’t have the time for that. And when, again, when I started off at trying to sort of streamline my own life, and that’s how I kind of came to a lot of this, you realize that your individual, lifestyle, I mean, it’s not insignificant at all, especially not over the course of, you know, decades and such.
[00:51:30] But when you look at it compared to what big corporations are doing, like the fossil fuels industry, it feels really hopeless. And I think that that obviously sort of inspired me quite a lot because then you, when you’re working in something like food and events and things like that, you can really,[00:51:48] you have that information to empower businesses to take action. And again, it’s really important for me as well that businesses are really vocal about what they do, um, to inspire other people within that industry. Obviously, you know, people, are operating, there’s a natural competitive environment with businesses, but you can get a competitive edge as well from being more sustainable than your competitors.
[00:52:14] But at the same time, you still want to be inspiring them to be more sustainable themselves. What’s the point of being the one sustainable? Whatever it is on a dead planet. It’s like you have to be inspiring change within your industry as well. And you know, imitation is a form of flattery as well. Like you want people to be kind of supporting each other in these industries as well.
[00:52:39] And actually, you know, you usually find that, that people are quite supportive of each other actually. Because at the end of the day, even if you’re involved in a similar kind of business, people are gonna pick whoever aligns with them. Mm. You know? And so it’s not always gonna be, you know, like that. So I think, you know, just so long as you’ve got a really good sort of brand, you know, people are gonna come to you anyway.
[00:53:04] Yeah, I totally
[00:53:05] agree. And I think, like you say, I think that personal choices are important and obviously, um, you know, I [00:53:12] think that people should consider that, but really business is where a lot of impact can be had. and especially on a bigger scale. And I do think as well, even for like smaller businesses, so kind of like you were saying about the imitation thing, like when I first sort of started, I, and then. Was learning more about what other, seeing what other people were doing and like, oh, green hosting and, um, ec, I dunno how to pronounce this, actually ecology, like I saw about them from other people’s footers and, and, and that’s how then I was like getting into like, oh, like there’s much more the. I could be doing than I had sort of really been aware of
[00:53:49] Exactly it’s always people’s, uh, it’s not always, you know, it’s just, if it’s not on your radar, it’s not on your radar, you know, and that is, that is something that I do accept as part of my role that, um, if someone hasn’t been doing something, that’s why I’m there. You know, it is why I could, you know, and I, I always say as well, like, you know, you could be any type of business, there’s always something out there, but you don’t necessarily know where to look for it.
[00:54:13] You know, it’s not, it’s not just available. There’s not some special handbook that you download when, as, as I know very well, when you start a business where it’s like, here’s how to do everything. You don’t know, and there’s no way that you should know. But that, that’s why, in our business communities, we all have skills where we can all help each other and sort of add, add something to each other’s businesses as well.
[00:54:35] [00:54:36] Do you feel like even small businesses, or sorry, like startups even should work with a sustainability consultant from the beginning or quite early in their sort of setup? I think it,
[00:54:47] or does it depend on ?
[00:54:48] Yeah, it can, it can work both ways. I mean, ob I actually think some of the most interesting sustainability work comes from startups because generally, but not always, but the startups tend to have quite a kind of, quite fairly young founders actually, who are quite environmentally aware.
[00:55:05] So, so a lot of people like to build their business from the ground up with these, uh, values already in place. But, or some people would like at least have the goal to, and then they’ll get people involved, to make that happen. And so I think some of the most interesting work comes from that. I, I tend to work with startups and SMEs, but it, it’s entirely possible to kind of bolt that on as well, and then start threading it through everything that you do. Um, I think obviously the earlier you start, the better, , because then you’re sort of like building in Yeah. You know, from the beginning.
[00:55:37] Get those foundations in. Yeah.
[00:55:39] But then, you know, it, it, it’s entirely possible because, you know, I know I’ve come into businesses that, um, are not startups, but, they’ve been around for 10 years or something like that.
[00:55:49] And then you, you just, you just work with what you have and, um, it can be a lot simpler than you think to kind of change things, by making a few kind of simple [00:56:00] changes, your energy supply, you can start looking at how businesses bank, you know, what kind of pensions are offered that. I mean, it’s much more than just like, oh, let’s do the sort of, in classically environmental thing, you look at the whole business.
[00:56:16] Right. You know, you are looking at everything. You are, you are. Yeah. It’s almost like you’re, like a business management type of role, but with a sustainability lens. Mm-hmm. , you know, so you’re not, you’re not just looking at like, Hey guys, you should probably start, you know, using refill soap.
[00:56:33] It’s really not like that. It’s, it’s really like, uh, you’re looking at everything.
[00:56:39] It seems very nuanced and in depth, to be honest.
[00:56:42] to me, by surprise, I’ll tell you that. But if you look back years ago when I, when I start sort of telling you about, , how things began. I was sort of just learning about it.
[00:56:53] It’s when you start putting that into practice and you’re like, okay, now we’re looking at vehicles, we’re looking at, um, we’re looking at staff retention, you know, we’re looking at, um, training, we’re looking at accreditation. Like, could you B Corp? I tend to like, oversee those processes like B Corp or, um, ISOs and, various things like that.
[00:57:13] So it’s the kind of thing you are, you are looking at, you know, the supply chain and sort of fair trade issues and local government type stuff. It’s, yeah, there’s a lot [00:57:24] to it. Um, and I could generally, any day I could be working on something completely different.
[00:57:31] Yeah, it, it must be quite fun then kind of getting to delve into different things and spin off on different topics.
[00:57:38] It is.
[00:57:39] And depending on who you’re talking to and what, how you’re helping them .
[00:57:42] Exactly. That there are some really big projects that you just, you know, you’re just kind of working on, like in the background and then you have the sort of ad hoc things that come up, and, you know, there’s a lot of, um, you’ve probably heard there’s a lot coming up., I think it’s about October with a lot of single use plastic things coming from, uh, DEFRA. And you know what, I’m currently trying to get to grips with what that means for food packaging, you know, and. A big one. , when you work with places that have cafes that, um, have takeaway packaging is find finding out where you fit in because some of the rules only apply to if your business is this big or has a certain turnover.
[00:58:21] So you have to get really involved in the financial side of it and the operational side of things, as well as the practical side of things, and then the end of life of those products and how it can be such an unknown when something’s taken off your premises. And do you have a kind of takeback thing?
[00:58:39] You have to get really creative with it as well in order to make it work. So I really relish that side of it, um, because some of the topics on the face of it can [00:58:48] seem quite dry, but, it’s when you start to look for those creative solutions, , that’s when, that’s when I kind of like, uh, get really excited.
[00:58:56] Well, that brings it back a little bit to the start of where you were saying obviously you started out, you were more creative, like in a creative industry. So that’s quite interesting. If you think they’re creative solutions and , it comes back around a little bit. There it is. And I like, it’s not traditional creative, but
[00:59:13] No, no, and that’s the thing.
[00:59:15] I always had a bit of a, uh, like a kind of sciencey brain, but with this, creative, uh, I was very drawn to creative things. So having space where I can pull all of those things together is, , is perfect for me, really. But a again, you know, again, I had a, to talk, with, with someone last year who was really concerned.
[00:59:39] Not having this type of, , science background, and I, this is not true of all scientists, but again, it’s a bit of a thing where they’re not especially known for, for there there’s a certain, uh, a certain way that you need to communicate your ideas and scientific papers. But it’s not necessarily, , going to translate all that well, if you, if you are going to, um, be looking at reaching net zero, you need everyone involved. And it’s not just up to the scientists to do it. It [01:00:12] is, it is about everyone being able to understand it and to implement. So you need to be making it more accessible. So there’s a massive place for people from, more humanities, uh, art-based backgrounds.
[01:00:26] I think if, if you are a good communicator, you’re very good at connecting issues, , and you are analytical, it’s very important to be analytical, to be good at research, to to know what good sources are, um, be, be rigorous with those, then you’re not gonna fulfill of anything.
[01:00:43] Yeah and having people skills as well. From what you were saying, there’s actually a lot of , a lot of different skills that come into it. From the softer skills to the to the re yeah, to the, yeah. You, you are absolutely, I can’t think of the word,
[01:00:56] yeah. I mean, you are working, you are working with teams of people. , um, very busy people, you know, again, like I said, whether you’re working in events or, or kitchen, or the logistics side of a business or you’re dealing with, various parts, you, you’ve got to be able to, to get together, relate things to people.
[01:01:16] So it’s the sort of thing where you can, make it relatable to people. You know, where a lot of it can seem like an abstract concept, but if you say, Emissions scope three, blah, blah, blah. People are gonna switch off. Right. But you have to just quick, really quickly bring that down and give a real world example that [01:01:36] relates to either that role or that industry or that business in particular.
[01:01:40] And you’ve always got to be doing that to, to kind of keep people on board and you know, there’s no point waffling on about it if there’s no, if it, if it doesn’t really relate to what’s going on. You just have to be able to do that and training as well. Whenever you are training will make it relatable to what’s going on.
[01:01:57] There’s no point just giving someone training about the environment or climate change when it can feel very distant to a lot of people.
[01:02:08] Mm-hmm. , well, I feel like you’ll be quite ready then. I’m gonna switch up a bit and do some lightning round questions, if you’re ready.
[01:02:14] Yeah. Yeah. Let’s,
[01:02:16] so you said you could pull some ideas and thought so.
[01:02:20] Ready? . What drives you? I’m, oh no. Oh, sorry. . She said that.
[01:02:27] What drives you to keep going in your business?
[01:02:30] Oh, uh, just, uh, climate changes. .
[01:02:34] Good answer. Yep. , what’s been the biggest struggle for you as a business owner?
[01:02:40] Um, uh, work-life balance.
[01:02:42] Oh, I can relate to that one. . Do you feel that as a society and business owners, we are moving towards more ethical business?
[01:02:51] I would say yes.
[01:02:54] I think so too. I hope so. ?
[01:02:56] I hope so, but maybe I only see a certain part of it, but I would say [01:03:00] generally yes. I think so.
[01:03:02] Is there a brand that you think is one to aspire to sustainability-wise?
[01:03:07] That I found really tricky. Cause no one is perfect. Mm-hmm. . Um, I, I thought I might mention someone that I thought was really interesting to me, even if they might not be perfect.
[01:03:20] You heard typology?
[01:03:22] Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:03:23] So, skincare brand, French skincare brand. Um, most of their packaging is recyclable, you know, kind of the metal, the Armenian tubes and the, , little glass pet type things. Really nice branding, if that’s your thing. That’s my kind of thing. But, so, so many sort of natural eco skincare brands, , have loads of essential oils in them, which, if you have reactive skin, um, I, like, I can’t use any of that, especially not on my face.
[01:03:48] And, I, uh, struggled for a long time to find, skincare that worked for me and. There’s so much fragrance and everything like that. And when I found this skincare brand that had actives, great packaging, they’re a B Corp, they’re cruelty free. Um, you know, they use 95% organic ingredients. All their packaging that they send everything in is all like kind of paper tape and, you know, I mean, there are lots of people that do this kind of thing, but I just thought it was a really good example of a brand, like they’re not completely fragrance free, but across I’d say the lion share of their [01:04:24] range.
[01:04:25] they are, but they have the actives that really work that once you get to my age, you’re kinda like looking for those types of things. Like you want a vitamin C serum and stuff like that, so I haven’t like delved massively into like the supply chain or anything like that, but because they’re a B Corp, you, you get that sense that they’re probably there with that kind of thing.
[01:04:44] So anyway, that’s, it’s not so much of a quickfire answer, but um, it’s something that I feel happy recommending to people. Yeah. If, if they’re um, if they’re, if they’re looking for some good and well priced skincare as well,
[01:04:57] it sounds like they’re doing lots and lots of things right. So I think that’s the thing, isn’t it?
[01:05:01] You’ve gotta kind of look for that and you might not get
[01:05:04] everything perfect.
[01:05:05] Exactly.
[01:05:05] So
[01:05:06]
[01:05:06] next one, what is the main piece of advice you would give to someone who comes to you and they’ve just started their business?
[01:05:13] Oh, um, I think it would be to, oh goodness. Oh goodness. Wait, that’s really hard. What, like if they, if I was working with them or just someone that started a business?
[01:05:27] Hmm. Let’s say that someone’s dmd you on Instagram and just want some general advice then.
[01:05:34] Oh. About sort of starting a business, that kind of thing.
[01:05:37] Yeah or maybe they’re, they’re a bit conscious of trying to be sustainable. ,
[01:05:41] I would say, I mean, it would kind of depend on whether they’re, like a, a product-based business or a service-based business.
[01:05:46] If it’s a [01:05:48] product-based business, I’d say, you know, if you have anything online, like really think about your packaging. . I think that’s a really important one. I think that that’s, you know, , the kind of materials that you are using in your supply chain, and I think you can kind of relate to that to kind of a service-based business as well, because, um, yeah, again it’s your supply chain.
[01:06:06] Just, just be, um, keep your eyes open basically. And don’t, don’t just take people’s word for it, what they say they’re doing. Ask questions. Mm-hmm. , maybe that’s, that’s a good tip. That’s the answer. Ask questions of your suppliers then, and, and be skeptical. So what they tell you might not necessarily be what they’re doing.
[01:06:30] But, but ask the questions anyway. And, and you’ll start to get a feel for. You’ll have an intuition and, and you’ll start to get a feel for it. But ask the questions anyway. That’s my answer. .
[01:06:41] No, that’s good tip. I like that. Um, what is a piece that most people miss out on when it comes to their business and sustainability?
[01:06:49] Well then maybe you answered that a bit.
[01:06:51] I think it was when I, I waffled on about, um, but product descriptions, I think it’s so important to consider the end of life in your product description. Love that. Love it. That’s my campaign. I want everyone to, to think about the end of life of their product. Um, yeah.
[01:07:09] That, that would, that would be wonderful. .
[01:07:11] [01:07:12] Yeah. I like, I think that’s interesting cause it’s changed the way they make them if they were thinking about that. Yeah. I mean, there’s a, a tore a toothbrush brand around called Sori. You might have. The Instagram brand, but every part, you know, everyone’s buying bamboo toothbrushes and stuff.
[01:07:28] But some people obviously just really want, you know, electric and this, this one can be like, infinitely repaired kind of thing. Wow. And um, again, you know, the, it’s, it’s people that are kind of looking for those solutions, I think.
[01:07:43] Mm-hmm I have to say, I think like as a designer, I’d be like, oh yeah, maybe we can put that in the toggle.
[01:07:48] You don’t need that in the product description, although it’d still be there. But that’s
[01:07:51] something I can now like, yeah. I mean, you can even advise, you could definitely have, you know, you get those kind of parts of it and you can have like description and then you can have a separate Yeah. People could still kind of drop down, um, because some, you know, it could be, Complex, maybe some of the end of life, but generally just having a note to kind of say it gets people considering it.
[01:08:10] And if you are writing it and you’re not comfortable with what you are writing, maybe it’s time to rethink your product. ,
[01:08:16] yeah. Um, a final question. Oh no, sorry, not the final question, but, uh, do you have any top tips for people to take and implement today?
[01:08:25] Is that one for individuals
[01:08:27] gone then? Yeah.
[01:08:29] For individuals, um, I think just, I think we’ll take this one for, I think it’s Vivian Westwood. What is it sort of by, [01:08:36] uh, Was it ? What is it again? The quote. It was always on the end of my tongue. And then of course, once I’m being recorded, I forgot. I, I love, I’ll choose less. Make it last.
[01:08:48] That sounds about right
[01:08:49] or choose. I might have gotten that backwards, but basically, you know, pick quality where you can, I know it’s not possible for everyone to do so, but where you can to save up that bit extra and just something that lasts is gonna last.
[01:09:04] And it’s the kind of thing that not everyone has the time to completely look into a supply chain, but you, if you can make it last, you are, there’s less impact on the environment generally. So get away from the disposable culture, um, of everything and just really look after your.
[01:09:22] There’s those rs, isn’t there as well about whether it’s reuse, recycled,
[01:09:26] reduce, reuse?
[01:09:27] Yeah. The five of zero ways. The five, not seven. I thought there was seven.
[01:09:31] Well, it varies. It varies. But it’s mostly a riff on like, it’s like a refuse reduce, that’s it. Recycle. Uh, yeah, it’s basically the same kind of, yeah. Of logic principles, .
[01:09:46] And one final question. What does creating a conscious brand mean to you?
[01:09:51] Oh, that’s interesting. I think it’s, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s a bit of a big one, but you’ve got to consider people as well as planet in whatever [01:10:00] you are doing. , it being an environmentalist, being, addressing sustainability isn’t just about what you’re doing for the environment. You, you have to consider people with what you’re doing as well.
[01:10:13] People living on the, the front lines of climate change. And that comes into your supply chains or, you know, if you have a business, you know, you have to think about the people that are working with you. There’s no point being the most sustainable business out there if you treat your staff badly or you don’t pay them well.
[01:10:31] And again, , if you can support charities and organizations in the work that you’re doing, um mm-hmm. . Yeah. So, so yeah. It, it, sustainability doesn’t exist in a.
[01:10:43] Yeah, I agree. And ultimately, like these stuff often comes out as well, doesn’t it? If, um, businesses aren’t doing so good in terms of like their employees or the people in the supply chain as such that often comes out in the press or in social media and things like that now.
[01:11:00] So yeah. Not, not that that’s the reason. Yeah. Not that that’s the reason to be considerate of it. Of course , but
[01:11:07] like, you know, Exactly. , yeah.
[01:11:11] That, that was kind of, that is a tactic I have to use. Sometimes I I am like, you know, you can’t say that because eventually it will come back to bite you. Um, and it might not be by me, but there are bigger [01:11:24] authorities out there that will so I’m giving you a heads up.
[01:11:28] Which is what I think people do get a bit scared nowadays of saying like, the stuff they are doing partly because of that,
[01:11:33] everyone has to watch, you know what they’re saying. But a big part, again, of what I do is just empowering people to, and feeling supported.
[01:11:40] That’s why I always offer training. So if it’s a job role and something’s changing in your, the business that you work for, the business that you own, you, there’s no point putting a sustainability wishlist slash actual policy in place if you don’t know how to talk about it.
[01:11:58] And then they can back it up as well with the actions.
[01:12:00] Exactly. And that , they really know. Cause there’s no point, again, having them sign up to something, you know, if they just feel like they’re being kind. Pushed into this lane, it has to, it has to, you know, be really felt, you know? Yeah, exactly. You know, that you have to be able to engage with the issues and again, have that flexibility to change if the conversation moves in a different direction.
[01:12:23] Yeah, I think that’s the perfect note to end on. So thank you so much for coming on and being an amazing
[01:12:29] guest and
[01:12:29] oh, thank you for having me. ,
[01:12:32] how can listeners connect with you?
[01:12:34] Where should they head ?
[01:12:34] Well if, uh, I think you’ll probably have to look for the spelling of my name, .
[01:12:40] I’ll put it in the notes.
[01:12:41] Yeah, I have um, I have an Instagram which is at Nash Gierak and, on LinkedIn, which actually I quite [01:12:48] like it on there, which I never thought I would say. Um, again, just Nash Gierak on LinkedIn and my website is nashgierak.com. So, um, yeah, luckily, you know, of course I got those handles because no one else , weirdly, they were available
[01:13:04] Oh, lovely.
[01:13:05] I’ll put all those links
[01:13:06] in the show notes as well.
[01:13:07] Thank you so much.
[01:13:08] Thank you.
[01:13:09] It was lovely chatting.
[01:13:11] Yeah.
[01:13:11] Oh, thank you for your time.

[00:00:00] This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.

[00:00:13] There are probably some brands that you are on their email list. He followed them on social media. You tell the people about them. You check out the latest products when they tell you about them. To be honest, you’re probably a bit of a fan. And it’s probably partly their products. But also the brand. And how it speaks to you.

[00:00:37] How it connects and resonates with you.

[00:00:39] And the features they appeal. The colors, the colors that you like, they’re not. Uh, type a, they’re not a color that’s going to put you off at in language. That’s. Not how you’d speak

[00:00:51] not a tone that you dislike. You know, in people, but also in brands.

[00:00:56] I’m going to be talking about creating a brand experience that you and your customers love in today’s podcast. We’re going to cover things like your customer, who your customer actually is the customer persona. What your customer journey is. We’re going to talk about brand identity and customer touch points.

[00:01:15] Ensuring that everything is cohesive throughout all of that. And creating that positive experience that you want people to come away with. So let’s get into [00:01:24] it.

[00:01:24] first thing to think about is knowing your target audience and your ideal customers. Who they actually are, what will appeal to them? Is the key thing here. So it’s partly about things like the demographics. will be helpful to know, and

[00:01:39] you’ll be things like their gender. It will be their location. Um, it will be things that they like and dislike. And then it’s also getting into the psychographics and what are their problems? What are the things that really bother them? What things make them happy?

[00:01:58] And just in general, what sort of things might appeal to them? And that is. Visually and, in terms of values and the type of custom, sorry, the type of companies that they already like and shop with and go to. And you need to be thinking about all of that. When you, when you think about your customer persona.

[00:02:19] So if that’s something that you’ve not actually done as an exercise yet, I’ve got a resource on my website. If you go to elmleafstudio.com/newsletter. You can sign up there and there’s a customer persona template that you can use in Canva. The first thing is probably doing some research or having a good think. So if you’re in a completely new business,

[00:02:40] Then you’ll be needing to define this before moving forward. However, if you’re more established. [00:02:48] It could be something that you can look at based on who your customers already are. So who, who are your customers or your audience? And think about what you know about them. And you can use this to inform a lot of your decisions.

[00:03:03] So, if you typically notice that the people that come to you are say a woman with kids and they live in a city, maybe a specific city, if you’re more of a local. Um, company. At the moment. So perhaps they’re the one that’s local to you.

[00:03:22] And you might start to be able to know different things about them. You might know. Certain things about the sort of colors that they like and, you know, all of that kind of thing, what they might read, what their lifestyle is like. Are they vegan or that, you know, um, do they care about making environmental choices? Are they quite eco-conscious or are they not so much?

[00:03:44] And then all of these things can really help you because you can ensure that you are speaking directly to them. And maybe if you did need to rethink about who these people could be. If you’re trying to target maybe a slightly different market and then you really need to get into their heads and think about what they like and dislike. And.

[00:04:06] All of that kind of stuff. Because once you know that. You can [00:04:12] ensure that the visuals of what you’re putting out there. Uh, appeal. You can ensure that the way that you’re speaking your, your brand is speaking, we’ll be in the right tone, have the right voice. That is where they identify with.

[00:04:26] Use words that are aligned. Maybe. Maybe there’s certain words that would just really not resonate with your target audience. And so you’d want to keep those out of your copy on your website. You’d want to not use them in captions on social media.

[00:04:42] You need to think about what you are trying to convey as a brand. What do you want your perception of your brand to be. If you want to come across as a luxury brand, that’s a very different experience than say a streetwear brand. So, if you want to come across as a luxury brand, that’s going to be very different to.

[00:05:01] How you might want to come across if you’re a budget brand. And. That that then affects everything from the visuals and the way that you probably speak to your customers as well as sort of see pricing and positioning within the marketplace. So you need to really know what perception you want people to have. Do you want to come across as friendly? Do you want to come across as serious?

[00:05:26] Do you want to be perceived in, in way that’s luxury or do you want to be perceived as very like affordable and accessible? Do you want to be perceived maybe as a budget [00:05:36] alternative?

[00:05:37] An example that I can think of is maybe say if you’re a skincare brand, but what you are really trying to do is help solve people’s problems. Maybe you really want to come across as like a resource and some really knowledgeable brand that people can come to and trust for advice that they can directly interact with you to get personalized skincare advice.

[00:05:58] Or that maybe you’ll have like a chat on your website so that people can get advice from there or a quiz that will help them personalize their skincare. And then all of that will filter through, even to things like your social media in that you might choose to educate more. Whereas another brand might choose to then want to come across as a little bit. Uh, not unattainable perse of. A little bit higher level, a little bit more luxury. And they might come off slightly less friendly and casual. They might have a more luxury tone. They probably won’t be as accessible in terms of like, oh, just reach out to us for a personal recommendation.

[00:06:41] I mean, there might still be aspects of that, but these are just the type of things to think about. You need to think as well, then what experience that you want people to have of. Every aspect of the way that they come into contact with your brand based on the perception that you’re trying to create.

[00:06:58] And so this [00:07:00] is thinking about things like your brand identity and your brand voice and tone. And how that all comes together across every touch point. And if you haven’t yet defined those things. Then that’s a really good place to start. You need to know what your colors are and your fonts, and you need to know what your brand, voice, and tone is the type of words that you do and don’t use as a brand.

[00:07:24] Um, there’s a thing called like a brand glossary. So you can put in there, like the type of words that your brand is going to use over and over again. And again, it comes back to what will appeal to your target audience, your target customers. So the ways to. Do you, this is to have a brand strategy.

[00:07:43] And that is looking at who you are as a business. And it’s looking at who your target audience are. It’s looking at. Where you, your positioning is going to be in the market, the messaging, your why? The values. It covers the brand voice can cover the brand voice and the tone and the visual aspect. You might look at your sort of.

[00:08:06] Um, opportunities in the industry, in the market. Um, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats.

[00:08:13] And it helps lay out a map for your brand.

[00:08:16] Then the next thing is the brand guidelines, which will cover. Your logo usage, it will cover colors [00:08:24] and fonts. Patterns icons illustrations and how you should, and shouldn’t use these throughout your customer touch points. The next thing to consider is your customer journey and the customer journey. It starts with awareness. That’s when people see first hear about your brand or see you on social media or through an ad.

[00:08:44] Of any form. Print or digital. The next stage is consideration. So they are thinking about. Your brand or the product that you have on whether they. Whether that is something that they need the purchase stage. And obviously if you’re an e-commerce friend, this is all on your website. I feel service-based, that’s how you then do your business

[00:09:08] the next step after purchase is retention. And obviously that’s about how you can encourage repeat customers and then advocacy. And that’s things like, whether they’re talking about you, word of mouth or reviewing. So, if you think about all of those different things, Looking at awareness. There’s obviously a number of ways that people could come into contact with your brand.

[00:09:31] If you’re running ads, it might be that it might be organically on social media or search engines. It could be through someone else telling them about it. The consideration stage is obviously the things that people be looking at to decide about your brand. [00:09:48] And that’s likely to be your website, your product pages or service pages.

[00:09:52] Then it could be looking at your social media and seeing do they like what you’re putting out there? Do they feel it’s for them? The purchase stage, as I say, most often. This would probably be on line. It’s likely to be an online purchase here. Of course it could be in person to actually saying that.

[00:10:12] So, how is that experience for people? Um, is the process smooth and easy? Does it feel on brand throughout. , there’s nothing like this. Off-putting. Retention. Do you have anything like a customer loyalty scheme or do you do things like an email marketing so that they people can keep informed about knowing what your business is up to? What new products? There are, things like that.

[00:10:36] And then the advocacy stage. How can you encourage things like rating product, leaving a review? Maybe encouraging, um, user generated content on social media. You could ask for things like word of mouth. Maybe some people might want to review your product in their own content as well.

[00:10:55] And potentially you could consider about having brand ambassadors that might do some of these things as well.

[00:11:01] So this is covered kind of a few things to think about along the journey. And that obviously gives you then different touch points. Which are the ways that people come into contact with your brand. And then [00:11:12] some of the things that I didn’t mention would be like extras. Like, so order confirmations, your print design, stationary delivery, packaging, product packaging or labels. Now all of these need to come across in the way that you want them to, to help your brand. Be perceived in a certain way. And ultimately it’s all about how you can lead people with a positive feeling so that they like know and trust your brand. You want to build connection with customers and create a feeling of community and shared values.

[00:11:42] I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. You can find the show notes at elmleafstudio.com/podcast. I’d love to connect over on Instagram and that’s @elmleafstudio.

[00:11:55] If you’d like to stay updated, you can also join my newsletter. And if you go to elmleafstudio.com/newsletter you can sign up there. And you’ll also get access to my free resource library.

[00:12:10] Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the consciously created brand.

[00:00:00] This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.
[00:00:13] Today’s episode is about building values, led business online.
[00:00:17] Let’s first talk about what I believe a values led businesses and what I’m kind of going to be referring to. So I think values led business is one that prioritizes the values and beliefs. How’d by the business owner and defined. Um, as the business’s values as well. And ensuring that they’re held above all else. Above making a profit.
[00:00:41] Above just being out there to get sales or you. You know, make a business success. I think the it’s about standing for something more than that. It’s about aiming to have a positive impact on the world and be successful. I think that could be things like committing to using sustainable and ethical business practices. Um, ensuring that like when you work with, whether that’s, whether you work with staff or partners and suppliers,
[00:01:07] That they are considered in the process and treated fairly and. Ensuring the, um, to minimize environmental impact in the way that you do business. Basically aligning any actions and decisions back to the core values. [00:01:24] And. Knowing that the. The choices that you make have an impact on the world.
[00:01:31] So by prioritizing your values, you can make decisions that are going to do better. That are gonna not impact people negatively as much as possible. And still, still aim for success and still aim for profits. But you’re putting people in planet above them.
[00:01:49] The benefits are huge because I think, like I said, in previous episodes, Um, more and more. I think people are looking for that. They’re seeking out businesses that. Aren’t going to have a negative impact on the environment. Do you care about people that they work with? People that they employ. And people that are in the supply chains.
[00:02:09] And especially the younger generations, it seems to be reported that they’re driving this as well. And more and more people recognizing the climate change and the impact of all our decisions have on that. So I think if you can ensure that your foundations are set. You’re going to be setting yourself up for more success.
[00:02:30] Because people will pick you over other businesses that don’t have as good principles and ethics and values. Now, how do you get started with ensuring that your business is values led? And obviously that comes down to first of all, defining your own personal values as a business owner. [00:02:48] And then that can feed into the values that you set out for your business.
[00:02:52] And I do define them as separate. So I’m going to go into that as well. In today’s episode. This is based a little bit on a video that I put on out, put out on Instagram. Um, obviously I’m going to be adding a little bit more into it and weaving other stuff through. So you might’ve seen it in some of this will be the same.
[00:03:10] It could be helpful to relisten though, if you have heard it and or if you thought, oh yeah, that sounds good. I’ll, I’ll get around to defining my values and you haven’t yet.
[00:03:19] It’s also really worthwhile reviewing this every so often. ’cause for me personally. Anyway, a lot of the core values are always going to be the same. Of course. But things do change over time. As different things might become a priority to you. And same with your business. You might set out some values that as at the start of your business, that then.
[00:03:41] Further down the line. Things might have shifted in the way that you do business. Or as your personal views have changed on certain aspects and you might choose that. You need to prioritize some things differently. And this might be the sum of your business values have changed as well. So if you haven’t done this exercise in a while,
[00:04:02] Take a little bit of time and look at your values for your business and for your personal ones to ensure that they are still aligned. And to ensure that they [00:04:12] are what you want them to be. Um, and that you’re making them decisions from that as well. And if that’s not something that you’ve been using as a filter for what you’re doing again, it’s just a really good exercise, too.
[00:04:26] A good first step is to define your personal values. And I think an exercise that you can do for this is listing out all the ones that come to mind festival.
[00:04:37] Because I think. Typically, these are going to be the ones that are a strong value for you probably. They might a little bit be the ones that you’re kind of socially conditioned to feel like you should have, but often they are going to be the ones that. Will resonate the most for you that they are.
[00:04:51] Um, core values. And then when you’ve got. That list. You can also look at these lists that come up online when you type in about values. And look at the ones that stand out to you. What jumps out? What do you think. Yeah, that that represents a value that I have. Then you take your even longer list now.
[00:05:13] And quite often there’ll be common themes between each of them. For example, one that would came up for me would be like ethical fairness, justice equality. And really, I think that kind of all groups together under one value. And you can choose the word, then that resonates the most for you.
[00:05:31] That gets across what your value is. So for me, I think [00:05:36] fairness encompasses all of those values that I’ve just said. Ethical fairness, justice equality. Fairness, it kind of encompasses it and it’s. Maybe what. Is most important to me about all of those things. , another example would be things like words, like honesty, integrity, and transparency.
[00:05:57] And it’s grouping those together and thinking which one might be strongest for you. And maybe that’s about being in your integrity. Or maybe it’s about always being honest or transparent more. So when those words come to mind, what do you actually mean?
[00:06:12] And then once you’ve got your group lists of the words, You can then refine down so that you’ve got a core set of values and I’ve seen numerous different things. Um, recommended, and that could be. Just having three values or five, or even up to 10. So I’d say, go with what feels right. And you might try and get to three or five.
[00:06:35] But then feel that you actually need, he need that extra one. And there’s one that you don’t want to lose from your values list. And for me that was six. Just seem to fit. So that’s what I’ve gone with.
[00:06:45] And it’s once I’ve kind of set out and defined.
[00:06:48] And then next, you can look at your company values. And I think as a small business owner, these will be informed by your personal values, of course, but. They shouldn’t be the same. [00:07:00] Because for example, you might have something about your family and your personal values and that’s not so relevant to your business, or maybe it is because maybe if you have.
[00:07:10] Employees or would like to down the line, maybe you want to have a family feeling in the business or be. Um, really suited to people that have families. So potentially there is. And there will be a lot of crossover and it will, of course be influenced by your personal values. So for me, for example,
[00:07:28] Creative as a personal value and it’s also a business value. As a designer and as an illustrator.
[00:07:37] I think for your business, you, you need to consider. What will be important if you were to scale and have employees or how you need to manage your business and meet decisions. And these, it can also be set out as being quite intentional and choosing ones that you want your business to uphold.
[00:08:00] Then, of course, all of these need to be considered for any decisions going forward. And it will inform things like your brand identity and the marketing that you’re putting out there.
[00:08:10] These things will come down to your processes for example, and you can use your values as a filter for when you are trying to make a decision. You can use it to decide about whether a new product or service is relevant and [00:08:24] helpful. Because maybe if your value is around, um, affordability, Then you, maybe you don’t put out a higher priced item or service.
[00:08:37] Maybe if a lot of your business values is about knowledge. Um, it could be important to you to be sharing lots of content online and talking about your experiences as a business owner or helping other people along the way, or even. Potentially mentoring people down the line and things like that.
[00:08:57] If you, if a value would be transparency. Then you know, that you need to ensure that when you do put things out. You are being as transparent as possible. It could be taking people behind the scenes of what your business looks like, what your, who your suppliers are and how you work with them. It could look even like some businesses, they show the, the cost of goods.
[00:09:21] And then how they add to their markup and things like that. So, To me, that would be like a business being very transparent. Which is obviously informed by a value that they have as a business.
[00:09:32] Like at this, like I said, at the start, I do think it’s going to become more and more important. And yeah, I did record an episode about why these things matter. So you can go back and listen to that as well. And it’s just about having really good foundations in your [00:09:48] business. It’s about the why behind your brand and business.
[00:09:52] And a lot of that will be informed by your values. You will put that into that will likely be the reason behind your why.
[00:10:00] Now in terms of the why behind your brand, you can, there will probably be something that comes to mind first, and then I’m sure you’ve had the exercise where you keep asking questions. So, you know, why have you started this work to earn money? Yeah. But why, and then you lots of that and then, okay, great.
[00:10:18] But why. Um, and I think it’s done seven times. To really get to the root of the why.
[00:10:24] And they’re like the values as well. This then. Ensures that you have a strong foundation in place that then informs everything else go forward in your business.
[00:10:36] You can choose whether or not to use this within your marketing. And I we’ve all heard the term greenwashing. And I think a lot of people do worry about that now, because they don’t want to be seen as doing that. So maybe then they don’t really talk about. The things that are values led or where they’ve made changes or whether they’re doing things.
[00:10:58] But I’ve heard a term as well called green hushing and it’s kind of the opposite is where you’re sort of worried about. Sharing what you are doing to be, and to be seen as green washing. So you don’t see anything. But then [00:11:12] the problem is that then. Doesn’t allow people to see the good things that you’ve done. It doesn’t help to create better businesses overall or a different landscape for businesses. If more and more people share about the good things that they are doing, it helps to drive other people to do that as well.
[00:11:29] It will say then lacks any transparency. It doesn’t help people to get to know what is the truth and what’s going on behind a business. And is definitely something to keep in mind. So. I personally think that as long as you can show the things that you are doing. Then you should be talking about it and using it in part of your marketing and on your website.
[00:11:53] You know, potentially on your packaging. So if you are a vegan certified brand, Um, or sorry, using vegan ingredients, you should say that and be clear about that because it’s helpful for people. Two. So that they can pick brands that align with their own personal values.
[00:12:09] All these things give a much stronger foundation to your business, to your brand. That then can be used in things like your brand identity, your branding. To help customers know that they are in the right place, that you all the business for them. Um, it can help them to. No, that they have shared values with you.
[00:12:29] And get that sense of community as well, potentially on things like social media. Because they know [00:12:36] if they’re engaging with your brand, that other people share their viewpoints as well.
[00:12:40] In summary. I think that you definitely need to look at what your values are, what your why is, and then use these to create a really strong business and brand foundation.
[00:12:50] I’d love to know what you think. So feel free to screenshot this episode and start a conversation on Instagram. Like add it to your stories. Or just message me privately. And yeah, let me know what you think. And you know, I’m not an expert in talking about these things. I’m, just trying to convey some of what I think and how I think that it’s important and some ideas as well for you to.
[00:13:15] To be able to think about these things, if you haven’t yet, or if you need to review them.
[00:13:20] So, yeah, let me know what you think. I’d love to hear it. If you did like today’s episode, then I’d love if he could leave me a review on as well. Thank you.
[00:13:27] I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. You can find the show notes at elmleafstudio.com/podcast. I’d love to connect over on Instagram and that’s @elmleafstudio.
[00:13:40] If you’d like to stay updated, you can also join my newsletter. And if you go to elmleafstudio.com/newsletter you can sign up there. And you’ll also get access to my free resource library.
[00:13:55] Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the consciously created brand. [00:14:00]

[00:00:00] This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit. In today’s episode. I want to talk little bit about what branding is, how you can brand your business and just defining some of the terms, because I think there’s a lot of misconception and often people talk about branding. And really, they might just mean a logo or even a brand identity. First thing to say is that your logo is not your branding. Even your brand identity when it comes to things like your logo, colors, and fonts, that’s still not your branding. They form your brand identity, which is a part of your branding. But it’s not the same thing. So your brand is obviously what people. It’s the way that they might describe you or talk about you to other people. And your branding is all of the aspects that are created to kind of make someone feel a certain way about your brand. So it’s, it is things like your brand identity and how everything looks is how everything feels is how you as a brand sound. So your brand voice, your brand tone. Um, it’s the messaging that you have and all of that kind of comes together to form your branding. So in fact, [00:01:24] actually things like some shops. They even have a scent that they pump out in the air. Can you believe it? And that that all forms, the perception that people have about them. Um, if you think of. You know, a company like apple there’s. They’ve got such a distinctive branding that, you know, you know, who it’s for, you know, like you believe a certain thing about their products and, um, they create that desirability. And often people are like an apple person. Um, and it’s the way that they have branded themselves to be that, to be perceived in a certain way, um, to seem sort of maybe more cutting edge. To seem geared towards creatives and. They create that like desirability through the way they launched their products, even in. In quite a, it was quite a different way to how other people were doing it. So a quote that I quite like, and this person’s like an expert on branding. It’s Marty Neumeier. I’m hoping I’m saying that correctly. And this is from the brand gap. And he says a brand is not a logo. A brand is not a corporate identity system is a person’s gut feeling about a product service or company. Because it depends on where this for its existence, it must become a guarantee of trustworthy behavior. Good branding [00:02:48] makes business integrity to society and creates opportunity for everyone from the chief director. Uh, chief executive. From the chief executive to the most distant customer. Um, this is where, when I spoke to Karen few episodes back. And some things I’ve been mentioning on Instagram. It. Even it’s about like things like the customer service, it’s the whole experience. So if you are a product based business, you need to think about how someone feels from the moment they first come into contact with your brand, through every aspect, whether that’s then coming onto your website, the ordering process. You know, did it, how the confirmations come through and then on to how. What happens, you know, in, through that communication and their parcel arriving. If they have to talk to customer services. What’s the customer service experience. It’s it comes into so much more than just your colors and your fonts and your logo. That’s that’s the truth about branding and often. You will see people talk about offering branding as a service. And you need to be clear about what you’re actually expecting. Is it, are you going to be getting a brand identity, which is very valuable, but it’s not the full picture of branding. And if you’re starting out, maybe [00:04:12] you do need some aspect or if you’re starting out or you’re looking to kind of grow in a certain way, maybe you need some brand strategy first before you even get into. The actual design aspect with a designer. And some designers offers this, but not all. A big aspect of the brand strategy and talking through, um, things like your customer personas and positioning in the market and looking at your brand voice and tone. All of that I’m comfortable with, but you know, there is people that their sole job is to be a brand strategist. Um, and that might be something that you need, or it might be something that you’re looking at in future. And then from there you can really form a stronger brand identity and you can ensure that you use it to make sure that every customer touch point feels on brand. It’s just defined as well. The difference between a brand identity and a logo. Because often a potential client would, could say that they just. Just want a logo design, but you have to then think about how useful that, that is actually going to be a logo is purely the brand mark it’s that. Well, most people know what a logo is. So when it comes then to the rest of the things you need to design, like your website or a business cards, even. What fund are you going to use? And what colors are you going to use? Um, and certainly if you’re a product [00:05:36] based business that has packaging as well. A logo. Isn’t really just going to serve you on its own. It’s it’s just the single kind of mark that represents your brand. And it doesn’t create any form of feeling or it won’t really create much feeling or sense of your brand on its own. And that’s where things like the colors and the fonts and patterns Icons illustrations All come in to making more of an impression Another thing that I wrote a blog post before on. Um, so I’m just going to kind of read from that a little bit and talk about that is I use the analogy of a Bush. I want to do, do it as a tree, because that sounds better. But when I started thinking it through it didn’t quite work. So here we go. If you think of Bush. If you think of a short tree, if you want, um, the roots, I like the foundations. They are your why, your purpose, your values, the vision, and then the PO. So that people don’t really see so much. And obviously some of that will come through into the aspects that they do see, but that is at the heart of your brand. It’s the foundations, what your business should be then built on. And then you’ve got the trunk and that’s the core of your brand. The what and the how. So this is what people will see in the way that you do business. It’s what you offer and it’s how you do it the way you do [00:07:00] it. And then you can think of the brunches as the visual aspects, maybe like the, or the things they will see even more it’s the brand identity and the brand voice with the tweaks and leaves being the more tangible copy design photos and ultimately all of the customer touch points. . And that is the bit that people will see the most of. But you want that bit to be beautiful green, healthy looking leave, maybe some berries. But the Bush behind needs to be healthy to survive. And like I say that then starts with the foundations being strong. The roots. So for a business to be. At its full potential. Ideally all of these things need to come together. And it helps the customer to feel confident to purchase. It helps a potential customer see that you are the business for them. You’re the company. You’re the brand. Um, because. The foundations are there. And they inform every other aspect. So if you’ve got those foundations that are values led and values based. And then all of that comes through in the rest of your business and how you do business. It’s going to be a much stronger brand. So obviously as someone that’s a visual designer, Um, yes, of course I think design is important. But a successful brand needs to have so [00:08:24] much more in place than just the design. You could have a beautiful brand identity. But if it’s not based in strong foundations, if it’s not based in really who you’re actually trying to target. Or, um, You know who your potential customers are. Um, or ideal audience. If it’s not based in values and have that strong. Core of the why you’re doing the business. It’s probably going to fall flat. It’s not going to connect with people in the way that it could. Because it’s just surface level. Just looks pretty. So, if you can see, if you can see that you can see that. And holidays, many customers, consumers are seeking out brands that they connect with. Brands that are aligned with their values. Friends that are purpose driven that have a sense of community. And you need to think about how you can offer all of that. I don’t know if you saw on Instagram recently, I did a little short video series. Where I discussed a number of aspects about creating a brand that you and your customers love. And I dove into some of these different points in more detail. And I’m actually going to bring it onto the podcast as well. But I wanted to say, I wanted to record this one first as, like I say, it’s about the foundation’s. In another episode, I’m going to talk about defining your values as a business owner, but as at the business as well. And I do [00:09:48] think that they should be separate and I will discuss that. And then we can look at the different aspects of how to bring that across into everything else that you’re doing. Now as a conscious brand. I’m sure that a lot of this could already be in place. But maybe you’re listening and you’re new to business, or maybe you want a chance to reflect on what you’ve been doing so far. Hopefully some of these things that I’m saying. We’ll be helpful and resonate and maybe give you some thoughts of things to take action on or to have a look and reflect on basically. Okay, well, thank you for listening today. And if you would like, some of the resources that help you in growing your consciously created brand. Then if you head over to my website, only studio.com forward slash newsletter. You can sign up there and I’ve got a number of resources for free in my library. And when I see free, obviously I do. You mean, you know, with, with you given across your email address, But you can unsubscribe at any time. That’s absolutely fine. Even if you just want to grab the resources and go. And I will say as well, if you didn’t want to sign up, but you’d like access to the things, then please just send me an email and that’s totally fine. I don’t mind. Um, so it’s just easier for delivery to send it through my email system. But I’ve got a number of things. Number of things on there that could be helpful for you. I’ve got a guide about your target [00:11:12] audience and defining them and the type of design that might appeal to them. I have a, Canva template where you can create customer personas. a website planning guide. Brand reflections. She, so that is if you are further along in business, but you need to take the time to reflect on what you’ve been doing. Then that’s the one for you. And it’s something that I plan to be expanding on and adding extra resources as I go. But yeah, if you sign up there and then you’ll get access to all of those. And if you think that maybe you would like someone just to look over everything. I have two different levels of review. So I have a free first impressions review where I’ll look at your brand identity and your homepage of your website and give you some pointers. If you’d like something that’s more in depth. That’s where my audit comes in. And that’s much more thorough. It’s looking across your brand identity. In much more depth, your website as a whole. And also, I will look at aspects of your marketing as well. In terms of your website, I look at things like your speed and, any different. Aspects, I might find in relation to accessibility, for example, or just any ideas I have and I’ll give you anything that I spot and I’ll give you suggestions as well that you can either take yourself to work on, or you could hire me or another designer to implement. And [00:12:36] again, all the details. I’ll put it in the show notes, but that’s across on my website. All right. Thank you for listening today. If you find this helpful, I would love a review as well. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. You can find the show notes at elmleafstudio.com/podcast. I’d love to connect over on Instagram and that’s @elmleafstudio. If you’d like to stay updated, you can also join my newsletter. And if you go to elmleafstudio.com/newsletter you can sign up there. And you’ll also get access to my free resource library. Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the consciously created brand.

[00:00:00] This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.

Hello. Today, I’m going to be talking about podcasting. I mean, this is only my ninth episode. But I thought it would be interesting to do one that’s a little bit about my initial thoughts. I know that a lot of people have the idea or they’re thinking about doing a podcast or thought about it.

And so I just wanted to share a bit about my experience so far. While it’s still quite fresh in my mind as well. And something interesting that I saw earlier was a lot of episodes. And by the, uh, sorry, a lot of podcasts and by the 10th episode, And then when I looked into it, it seemed like there was a suggestion that sometimes it might be by the third episode.

Or the seventh or something along those lines. So it’s kind of an interesting, especially at this point to see that.

There’s also this thing called pod fade, apparently, which yeah. The podcast just sort of no longer starts to happen. Now that I’ve been doing, I can see how people start it. And then, then the podcasts do just tail off because it is actually, it’s harder. A lot more work than I thought it might be in [00:01:24] some ways.

And obviously like a lot of things like you don’t maybe get so much initial reward perhaps, or, you know, you got to let these things go on for a while before you might see any sort of outcome. And also it’s like the time it’s coming up with ideas, I suppose if people hadn’t made me prepared some, I have got a list, but yeah, just kind of that whole.

Like, what do I feel like talking about me be for some people, um, cause I’m a little bit like that. It’s kind of like, oh, I don’t feel like talking about that today, or I’m not feeling so inspired, which I’m sure if you’re listening and you identify as being creative. You might understand a bit of that experience. Um, of course. So we do just need to also do the work sometimes.

And that’s also about being professional obviously you do sometimes have to get stuff done, even if you’re not feeling in the mood for it, but there we go. Um, so yeah, let’s go into it. And I’ll just talk a little bit about how things have been going and my thoughts and experiences.

So. If you’ve listened to the first episode, I think I got into this a little bit. Um, about sort of why I decided to start a podcast. And how, for me, something that I had thought been kind of thinking about a lot over different years. It kind of popped into my head over and over. As [00:02:48] though maybe I should start one.

And sometimes it’s, it’s hard to tell isn’t it, whether that’s coming from your own thoughts or if it’s something that is truly a nudge that you should do it. But yeah, it kept popping up. And also for me, I think. I just wanted to see it as a chance to practice using way for his and get used to talking more and talking about the things that I’m interested in and just finding my voice in that way.

I’ve always been quite comfortable with writing. And obviously I’m comfortable doing things like art and illustration and design. And I think when I was younger, like, As someone that was quite shy, like that was more my way of communicating and yeah, like I say, I was labeled as shy. And then it can be quite hard to find your own voice just in general.

That alone, like when it comes to speaking about things that you care about or things that matter to you. All things that are a bit more of unreal.

I would say that it does feed into the work that I’m doing a little bit. So obviously there’s that bit of back and forth that is relevant to my design business. I’m talking about. Conscious brands and all the sort of topics feeds into the design work. I do. So it makes sense from that point of view.

Um, but at the moment, there’s no expectation that it’s actually going to have much of an impact. Um, It’s [00:04:12] more of a longer term thing and just trying things. And I know that you kind of have to keep showing up as well. So I think if you all thinking about doing one, you’ve got to really think about why you want to and whether you can keep it up

And also, if you are hoping for it to have a certain objective, like. Working for your business or is this something that you just feel called to want to put out there?

I would say for me, one of the hard things is just finding the time. So like a lot of things. Especially where I, so I have a toddler stay-at-home mum. Um, but I also work part-time within. And so then this is also another part-time thing. And then it’s about finding the time. And sometimes that time they do have to work is more like the evening or the weekend.

And maybe by that point in the day that. You know, I might not. Um, I’ve been talking all day to my son. And then do, do I want to sit and record for Longo? So again, it’s just something to consider about the timing of when you start as well. And do you have the Headspace? Do you have the time for it? Can you put in what you want to.

And this isn’t obviously to put people off, I’m just talking about the type of things to think about.

Now some of the things that came up for me and might for you, if this is something that you’re thinking about, or just the kind of like worries about, being able to keep it up, [00:05:36] being able to be consistent, but being able to find enough things to talk about. Whether you sound okay talking about different things, whether you’ll come across well, will you say something that someone might hold against you. Um, And I think it’s natural that a lot of these things are going to come up for you.

And there’s not really, probably much you can do other than just allow yourself to think about these things and feel them. And then decide whether they matter and whether you can overcome them. Or get going anyway and just go for what you want to do, which is start a podcast.

Now I am someone that listens to a lot of podcasts. So for me, it’s really great. Obviously times when walking, um, especially when my son was younger and was napping and things like that, or. We’d go for walks. And he was in the prom, like love listening to podcasts then, or. Washing up and I think there is something to be said for this format. That’s just. Quite personal, rarely, you, you feel like you’re really listening to that person. So that’s obviously like a probe. But with that comes also again the kind of feeling of. How you a bit of vulnerability about becoming more visible.

Anyway, once I had decided that I wanted to do a podcast this time, Um, I’d been thinking about it a bit. And [00:07:00] then one of the things that actually really helped me was Lucy Lou graft, who has a podcast, and she’s a podcast producer. She did a workshop. And I joined that and it was all about getting started podcasting. I think it was, might’ve been about picking your niche in particular. So I made sure I was able to jump on it and be on their live and kind of workshop through some things. So I asked my questions and it was just great to get to talk to someone else and, um, have that reassurance of what you were trying to do and why. And. Yeah, talk through a few things. And so I said, like the type thing, so. Thought me became to mindful. I’d want to talk about. And then there was a few bonuses that helped to plan out your podcast a little bit.

It was enough to just give me that push, like, okay, just get started. And so I recorded, my first actual episode was recording of blood paste side. I’d written. And trying to just do a bit more off the cuff. So that was actually the episode about greener websites, which was two episodes ago.

So I recorded that. See how I sounded and I thought, okay, that’s not too bad. And that then enabled me to start recording small and. I use notion to organize everything. Which I think I’ve talked about. Pre, or I talked about notion previously, [00:08:24] so I’ve probably mentioned this. It allows me to create a progress tracker, so I can create whole list of ideas and then track where I’m at with it. Whether about outlined to the podcast episode with her I’ve recorded it. All of that kind of stuff is really helpful to see, to keep track of. I think one of the first things you might want to do is just list out all the ideas that you can think about, of type of things you want to talk about.

Especially if you’ve already gotten an initial idea of the general general, just find your podcast. And then it’s about breaking down into little topics, almost like episode headings. And what they might be. I would definitely say something like notion would be so helpful for organizing that. So I really recommend it obviously notion for me.

But it could be Trello for you or something else.

And then. I’m not sure, exact timeframe. I think it wasn’t that long after that it was black Friday and I saw the hello audio, black Friday deal, which was. Uh, some sort of discounted rate with, hello audio, you get both the public and a private feed. And I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with the private one. I like the idea of me be kind of creating something a bit behind the scenes and a bit more personal.

Um, possibly. But for now, what I actually have done is on my recent challenge with used it to record, the audio for that. And then people can access it like a [00:09:48] podcast. So that’s quite a cool option as well. And maybe. If you’re listening to this and you think. You kind of liked the idea of doing something that’s not completely public, maybe is as a bonus for your customers or clients.

And it’s a bit more about behind the scenes and helping people to, build more of a connection with you or your brand. And so that can be a really. That can be a really cool idea. And hello audio actually have quite a lot of content, obviously on this is something they do well and specialize in.

So if that’s something that interests you I’d recommend going over to that and having a look. And seeing some of their ideas for how you can do private podcast.

Another thing that I found, before I even started editing any podcasts, which I think was really lucky. It was, I heard about de script. And what it is is an app that you can record directly into, or you can import your audio into, and it will create a transcript.

And then that transcripts, what you edit to edit the podcast or video? It works for both. So you can use it to you literally delete a word and it will take you out with the audio clip. So much easier than sort of scrubbing along on the timeline of an audio and trying to split it and do all of that kind of stuff. That’s the typical way you’d edit audio or [00:11:12] video.

So, oh, I love it. It’s really helpful. And they actually, they also have the ability to create audio grams, which if you don’t know where that is, they’re those shareable animated graphics, perhaps. So you can use it as a real and it’ll have your audio clip, and then you, you often will see the texts come up and often have.

Like kind of audio wave. As like a animated thing. Um, so all of that can be done within de script, which obviously just helps it have, like, I can have a really nice workflow. I can record directly with Descript. Edit it. Create transcript from that create the audio grams from that. Yeah. Really helpful. And I highly recommend if you are intending to do any sort of podcast or even probably for video editing, at least getting that initial first draft of your video edited before maybe taking it into another program.

This probably should have come earlier, but something else to think about is how you want to do it. So, like I say, whether that’s private or public, but what sort of format is your podcasts going to be? Is it going to be a solar Sade one? Is it going to have guests and. If, so what type of guests, who are they going to be? Are you going to do short episodes or longer?

[00:12:36] And I dunno for me. I, I do like listening to mix, actually I listened to. People that do solo episodes quite a lot. Um, but sometimes I’ll listen to guest episodes too. And I do like the type of podcasts that have them dotted in here and there, which is the route I’ve now gone. And yeah, I personally will listen to sometimes a short podcast.

Or sometimes a longer one too. And it’s really helpful to see how other people do this and see what you kind of like, but also what would work for you is recording it and creating it.

In terms of the equipment I’ve been using a snowball microphone. And that’s the snowball ice, sorry. That’s so that’s blue, Yeti, snowball, ice microphone. I actually bought it several years ago. So like I say, this sort of thing has been on my mind for quite well. And I bought it a few years ago when I was actually filming more of my art and illustration stuff.

I think it was so I’ve had it a long time, but it hasn’t really seen much use until more recently. And then because I’ve been recording clips, although actually today I’ve decided to not record this on video. I’m just focusing on speaking, but I’ve actually just been using an old Logitech webcam. Which isn’t great. Isn’t the best quality. Um, and that’s why if you did [00:14:00] see on my audio grams, or if you seen on YouTube, I put it quite small. It’s not the best quality, but there we go. It helps me to record it. And then I’ve also got a ring light and of course I use a laptop for recording into, and that’s where my software is the de script thing that I’ve mentioned. So I keep it really quite simple. And like I say, I’ve actually decided to not record this today. Because I’ve been reviewing how long this has all been taking me and my marketing in general. My aim is to try making these a bit shorter. So it’s easier to edit. And then. If I’ve got an idea that then I ended up talking a lot about or something. I won’t say a lot about, I can. Just record it into several different episodes, which is obviously beneficial as well.

So, yeah, I’m just thinking speed up time. Then I don’t have to worry about the video. I might stop posting on YouTube for a bit. And just focus on getting it out as a podcast and sharing on social media. that’s just something to consider.

So, yeah, again, if you are thinking of starting a podcast, you need to be realistic about how much time you have and how much time things might take.

And potentially looking at sort of scaling back your intentions for it. Based on those things. The shorter your [00:15:24] podcast is the easier it is to edit of course. And the easier is to write notes about, and that’s some things to think about too. So how have I felt about doing a podcast? Well, yeah, I think.

I’ve found it quite an interesting thing. I do enjoy being able to try this. And I think it is helping me figure out how to talk about things and why I like talking about. And just getting my voice out there. A little bit. Something as well that I really did enjoy was recording my guest episode that I’ve just had. And I’ve also got a few more in the pipeline. Because initially I wasn’t sure if that was something I was going to do. I thought let’s focus on solo episodes and maybe look at that in the future. But because I saw her the opportunity to speak to her.

And I just thought, oh, that. She would be perfect for the podcast. That’s when I then decided no, actually. I think it would be nice to talk to people. And I’m also thinking it would be great to have some brand spotlights on here. And really look at how and why people have started their businesses and what they’ve been doing. Yeah. So I think that would just be really interesting thing to talk to people as well, and kind of spotlight different businesses, small businesses that aren’t service providers. I mean, so I’m talking about, if you run some sort of lifestyle brand or fashion or beauty,

Or your creative that’s [00:16:48] putting products out there. That’s the type of business I’m thinking would be great to talk to, to get there, how you did it, type of story as well as then the keeping up with the guest experts. And like I say, I’ve got a few people lined up to talk to who will, be really interesting conversations as well. And so I’m really looking forward to that.

Just thinking with. If there’s anything else that I’ve missed, but I don’t think so, particularly, I guess the only thing is yeah. Uploading it to hello, audio. And then what do you do with it? And obviously some of the more technical stuff about submitting to different platforms like Spotify. But all of that was actually quite easy. I just followed some online tutorial.

And it wasn’t so bad as I thought.

So to round up, I think if you are thinking about doing a podcast, like everything, it comes back to your why. It comes back to where you intend with it and what you think you might talk about, whether you have enough to say. Um, if it’s something that you have time for and the head space for, and it’s something that you can keep up for awhile.

But so you could maybe be considered just doing it for a little bit. I think. There’s maybe a bit of stigma there, but it’s, it’s all about experimenting and trying things sometimes. So if you feel kind of cool to do it, then why not give it a try? Or maybe you could just record a few episodes [00:18:12] and intentionally just put it out as a short bit.

You might find that you love recording it, or you might find it really hard. But you won’t know until you try

so I’d say give it a try, see what you think. And yeah, if you have any questions, just let me know. I’ll put some links in the show notes to different things that I’ve mentioned, like Lucy, Lou craft, and Descript. And then you can find all of those. Alright, thank you for listening. And I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what you thought. And if you have any questions, just let me know.

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. You can find the show notes at elmleafstudio.com/podcast. I’d love to connect over on Instagram and that’s @elmleafstudio.

If you’d like to stay updated, you can also join my newsletter. And if you go to elmleafstudio.com/newsletter you can sign up there. And you’ll also get access to my free resource library.

Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the consciously created brand.

[00:00:00] This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.

If you’ve ever felt that mainstream marketing can kind of feel a bit unethical. Or there’s certain strategies or things that you’ve seen people suggest don’t feel right to you. If you wish that your marketing could be more joyful. And it could do good and be good. And feel fun and easy then today’s episode is for you.

I was really excited to be talking to Karen from Goodness Marketing. we had a really great conversation with a lots of things that. Um, made me think slightly differently than I had, some points that hadn’t considered. So I think you’ll get a lot from this episode.

Karen Webber is a marketing strategist with specific focus on ethical marketing. As the owner of goodness marketing, Karen helps small businesses with big hearts do marketing. That feels good. Does good and gets good results. She has also part of the team behind the ethical move. Creating a movement around ethical marketing.

Originally from a seaside town in South Africa. Karen now finds herself living on the edge of the peak district. Where she makes up for the lack of ocean by spending as much time as possible outside in Hills or in [00:01:24] water.

Before starting goodness marketing in 2017, Karen worked as a marketing director for a marketing agency. Previously, she worked in various editorial and comms roles in London, Manchester, and her native South Africa. During her career. Karen has educated thousands of people in various settings on aspects of good marketing.

[00:01:47] Kirsty: Hi Karen. I’m really excited to talk to you today and get to know a little bit more about you and your business, goodness Marketing. So let’s get started with some questions. I’m interested to hear a bit more about your background, how you got into marketing, and I know you got started initially in editorial and communication roles, so how did the transition happen?

[00:02:09] Karen: Yeah, well thanks, first of all for having me. I’m really pleased, to be here. Um, so I, so. Started my career in South Africa where I grew up and I studied journalism and marketing and comms and started in like comms roles there. I soon realized journalism wasn’t for me, um, or traditional sort of newspaper journalism wasn’t for me.

And then I came to the UK and I started working as a content writer in a marketing agency where I ended up working for 12 years. But sort of went from the editorial side to, after having my first child, they asked me to take on the marketing for the marketing agency, and which I [00:02:48] did. So for about five years, I really learned on the job, um, what marketing is like certainly in that context. And as soon for me anyway, I became very aware of mainstream marketing, operating in a way that’s quite at odds with me and who I am and like my values as a person. And that’s when I sort of started thinking about starting my own business, uh, doing things my way. Following my marketing philosophy because it’s very hard, and I know you’ve worked in agencies as well and I’ve listened to you on the podcast before talking about sort of how things were at odds when you have to do something a certain way.

And for me it just kind of became untenable, I suppose. And that’s why I started the business five and a half years ago now, to do marketing my way in a way that I believe works. For businesses, and that feels good to the people who do the marketing and the people on the receiving end of the marketing.

So for me, I guess coming from that background of editorial and comms, it didn’t feel like a huge jump when I started doing marketing. For me, marketing is very much about relationships and about good communication and clear communication. So that, stood me in a really good stead, that ability to write really well and to communicate and understand sort of relationship [00:04:12] building at scale, which is how I see marketing.

[00:04:15] Kirsty: Yeah, that makes sense actually. That, and, and you said of course you have got a bit of the marketing within your studies as well, which I didn’t realize. Um, but like you say, I guess especially from a sort of more ethical marketing per perspective, where it is about building relationships and maybe avoiding some of the tactics that, um, aren’t as ethical.

So what sort of things did you notice then that made first get interested in ethical marketing. Were there some like sort of strategies and tactics that didn’t feel right? Or was it just the overall approach? Can you tell me a bit more?

[00:04:50] Karen: Yeah. The overall approach felt gross to me because it was very much, for me anyway, it felt very manipulative.

So going back to now working in agency, it felt very manipulative. It felt, speaking of relationships very one way so that there’s one, party who wanted to get stuff from the other party and would do anything to get that. So I had to do things like, um, I feel like in that agency there was a lot of like data mining in order to be able to target people better and there was no sort of consideration, I think, for the end user or very little consideration for the end user.

So it was very much content for the sake of content, I mean. Almost no training, [00:05:36] no with no training whatsoever. I was writing what I now see was financial advice, . Um, bearing in mind I’d been in the UK for like six months and all of a sudden I was writing about interest rates and mortgages and stuff.

There’s no consideration for the end user and whether the output was actually quality. So for me that was problematic. I also noticed, and this is a very much a marketing thing, that the whole language in marketing is very, um, about getting stuff from people. There’s lots of military terms being used in marketing, so even things like strategy and campaign, that’s like a military strategy and a, and a campaign and attack, and we talk about target audience and capturing leads, it’s quite, um, , it’s, it’s just the kind of mainstream marketing mindset, which, when I started noticing those things, I was like, this is not who I am and it’s not what I want to contribute to with my skills.

Because I knew I was good at marketing, I knew I was good at writing and all of these things, and I thought, if I’ve been given these talents and skills, why would I use itfor evil , if I can use it for good. So in terms of tactics, I think it’s ki, it’s kind of a murky area. I used to kind of feel like that’s a good tactic and that’s a bad tactic. Like you could easily put it in boxes and [00:07:00] I don’t believe that anymore. I think there’s a lot of nuance involved. So I am involved with an organization called The Ethical Move, so I’m part of the team. Behind the ethical move, uh, creating conversations around ethical marketing and community around ethical marketing.

And it’s a global organization. And when I first pledged, um, so before I was part of the team, there was a list of tactics. So it was like, this is. This is bad. This is the opposite. Let’s do these things. And they really resonated with me. And then I joined the team and we realized that it isn’t quite so black and white.

There’s a lot of nuance involved. So one of the first tactics, that was on the pledge was charm pricing. So to say that we won’t use charm pricing, which is, um, if you’re not familiar with the where we price things, and we see this a lot like you price it at 297 pounds. And that plays on, it’s called the left digit effect.

So it’s a psychological tactic to make us, our brains are so strange because they see 2 97 and they look at the digit on the left and they go, well, that’s close to 200 pounds. When logically, you know, it’s three pounds off, it’s basically 300 pounds. So, um, that was the first tactic. But then we started looking at some other tactics, things like countdown timers, for example.

And, when [00:08:24] we first started for the ethical move, I, we said, that’s wrong. It’s wrong to have something there to say, you only have so much time. And here’s the ticker ticking. And for me that was very black and white because it’s stress inducing when you go on a website and there’s things going, like you have to buy, you have to buy now, otherwise you’re gonna miss out.

And it plays on that fomo. Um, but the more we kind of, talked about it as a team and also as the team grew and other people came into the team with different perspectives, we realized that there are some sections of society that find, for example, countdown time is incredibly useful. So a lot of people with neuro divergence, want that countdown timer and told us they actually find it helpful because they don’t find it easy to go.

Um, the time will be up soon or to see a date and to make that connection that there’s limited time. And this triggered an amazing conversation in the ethical move and among the team. About whether or not it’s right to actually put tactics in boxes of good or bad, and that there’s more at play, there’s intent behind it, there’s integrity.

What we want to see is, Businesses taking conscious decisions and putting the person before the sale. So that’s when we kind of started working on a intention pledge, which changes [00:09:48] from these tactics are right, these are wrong, which is a very patriarchal kind of, Part of the oppressive systems in which we live, which we actually want to dismantle.

That’s very much about, you are doing it right, you are doing it wrong. We know more than you and we’ll tell you how to do it. So we’ve changed the pledge in the ethical move to be more nuanced, um, I guess more open to interpretation, but to give the agency to the people who, actually implement the marketing.

[00:10:18] Kirsty: Oh, interesting. So actually I hadn’t realized that that had changed, so I signed it. I think it probably would’ve been around March or April last year. Yeah. And it definitely had the things that you were mentioning, like the talking about charm pricing and the countdown timers. So to be honest, I hadn’t really realized, I follow on Instagram and I, I think I’m on the newsletters, but I hadn’t really realized that the nuance had changed slightly.

[00:10:42] Karen: Yes.

[00:10:42] Kirsty: Um, and I think, like you say, it probably is about it. It all does depend. I mean, , the, the charm pricing is something that I’ve, like, I thought, oh, I don’t wanna do that, and I’ll try and avoid, and I think as you say, it’s like, uh, people kind of know what’s happening, but it also can be, your brain goes, ah, okay.

It’s slightly better price than it, it is, but it, it probably is then about who, who you are speaking to and whether that is a problem or not. Yeah. And same with the countdown. [00:11:12] So I was thinking as you said it, I find. Kind of stressful, but also sometimes it’s helpful. So it depends if it’s one where you’ve gotta make a decision in like 20 minutes, I don’t, I don’t like that personally, but one where it’s like you’ve got a few days so you can think and make a kind of educated choice. But you can still go back to the sales page and see, okay, right. I’ve got that time for me, then that is helpful.

[00:11:35] Karen: And I guess from the point of view of the person doing the marketing, it is about considering who’s gonna come to this page and how can I help them to make a decision about this. Um, transaction that’s right for them.

Mm-hmm. . So I agree with you giving, like if you are gonna give people a few days time to make a decision, that feels kind to me. But it’ll be different for every business. And I think that’s the point where we landed with the ethical move is that we wanted, to make sure that buyers have agency and that the people doing the selling consider not.

I have to make the sale at all costs. And actually for the longest time, we talked about the importance of slowing down the sale. And it’s something we just took, almost for granted. Like, yes, of course it’s a better thing to slow down the sale for everybody. And then we had someone join the team, who just said to us, that’s a very privileged, um, I mean in kindness.

She came to us with a wonderful just statement. Blew our minds. Um, slowing down the sale and [00:12:36] having the option to slow down the sale is quite a privileged position to be in, to go. I don’t need to make this sale right now. So for us who are building, trying to build a global movement around ethical marketing, it was very interesting to get this, uh, perspective from somebody from a different culture to what most of us were at the time.

And just say for some people, they need to put food on the table today. And that’s when the idea was born of our community, and it’s one of the, which we launched last year. And it’s one of the bits of the ethical move that I love the most is this. Um, kind of learning out in the open idea where we don’t go, we know all the right answers and we are gonna tell others. But that we can go, hang on, we got that wrong. For example, we wanted to create a standard similar to fair trade or organic. For ethical marketing and through conversation and through community with each other in the team and others in, the industry, we were able to see that that’s not gonna work.

So to be part of a team that can go, hang on, we got it wrong, or We want to change, um, you know, how we thought about this, we’ve got new information on the table, has been just so rewarding. So then we launched our community last year. and, it’s wonderful to learn about ethical marketing with others who deeply care about the same things [00:14:00] and we’re all just figuring it out.

I feel ethical marketing as a concept is still quite new and in to be able to learn and improve and learn from others in that community is a wonderful thing. So things are always changing. .

[00:14:15] Kirsty: Yeah, no, I was just gonna say like, it must be good to then be able to open up that conversation and get different perspectives. And like wider conversations around it. I’m guessing, like you say, it’s quite new, so it probably isn’t at the moment sort of discussed in marketing courses particularly. I’m sure they do, obviously, I’m sure touch on ethics, but not, not in the way that the ethical move are talking about.

[00:14:39] Karen: Um, I think there are some actually. So I’ve definitely seen some universities who offer, uh, courses. have ethical marketing in it. I’ve personally been asked to speak at a, university about the topic. So it does feel like there is a shift happening. Mm-hmm. where it is becoming more of a topic. And I do think, , consumers and people who are going to uni, maybe younger people now, and there is more of an awareness about ethics in general.

And I think people who are going to uni now, I went to uni like 25 years ago. Um, and that was just not something that crossed my mind. Whereas nowadays I think people are a lot more aware and they expect a lot better from businesses as well. And I think [00:15:24] that that, tide is changing. Definitely.

[00:15:27] Kirsty: That’s true actually. And I suppose there’s a lot more kind of transparency being demanded of businesses as well and people. Sort of notice if they’re doing things that don’t feel right. Exactly. So how did you actually get involved with the ethical move then?

[00:15:42] Karen: So I took the pledge, um, years ago, maybe four years or so ago.

And then about three years ago, the founder, Alice Carolina had come across my work, I guess on social media. And she contacted me and I was mega flattered cause I was proper fan girling cause she’s a wonderful person. Um, and she contacted me and asked me to be part of the team. So that’s how I became involved in the team.

And the team’s grown quite a bit since I’ve joined. Um, and just wonderful people are attracted to the movement. And like I said before, I just keep learning so much from other people in the community and just sort of in general through, like people pledging and then seeing these wonderful businesses.

So, yeah, it’s been really a wonderfully enriching thing, not just for my business, but for me personally to be, because I used to think I’m the only one. So when I worked in this agency and felt really at odds with how they were doing marketing and how we were expected to do marketing. I thought I was the weird one.

And I mean, maybe [00:16:48] I was, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I thought I must be the only person and there must be something wrong with me that I see marketing in this way that’s so different to everybody else. And it was incredibly reassuring for me to realize a, that my sort of philosophy or how I instinctively felt I wanted to do marketing actually, it had a name tag. It was called Ethical Marketing, and there were loads of other people like me out there in the world. and again, this is what we’re trying to do with the community, is to have a place where people can feel less alone and can explore the concept of ethical marketing.

[00:17:25] Kirsty: Yeah. I think you can also then bring it back into your own work and things that you learn from there. You are able to then pass on to even more people through the work that you are doing. Um, so that’s great. I think like for a lot of people, they think of marketing as a bit like one, just another thing to get off their to-do list or they don’t really want to be doing it, but they know they have to to promote their business and aside from, or maybe as part of the ethical considerations, you talk about making marketing more joyful and obviously with your name being goodness, marketing. Um, so how do you help people to achieve that, and what services do you offer?

[00:18:06] Karen: Well first of all, I would say I really do get that people feel ick about marketing. I’ve been [00:18:12] there, like I said, I’ve done that. Toxic marketing, it does feel gross. Um, but I have really reframed, and this is how I help people, is by reframing their idea of marketing. moving away from it, having to, or thinking about it as something you have to do to something that you get to do. Um, and I see the transformation in my clients where they really own who they are, really understand who they are as business owners, as a business, really deeply understand who they’re for and really care about them.

And I know you’ve talked on the podcast about purpose before and it’s about understanding your purpose and being so passionate about it that almost, it just bubbles out anyway. So yeah, for me it’s really about understanding who you are and trusting your intuition. Because so much of mainstream marketing, like for me where I thought I was wrong and I’m the only one, and it was because my intuition and my instinct about what was right was being silenced by all this noise about how we should be doing marketing.

So I really like to work with my clients to shift this perspective from you should do all of these things and this is how you do marketing. To really be able to listen to their inner voice and to understand their business, understand the people, that they sell to or want to sell to, and really serve [00:19:36] them.

Because I really believe marketing can be an act of generosity rather than to be about take, take, take. It’s about serving people. It’s about being yourself, not pretending, showing up in your marketing, however that may look as you, and for that reason, attracting the right people to you so that you’re not just as a business like they’ll do because they’re the cheapest or, um, you know, tolerated or, yeah that will be okay, but that you really attract the people who love you, not in spite of who you are, but because of you being you. Somehow I work with clients in one-to-ones. We have coaching, or I offer coaching services, power hours and I help people with strategy as well. And then I also offer workshops and training and group programs, which bring me a lot of joy because, like you say, how my ethical move work impacts on how I can serve my clients.

That really is for me about making an impact and having a ripple effect. I love planting the seeds of, yes, you can do things differently. No, you don’t have to do things that feel gross and showing people, not just for it to feel joyful and feel good, but also that it can actually have a positive impact on your business because why do marketing if it doesn’t serve your business?[00:21:00]

[00:21:00] Kirsty: Yeah. . I think it’s something that I’ve sort of been trying to figure out for myself. You know, you go into it and think, right, I’ve gotta do, got a poster here and I’ve gotta share on there and I should be doing this and that. And is trying to figure out what, what works best for your like personality. Um, or I suppose if people have a team, then maybe that’s slightly different cause they can outsource or they can delegate it.

But especially if it is someone by themselves. They’ve got to kind of tailor it to them as well as what’s gonna then connect with like the audience, their right audience, their ideal customers. What sort of, what sort of clients do you tend to work with? Are they individuals? Are they people with staff?

[00:21:43] Karen: Um, it’s a mix. I would say the one thing they have in common is that they genuinely care. They’re good eggs. They care about their work and they care about the people they serve, the people who buy from them. In terms of size, I’ve had clients of. A lot of my clients are, solopreneurs or very, very small teams.

The biggest client I’ve had, had about 80 to a hundred staff, so I worked with a marketing director and then helped her figure out her strategy for them, for the team, and for. The marketing of the business. So it’s a wide range, but I have a huge passion for preneurs and very small businesses. But yeah, the [00:22:24] one thing they have in common is that they realize they don’t wanna do marketing that feels gross, um, that they do. They’re in business for more than just being in business, certainly for more than just profits. So they have a purpose. And that purpose can be lofty and beautiful about saving the world, or it can be to have a happy family home where their work slots in with, you know, other responsibilities, which is part of the reason why I set up goodness marketing as well.

So it’s something that, um, I can really relate to. But yeah, the one thing that I have in common, the genuinely good people, and I feel so privileged. I had a call with somebody this morning, an inquiry call, and I just looked at their website and I just thought, I’m so lucky, that people like this want to work with me.

So, yeah, and there’s lots of them out there. There’s lots of really good businesses doing really good work. And I love the fact that they’re shifting their marketing away from what they should think they should be doing to what they genuinely want to do. Cuz that’s how we. And again, referring back to the ethical move, we believe that how we sell can change the world.

And it can dismantle these oppressive systems, which see a few at the top reap the rewards of, um, the oppression of, well, the destruction of the planet and the oppression of, um, So many people. [00:23:48] So, it’s a small cog in the machine, but I love the fact that every day through my work, I’m chipping away at the system.

And the more people who keep chipping away, eventually it’ll have to come down. .

[00:24:01] Kirsty: Yeah. And that’s the thing as well, like I want to see, you know, the businesses that are doing better succeed and, with things like marketing, um, if that, that will help them obviously get what they’re doing out there and more people, more customers, then be drawn to them and work with them, which is ultimately gonna do good things.

So I love that. Yeah. . . Going back to you said about some workshops, so I saw that you have the Wilderness Tonic retreat and like you’re saying about the types of, people that you work with. So I see that brings together lots of different business owners in an outdoor setting. Is that right?

[00:24:38] Karen: Oh, it is the joy of my life running those retreats.

So I run it with, Katya Willems, who was an Instagram coach, and that’s how we met. And she now has a micro adventure business, so she brings her sense of fun and joy and adventure to it. And we’ve been running that together since 2019. Our seventh one will be running in April of this year, and we run it in Dale in the peak district at a beautiful venue.

Where business owners can come for the day. I mean, it’s a day long retreat and we focus on their business [00:25:12] so they each have the opportunity to, bring business problems or challenges, to a group of other like-minded individuals. And obviously me and Katya, there’re, um, able to give advice. But also it’s about connecting with themselves and connecting with nature.

Because we’re up in the foothills of Kinder Scout, um, the Kinder Peninsula. Plateau and we eat beautiful, vegan food and it’s just an absolute joy for the soul and for the body. And I always get so much out of it. It’s just one day, but I feel like I’ve been properly away because it’s a new environment.

We go for a beautiful walk. We do some mindfulness stuff. And the transformations that people experience on this day. are just incredible. The collaborations they make afterwards, we’ve had people get ideas on the day, and then for, for example, one was start a podcast and then a little while later we were listening to her and we all celebrated together.

And then a month later we, um, catch up again with our intentions to see whether people have made progress. And it’s just a wonderful community of people who come to these days. So, yeah, it’s, it’s an absolute joy and I recommend finding something like that for all business owners. So I think it’s something most of us don’t do enough of where we don’t take that time away from the business [00:26:36] every day, just making products or servicing clients, but taking that time away and just go, what am I about? Where do I want to go? And looking just wider than the work as well. So how do I want my work life to feel? How do I want my business to impact on the rest of my life? So yeah, the wilderness tonic is, um, is a joy.

[00:26:58] Kirsty: Sounds such an amazing way to take a step back to be around like other like-minded people and have conversations and sort of just get away from the computer so you can think, think a bit differently and yeah. Yeah, I love that. So you kind of helped to facilitate different conversations as well.

[00:27:15] Karen: Yes, we do. So, I mean, we tweak the agenda all the time, but we have, creative exercises and like you say, getting away from the computer and doing something out of your comfort zone. Although, I must say it’s very introvert friendly. It’s not no, like, um, Stand up and do an elevator pitch, that sort of thing.

So we have really creative exercises. We get quite tactile. We had some drawing exercises, the last one we ran. And we do a lot of listening to each other and reflecting back. So we do an exercise, which I think will keep forever, where when the person brings their business challenge, they just talk for five minutes in the group, um, which is quite hard.

Talking for just five minutes about your business [00:28:00] and the rest of us just stay silent. So the person would talk and really sort of, some of them after two minutes, a lot of them after like four minutes go, oh, and I dunno what else to say, but it’s then when they start, like scraping the barrel, um, that the real gems come out.

And then for another five minutes we just reflect back what we saw. So, Say, oh. When you talked about that aspect of your business, you, you know, sat back and like folded your arms or your face lit up when you talked about this idea. So just reflect back what we see. So that’s a really powerful thing.

And then, yeah, we go on this beautiful walk and continue the conversations. So yeah, we facilitate a lot of connection and a lot of, um, there’s a lot of thought provoking things that we do to, yeah, just get people away from their desk away from the day-to-day. And when we first started planning this at the start of 2019, we wanted to design a day that we wanted to go on, um, that we knew that, we needed in our business and in our life.

And then it’s been lovely to, well with feedback from people, but also just as we’ve grown as business owners to tweak the day and just develop it into what it is now.

[00:29:15] Kirsty: You also have a program called the Gentle Marketing Reset coming up soon, and I love the, one of the subheadings is Slow Progress is still [00:29:24] progress.

Can you talk about what the Gentle Marketing Reset is and who it’s.

[00:29:29] Karen: Sure. Um, oh, I love, again, I love the gentle marketing reset so much. Um, probably because it is quite anti hustle, and really embraces that, um, slow aspect of marketing, which we’re often told, that that’s not worthwhile. And if we don’t, you know, hustle and work really hard and post every day and keep up a pace and the same pace as everybody else, that it’s somehow worthless. So that was kind of why I started this program, and it’ll be the seventh time that I’ve run this one as well. Um, or different iterations each time. But for me, the gentle marketing reset is all about learning the simple or going back to the simple basic foundations of good marketing. So regardless of TikTok or whatever is new or whatever is of the day, it’s about back to what’s really important when it comes to relationship building through marketing away from the noise. And it’s about finding your own confidence, with your marketing so that you can make decisions based on what’s right for you, what’s right for your business, what’s right for the people you serve.

There’s a lot of support and encouragement from me on the program and also from the others on the course. So it’s a beautiful community that forms, around the program.[00:30:48] What I’ve really, built into the program is taking steady and consistent action. So I find often we sign up for courses and we learn a lot and we feel so inspired and then nothing.

So over the course of the three months of the program, There’s live workshops, there’s co-working sessions where we come together and, all work on an aspect of our marketing. Uh, there’s q and a sessions and people have access to me obviously to ask questions for a second pair of eyes. There’s also guest experts on topics like s e o or starting a podcast or social media.

all with this, philosophy of slow, steady, doing it in a way that’s sustainable and doing it ethically as well. People also have a one-to-one with me afterwards, so even after the three months, I don’t like to leave them. So then in the quarter after the gentle marketing reset that have a one-to-one with me for that accountability and just making sure that they’re keeping up the momentum.

And the good habits. And I’ve had lovely feedback from it. So people who really sort of come to the program feeling very overwhelmed and, um, Avoiding marketing completely. And then at the end of it, feeling in control of it and positive about it. And I mean, some people have said they love marketing at the end, so there’s [00:32:12] always a risk that you could go from feeling ill about marketing to actually loving it.

So yeah, I’m super excited to bring it back again. Um, and I’m excited to see who signs up as well, cuz it’s always, once again, good eggs on the course. .

[00:32:27] Kirsty: That sounds amazing. And I didn’t realize actually that you’d run it so many times already, but I love that the, you are kind of bringing in that accountability.

It’s not just, here’s some trainings, go do it. You and you’ve, they really get to ask you any questions as well. Yeah. So how do people find out more about it if it sounds like something that they need?

[00:32:46] Karen: So it’ll all be on my website. Um, so at the moment as we speak now, there’s an interest list that people can sign up for and then I will be launching it soon on goodnessmarketing.co.uk.

And, via my newsletter. I always tell my newsletter subscribers everything first. So if people want to sign up to that, I would welcome them. .

[00:33:06] Kirsty: Great. I’ll put everything in the show notes as well so that people can link straight across to get to your website and have a look.

[00:33:12] Karen: Thank you, .

[00:33:14] Kirsty: Okay, so if we go onto a lightning round, so I had so many questions that I wanted to ask, so I thought how best to structure it. Right. What drives you to keep going in your business?

[00:33:27] Karen: For me, it’s the fact that I genuinely love it. Um, and I genuinely care about the people who I serve. And I really [00:33:36] believe in the impact that I can create through my purpose, which is to be a force for good in the world.

[00:33:40] Kirsty: And what has been the biggest struggle for you as a business owner?

[00:33:45] Karen: Um, my life is really busy. I’ve got two kids and a house renovation and a dog and lots of interests and I volunteer. And I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I can’t do everything in just 24 hours a day. Um, and that I need to pace myself . I mean, I’m still learning. All the time because I need to save my energy for all those other things that are also important to me.

So it’s fine juggle. that I sometimes get right. Or feel like I’m getting it right and other times, not that I can’t do all the things, even though I’ve got lots of ideas, some of them will have to wait. .

[00:34:21] Kirsty: Oh, I can definitely relate to that as a mom as well. And just like you say with other stuff going on, and I’m sure lots of other people will too.

[00:34:28] Karen: Yeah. And I think it’s not talked about often enough. No. I certainly, came to a realization that most of, at one point I had a bunch of clients and I realized, oh, none of them, um, had kids. And I thought it’s a very different, scenario. I think it was actually in Covid and I was like homeschooling and all the juggle. Um, and it is a very particular scenario, ,

[00:34:51] Kirsty: which I think again though it’s a perspective that you can bring to your work if someone else does have other commitments or if they are parents. and then that that [00:35:00] is something that they have to factor in. There’s a limit to your time and you can’t just spend hours on marketing or. Um, all day doing things,

[00:35:09] Karen: not just parents. Uh, I’ve had a couple, I know a couple of people who care for elderly, elderly parents or have other responsibilities, so, I think it has made me more empathetic towards people’s individual situations. And I think the more we talk about the fact that, I mean, This looks quite where we are talking now.

Looks very tidy, but like there’s mess everywhere. There’s Lego right next to me here. Um, and life is just, you know, not quite as tidy as, as tidy and sorted as it often looks on Instagram. ,

[00:35:41] Kirsty: yes, . Um, do you feel that as a society and business owners, we are moving towards more ethical business?

[00:35:50] Karen: Yes. And I think , I think it has its downsides as well.

Um, I think it’s something that’s becoming a little bit sexy and a little bit like, oh, this is good for business. And there’s a lot of, um, I mean, I don’t want to be judgy, but there’s a lot of businesses with unethical practices who were shouting about how amazing they are. I’m thinking of a lot of, there’s a lot of green washing and washings of all sorts, and it really annoys me.

A lot. Um, so I think, and I don’t think it’s fair that it’s up to [00:36:24] consumers to go, to have to go and look at like supply chains and really deeply research. So yes, I do think there’s a more of a consciousness, but I think, there’s still a lot of crap around basically.

[00:36:35] Kirsty: Yeah. Lots of work to do. , is there a brand that you think does an amazing job with their marketing?

[00:36:43] Karen: I think there’s lots of particularly small businesses, um, who do amazing work with their marketing, especially the ones that just show up authentically. I’m thinking of, um, like my coach Ray Dodd, um, I love her marketing because she is very consistent. She is not about being perfectly polished all the time.

Um, she’s got an amazing podcast. She. Serves her audience. So I really like her. She shows up as herself. I admire that. And then for product brands, um, I’ve actually had a really good experience just over the last week with Lucy and Yak, the sustainable, um, well, Dunga, I think of them as dungaree makers. They make lots of other things.

Um, but I love their marketing. It really speaks to me. I’m obviously one of their target audience, but I love how they, draw their values through everything. There’s a fine like thread that just pulls everything together and I’ve had some customer service things, so I had to deal with their customer service team and all of that was just completely aligned, [00:37:48] and I like that because I see a lot of like jarring experiences.

Where, brands might say they’re one thing, but then you speak to the customer service and it’s not the same. So I really like that consistency, of their brand. And also, I’m a sucker for Patagonia. I’ll just always admire what Patagonia does as well.

[00:38:06] Kirsty: such a good point though that it’s, yeah, the marketing can be great, but then if it actually leads to an experience that isn’t so good, whether that’s on like their website or customer service side or.

In the delivery of a good or service, then yeah, that’s not good at all.

[00:38:22] Karen: It’s like a consciously created brand will think of all those aspects, um mm-hmm. , like not just the marketing, not just the social media. And I feel Yeah, Lucy and Yak, even their colors and their design, like everything just works together and I love.

[00:38:38] Kirsty: I’ve got some Lucy and Yak. Dun Greece too.

What is the main piece of advice you would give to someone who comes to you and they’ve just started their business and have done no marketing? Where would you say to start ?

[00:38:50] Karen: Um, First of all, I would say show up as you like drown out the noise of everything that’s out there. Um, because the first thing we do when we start a business and we don’t know about a topic is we Google it.

And if you’re gonna Google how to do marketing, you’re gonna find a lot of crap that’s not aimed at businesses like you. I find a lot of the mainstream marketing advice [00:39:12] is aimed at, um, businesses that have teams and big budgets and possibly a different approach to you. So I would say drown out the noise.

Show up as you and don’t try to do everything. Look at the basics, which I think the foundational aspects, um, are so important. Figuring out what you are about as a business, what your values are, what your key marketing messages are, who you’re trying to reach, where they hang out, and then consider those factors against what you need to achieve in your business and how you can do it sustainably.

So it’s no good, making very fancy, lofty plans. And then it sits there. Stuck on your wall or as a spreadsheet and you don’t action it. So figure out what you can sustainably do. And even if you start small, just do something.

[00:40:02] Kirsty: Yeah, I think, I guess that kind of covers cuz like the next one was gonna be, what do you think people miss out on when it comes to their marketing strategy?

[00:40:09] Karen: Yeah, I think a sustainable plan, um, being realistic. either people don’t have a plan and it’s just all like, jumbled in their head and they bumble forward or they make amazing plans and it’s not sustainable. Another one is, um, Making time for marketing even when they don’t see the results or sort of doing things that feel like busy work, really.

So, oh, I’ll just do an Instagram post, but not taking the time [00:40:36] to think, is this gonna have a positive impact on my business? Is this actually helping over time? are my audience here. And speaking of social media, definitely putting all their eggs in a social media basket. Um, and I really feel so strongly that people need to spend most of their effort on their website and their email marketing, and that they can form a much more sustainable marketing plan if they focus on those aspects of their own, rather than being at the mercy of whatever Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or whatever decides on the day.

Yeah,

[00:41:12] Kirsty: absolutely. Do you have any top tips for marketing ethically?

[00:41:17] Karen: Um, do marketing that aligns with your integrity. Um, do it in a way that you’re proud to share with the world, that you won’t be ashamed or feel like you need to make excuses for it. Um, that proud to share, not because it’s perfect, but because it’s honest and it’s real and it’s true to you.

So, stick to your integrity guns. See another military reference, .

[00:41:43] Kirsty: Oh yeah, when said that earlier. I was like, gosh, it’s so true, isn’t it? And a lot of the terminology, yeah, as you say, probably comes from that, or is just not that nice wording as well.

[00:41:55] Karen: target, it’s like all of it. It’s just, ugh,

[00:41:59] Kirsty: [00:42:00] And one final question. What does creating a conscious brand mean to.

[00:42:05] Karen: For me, it’s about having a purpose that’s greater than just making money. Uh, wanting to have an impact. Um, being prepared to be brave, to go off the beaten track and taking a different route to other people because that’s where the magic lies and that’s where the enjoyment is, and that’s where we will create a new world.

Yeah.

[00:42:25] Kirsty: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk today. I think there’s lots of gems in there. How can people find out more about you? How can they connect with you?

[00:42:34] Karen: So, um, I am trying to embrace LinkedIn more in 2023. So I’m hanging out there a bit more. I love Instagram, it’s goodness marketing on Instagram.

But yeah, my newsletter is the place where I put my heart and soul in and a chat to people every Sunday at five o’clock uk time. So if people wanna sign up to that, it’s goodnessmarketing.co.uk/newsletter.

[00:42:59] Kirsty: Great. I’ll put all those links in the show notes as well. All right. Thank you. Thank you for your time today.

[00:43:03] Karen: Thanks for having me, .

Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the consciously created brand.

[00:00:00] This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.

today we’re gonna be talking about making your website that bit greener. , looking at the small changes you can make to maybe some of the more bigger things. And I want to give you some really actionable tips. The first thing is that, often I think we don’t really think about things like our website having a carbon footprint or how social media and video streaming does too, or how our cloud storage is packed full of files and that’s got to be hosted somewhere that’s in a data center that’s being powered.

And obviously each time you transfer a file or download that is, is also contributing to your carbon f. , did you know that if the internet was a country, it’d be the sixth largest polluter? To be honest, this is something that I only, I learnt about as I started El Leaf Studio. I hadn’t really thought about it that much before, and I think that’s quite common and quite normal.

So if you haven’t thought about that, that’s fine. But hopefully today we’ll get you thinking about some of the things and making some small change. . The first thing to say is we don’t need to all close down our online businesses and give up. , especially if you are [00:01:24] doing business because you want to make a difference and you know you’re not just doing business as usual.

You are trying to focus on planet, over profit, and you care about things like the environment, animal welfare, and you’re making better products. I’d rather see companies like you succeed. Then some of the ones that don’t put those things first. The fast fashion companies, the beauty brands that test on animals and don’t care about the resources that they’re using.

And the good news is that there are many consumers who want to be choosing the better option nowadays too. I think we’re all becoming more and more aware of the effect that we have on our planet, on the environment. And also coming to realize that we are in a climate crisis now.

You know, climate change has been happening as something that I’ve been aware of since I was a child. But I think more and more we’re understanding that actually this is, this is kind of critical. And I think as individuals and as consumers, we can all play a part by trying to do small things. It doesn’t always have to be the big things.

And as business owners, we can try to do better. Ideally, I think it’s, I think bus big businesses have a big part to play. Of course, they are the ones with the money, the funding, the means to change, and of course often contributing [00:02:48] to the biggest, to having the biggest. . So let’s bring it back to what we’re talking about and that’s making your website greener.

we’ll focus on that today. The first thing you can do is see where your website is currently at. And you can use a tool like website carbon.com to see how much CO2 a page on your website produces. Now, of course, I recommend maybe trying a few different pages and see seeing what the results are.

You might be pleasantly surprised or you might end up being kind of horrified and know that then there’s improvements you can make as you go along rather than having to dramatically change things over. for example, like for me personally, even right now, I’d love to redo my website incorporating everything I’ve been learning this past year.

But my time is limited and it can’t be a priority to completely rework it to be, as low as possible. And I’ve just had to tweak what I can. And so these are some of the suggestions that I’ll be making. One big and somewhat easy thing you could do is switch to a more eco-friendly hosting company.

This is obviously, if you are self-hosting your website somewhere, so not using a builder or a platform of things like Squarespace, Shopify show it, or Wix. That’s if you’ve got WordPress and, and obviously many other CMS too. Perhaps you’ve even built your [00:04:12] website. On the host’s own website builder.

So then you wouldn’t be able to switch actually saying that, but you could look at the options to in future, make a switch and there are things to consider as you look to switching. One of the things to think about is where the data center is actually located. one thing that most people wouldn’t even think about, and again, myself included previously, You just, I, I used to use like companies in America, some of the well known ones cuz obviously they’re highly recommended, things like that.

But I found out that if you are, for example, if you are a UK based company and all, or most of your customers are also in the uk, then you should choose a web post that has a UK data center, not a US based one because this reduces the data transfer. it’s not happening to go as. Another thing to look at is how they are powered.

Some website host will be powered entirely by renewable energy, which is obviously fantastic. Others might utilize tactics such as carbon offsetting to, to boost their claims, but also that’s still valid and it’s still better than choosing a host that doesn’t really doesn’t care about those things or isn’t transparent about.

And then you might also wish to look at what other commitments to good practices. At how they do business, what commitments they’ve made. do they get involved in [00:05:36] any good initiatives? Do they, I dunno, maybe put profit, some, some of their profit to charitable causes or environmental programs.

and then of course check their reviews. Same as you would with any other website hosting company. You can get a good sense of how they might be as a web host. Is their customer service good? How’s their uptime? Have people had any issues? But always worth checking the reviews and , seeing what people are saying. If you are looking to switch, there is a resource called the Green Web Foundation Directory. and you can look on there and it’s got loads of different, more eco-friendly web posts or green web posts in all different countries.

And like I said, obviously it’s good to look for one that is near you , or your customer base. And the good news is switching might not be as stressful as you could be imagining. In fact, a lot of web posts will in fact help you migrate your website over to them either for a small, small fee or sometimes for free.

And that’s definitely , worth asking. If you don’t have a developer or you don’t have the tech skills to be able to do that yourself, see if the, see if a web post could help you tra migrate to. If you are on one of these hosted platforms or you are using the builder for your web post company, one thing that you could [00:07:00] think about is if you are looking at maybe rebrand redesigning your website at some point in the future, or indeed in rebranding, you could commit to making the change as part of that.

Now with the sort of, I call them hosted platforms. Check their sustainability policies. When I was researching what might be the best solutions for clients at Elm Leaf Studio, I was quite shocked to see that certain companies like Squarespace do not appear to be prioritizing sustainability. And they lack any transparency about , where they’re hosted and the things that they’re doing.

It’s quite surprising actually. . Whereas, for example, Shopify, they do have policies in place. They’re transparent with what they’re doing. It seems like they care about sustainability and they have aims and hosting itself is green.

They even write reports. So yeah, it’s very, very much more upfront, complete contrast to square. And then I also did look at web flow. I believe it was hard to find, but I did find in a forum one of, , someone from their company said that they, what did they say? They, I think it’s hosted with Amazon, basically.

So, that. Isn’t the worst for hosting. A lot of that I think is renewably powered. Again, maybe worth checking, but yeah, it was quite hard to find much information on that [00:08:24] one. And I think the same for a lot of the other platforms too. It’s just hard to find anything out about it. Let’s go into other tweaks that you can make on your actual website itself now. One thing to think about is obviously, as I said, every time, oh, I dunno if I said this, every time a website page loads, that is energy use. So if you can minimize the amount of page loads on your, that someone’s doing on your site, then you will have a more efficient.

Now, obviously you want people to be exploring your website, but in terms of usability anyway, what you don’t want is a confusing navigation. You want to be able to get people to where they want to go, because ultimately that’s gonna be. Resulting in sales. If someone gets frustrated trying to find what they’re trying to find on your website, they’re just gonna leave.

If your menu’s a mess, if you don’t have filters on your category and product pages, for example, people are just gonna get frustrated potentially. And again, if links are all over the place, or if things don’t work very well or as expected, . So making your website easier to navigate is a win-win, both for conversions and of course for making your website a little bit greener.

The next thing you can look at is reducing your overall website size, If you think about how each page has a size to it, if you can [00:09:48] reduce the pages, especially if there’s content that’s there, but like you’re not linking to it from anywhere anymore. So, delete old pages, for example.

Delete products that are no longer in existence, like if you’ve got them archived. That could be worth deleting off and just cleaning out.

Minimizing how much loads on each page, and that can be the things that you see. But it all can also be things like the scripts that are loaded. If you are calling in a lot of things like custom fonts, often things like your newsletter will use we’ll have some JavaScript or J that is put on the page as well as the html if you’ve got those things.

In general, the smaller your website is, the faster it is as well. Again, it’s a win-win. On this one. You can do things like not having too much video and certainly don’t autoplay. That’s also bad practice. From an accessibility point, from a user perspective.

Something that could be quite easy to implement would be a caching service, which will serve visitors a copy of aspects of your website rather than freshly loading them each time. So it makes it faster and it makes it more efficient too. Another consideration, , spec. This is particularly relevant if you are an eCommerce site or if you have a lot of images, such as on a blog as well.

You could use a content delivery. And this reduces the page [00:11:12] load by serving the content from a data center that is nearer to the website visitor. Kind of like what I was saying about the hosting, , this makes your website faster and the data doesn’t travel as far as if your website is hosted in a completely different country.

Following on from this, ensure your photos are safer. Web please, especially if you have a lot of photos, like on e-commerce, . This can make a huge difference. Even nowadays, even if you’ve taken a photo on your smartphone and directly uploaded it, that is actually a huge photo. You need to be saving them to, the maximum width that they’re gonna be viewed at.

That’s in pixels. And then you also need to set the DPI to be lower, so save them as a lower re image you won’t get blurry. You won’t get pixels if you’ve saved them right but they don’t need to be the same resolution as they would be for print.

So that is, yeah, 72 dpi. And then a further step you can do to optimize is using a service like Tiny png. And what that will do is strip extra data from the image, and then again, it makes them even smaller.

Definitely look at switching out the largest images on your site. That would be a really quick win you could take today.

A small point to make is that saving images as JPEGs are usually smaller in size than PNGs as they have less data. And also this one you, [00:12:36] might not think about, but gifts are actually quite large file sizes usually. So again, minimizing your use of that and choosing JPEGs as the main product imagery or website imagery, file type, if you can, Or using vector illustrations where you can, can also cut down on the size. Now obviously you probably won’t do this for your products, although I did see a really cool example of organic basics have created a low impact version of their site and they make use of illustrations rather than photos for each product image.

Cause. It can make such a huge difference to the file size, so they say their low impact website reduces data transfer by up to 70% in comparison to our regular website. Check that out. Obviously. Probably not realistic for most people and they’ve got the budget to have both websites and to have had these custom illustrations done that showcase the product.

And it makes sense for their product too because they are just, they are basics. You know, everyone knows, can kind of visualize what a t-shirt looks like and a vest and pants, One more tip is potentially looking at making a darker color palette minimizing web fonts and limiting animations.

Again, the darker color uses less power. And obviously if it’s not in brand for you, you don’t want to be putting dark colors across your whole website, but you could look at using them in certain places so [00:14:00] your footer could be a darker color. Maybe you could do rows and sections in, in a darker tin from your brand’s color palette, if that’s.

Like I mentioned, and another one is minimizing your custom web fonts on your site. So I’m obviously all about having a beautifully branded website, and you want, it’s, it looks great if you can have the same fonts from your brand, the same as you would on print or anywhere else, or across on Instagram.

And whilst I do recommend using that, especially if you’ve got prominent font, so like a really nice display font that you use for headings and things like that. But maybe you could then consider using a website font, which is one that a typical computer system font would be. So things like aerial, you know, most people have that Collibra.

And that could be then used as the body copy. And because everyone has them, it’s not running that extra script for bringing in the font. It’s already on someone’s computers. They’ll just see the font as it is. My final tip would be then limiting animations Like everything else, the animated effect, it adds extra code to the website. It can make the page load slower, limiting them will make your website smaller and faster. The biggest thing to take away is the smaller site, the more green [00:15:24] your site is. Now, I’d love to know what questions you have or what your biggest takeaway is. Are you going to, are there any actions you’re gonna now take that you’re gonna plan to take? I’d love to hear from you and you can come and chat to me on Instagram at El Leaf Studio. Thank you for listening today, and I’ll be back soon.

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. You can find the show notes at elmleafstudio.com/podcast. I’d love to connect over on Instagram and that’s @elmleafstudio.

If you’d like to stay updated, you can also join my newsletter. And if you go to elmleafstudio.com/newsletter you can sign up there. And you’ll also get access to my free resource library.

Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the consciously created brand.

[00:00:00] This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.
Hello. So today’s episode, I think I’m gonna call it a Monday musing, which is something that came to mind. But I thought today, it’s maybe not as, uh, specific.
It’s not structured. And I’m gonna just see how, see how it goes
I’m recording this episode and it’s Friday and it’s gonna go out on Monday, which I, when I started this I’d, I managed to kind of get a few episodes ahead, of when I wanted to launch here and, I was a couple of weeks ahead each time, so it’s a bit annoying and I’ve, I’ve got ones that are coming up.
but I specifically wanted to post this one today. However, I dunno, I’ve just, I’ve been a bit stuck this week and I haven’t had much time and it’s one of those life getting in the way things. I was also doing, a free challenge as part of Ruth Poundwhite, who is a business coach, she did a free training but offered a V I P upgrade, which was, Voxer access, which was amazing. And you got to ask like your kind of own questions in there.
but [00:01:24] it was also, along with all the stuff going on this week, it was then just that extra bit draining. Um, for me personally, kind of being engaged in a group like that maybe, or just digging into stuff, that the topics kind of brought up. But anyway, I think it was a really great experience and I do recommend going and seeing the type of work she does if you relate to being a soulful entrepreneur or quietly ambitious, which is the name of her book, podcast.
So that’s something that I personally relate to. and yeah, let’s get into the episode. I mean, I can’t believe that we’re almost, well, we’re almost at the end of January now. We’re a month into 2023. and it’s taken me, it took me a good chunk into this month to actually get around to planning kind of for my year, or at least when I say planning, I really mean sort of saying some intentions and thinking more like quarter one.
Um, partly because of the, my current sort of phase of life that I’m in, it’s quite hard to plan ahead. and I’m sure like a lot of you actually, you can have all the good intentions, but stuff changes as the year goes on. And who knows what will come up. I mean, gosh, recent years alone, go to show unit can [00:02:48] never be quite sure.
However, I know for some people that January can be more. Setting these goals and big, big goals, big intentions for the year, and then cracking on with sort of smashing those goals. And that’s not really gonna work for me.
But wherever you are on that scale, my aim is to offer some ideas with this episode of things that have helped me be productive even whilst I have been side huling and working very limited hours. Cuz I am a stay-at-home mom. I work a part-time job. And I’m also doing this, so I’ll be covering some ideas for those of you looking to grow in 2023, from my perspective, including how I’ve gone about sort of setting some intentions and planning and the things that help me be as productive as I can be, and I’m not trying to advocate for like push, push, push and being super productive.
I think that’s not for everyone. Uh, it can be really hard and, rest is important too. So it’s about setting yourself in a manageable way and what’s actually achievable. And that’s something I find quite hard, but I’m trying to get better at just scheduling maybe a couple of things that I need to get done.[00:04:12]
Makes it more achievable.
So finding ways to actually organize myself has been really important for me over this past year since I started Elm Leaf Studio with bearing in mine, with everything going on and. Quite quickly I discovered Notion, which hadn’t been around previously in um, when I was doing freelancing before. So I dunno exactly when they launched, but suddenly it seemed like a few people were talking about it and.
It takes a tiny learning curve, I think, but then as soon as you get used to it, well, I personally love it because it has the power of a word processor. You can use it just to write notes, but everything can like link together. It’s searchable. and it has database functionality, so you can create databases that then link out to other things.
What I mean by this is, say for where I’ve set a project, I can then, um, use a relational field or relation field and link it to different tasks, which then means you can see which project it’s linked with and kind of on and on, like I could break down the task into to-do. or I can link it with a goal as well.
And then you could create another, um, dashboard type thing that will pull in your daily to-dos through looking it up in a database. Yeah, I just think the potential there is [00:05:36] amazing. And as someone that’s always really struggled with planning, I’ve, I’ve gone through various things. If you’re watching this, you might see my new whole calendar.
Cause I do like to see stuff visually. I’m someone that’s like, try things like bullet gling. And actually I stuck quite well with that for a time. But then once the novelty wore off, I was over it. Um, but I’ve had like desk planners. I’ve tried to blocking out time on my calendar, on my phone or like, you know, on a, on a Google calendar.
What else have I tried? I used to use a sauna. I did quite like a sauna, but this foundation for me, gives me so much more flexibility. So that’s why I love it, . And I think the cool thing as well is that if you are someone that gets a little bit bored of a system or maybe when it’s like kind of a rigid, and you have to do it in the way that the program or the journal or the planner tells you, the cool thing with notion is that you can customize it and you can keep iterating on it.
So, I had set up a certain way to do my tasks and then when, when I realized like things weren’t really working that way, I found a new way to do it and I’m able to adjust that and tweak it to work for me. And you can also have the fun of like, Adding colors to the text and um, adding emojis and stuff. So it [00:07:00] can look more visually interesting too.
And you can embed various things. So yeah, if that sounds interesting to you and you haven’t looked at notion yet, I think it’s such a cool tool. And another interesting thing, they’ve just launched, oh, sorry. They’ve, had a wait list for a little while about trying their new ai and I haven’t actually delved into it yet.
And obviously we are at a point now where it is AI tools are becoming more and more talked about. I think there’s a lot of potential for them and obviously I know there’s the ethical side, I’m sure everyone’s seen. But, I think the potential for maybe getting ideas or for me, I’m thinking, okay, I can take my transcript of this audio and then I can maybe run it through some AI tool to like polish it up into the blog post to fix the spelling mistakes without me having to manually go through it and to make the sentences, sound better and read better as a blog post.
So to list some of the things that I actually use it for, I use it for planning, which is goals and then breakdown into quarters. So like quarterly planning and reflection, monthly planning projects, tasks. I have trackers on there that I use for things like daily. Not that I’m actually great at remembering to either do the habit or track it.
[00:08:24] So I think that’s something that as I maybe have a bit more time, I’d like to try and use more to remember to do things like the reading and the journaling and meditating that I know helps me, but I don’t always do. Um, but also you can use it to track other things. So I’ve got, a tracker that I use and I log my website views.
I log my social media stats and I use it to track leads as well that I’ve had in, and clients and sales, the potential there is really cool. . So I think that’s a really good tool as well for tracking the stats that you need to keep, keep on top of within your business.
Um, so like the things I’ve just listed, you should be tracking the visitors to your websites, the clicks, the sales, and of course things like your marketing as well, and seeing what’s working well and what’s not. And then you, if you’ve got the data, you can look to tweak.
What else do I use it for? So, speaking of marketing, I use it as a kind of content planner. And again, the, the power of the database really helps with this. So I have a kind of central database that I have different, categories that I assign. So I, if I come up with an idea, I can assign it as like, oh, I think this would be a blog post.
I think this would be a [00:09:48] podcast episode. I think this one will work as something on social media. Like you can tag it, you know, Instagram or Facebook. So I’ve set all that up. And then what I do as well is I’ve created like landing pages, where it pulls through just this thing specific to say my podcast. And now I’ve created like a little side. That has different various links. I’m trying to think of an example now off the top of my head. Okay, let’s go back to the social media one.
The, in my side bar there, I’ve got pages that go to hashtags or calls to actions and things like that. Any notes? Just any extra information that’s good to have to hand. And then I use a database view that pulls in just the social media posts from that central database. Another thing that I haven’t mentioned is that notion can have a calendar view as well, which obviously is you’re planning your content creation and you’re planning your marketing.
You can use that to kind of see when different things are going out. You could use it to plan like a specific campaign you’d be able to say, oh, my blog is going up on this day. And then here’s the social media posts from it, and see that all planned out. And you can then get a really good overview of like where any gaps are or, um, making sure that you have, you’ve got things going out, you’ve got marketing happening.
another example is I’ve [00:11:12] created a kind of business hub, so obviously if at some point I wanted to have some team members or if I was working with the va, it’s somewhere that you can use to store business processes or information. You could put things like your brand guidelines in there so that anytime you took on a team member or you had someone working with you, you could link them to those pages to see any relevant information.
You can keep a copy of things like your business plan, services and processes, any email templates you could use it to track your business expenses, things like that.
One thing that I’ve also more recently done is create a hub or page for different courses and trainings that I’m interested in taking or that I’ve purchased, and then I can, use it to view them, to view any notes I’ve made or just the links and details so that I can access them. It could be quite helpful for like planning if you are creating a bit of a learning path for yourself, and you could assign dates even.
Anyway, without this episode turning into a complete notion, fan girl moment. Um, I think the thing is about finding a system that works for you, of course, and whether that is writing things down and like bullet journaling or a structured journal. Or big paper calendar or [00:12:36] Google Calendar or something like Notion or aana.
It’s finding what works for your brain and using it to help you plan for your year. Plan for your goals, plan for things you’re working towards.
One of the things I wanted to talk about actually, was how I have gone about planning this year. And I, I keep saying this year, but I haven’t really fully planned this year. So I’ve kind of set some intentions for the year and I actually listened to Alice Ben’s podcast.
I’ll put in the show notes. Which one? She talks through her method of planning. So I did kind of follow that. I set three words that were kind of my intentions for the year, and then I’ve also been listening to some of, um, wondering aim FLS content.
And they’ve, they’ve had some handy stuff about goal setting and then breaking it down into tasks and projects. So I followed some of that too. And again, I’ll put a link in the show notes because they’ve also got. Some examples of how they use notion, which I found quite helpful to, to further refine how I was breaking down my goals and projects and tasks.
So what I have done is set some quarter one goals in particular. And then I broke down into which months I was intending to focus on different things, specifically where it relates to more project type of thing. Now I’ve got a few things in mind, and I [00:14:00] knew I wouldn’t be able to get them all done in January.
So I can assign the month, and then when it comes to that month, then I can look at which week is best and which day. So it helps me kind of know that I’m coming to it. Without it just being on my mind, I can think, okay, no, I’m gonna do that in February. And then, like I say, I’ve kind of, I’m doing it week by week, um, as well, kind of breaking down. Okay. I think I’ll try and do this in the third week of January, the fourth week of January.
Then when it comes to the week, that’s when I can look more at what’s a realistic day that I’m likely to get this done on, and how many things can I achieve in a day? And at the moment, for me, maybe that’s only looking like focusing on one thing a day before I was doing more and I was able to, and at the moment my time seems to have compressed a little bit.
Maybe it’s one thing a day and know that I get that done. So if it, if you are working on a side hustle, I think that’s really important. It’s about to your best of your ability, being, planning, and thinking how you can be productive. Finding the way that works for you to break down what you need to do and to keep doing it as much as possible.
If you are only doing it on side, then you do have to think what you can actually get done. And even if you, if you’re not, you know, if you’re full-time, well actually you still probably only have [00:15:24] likely a small amount of time for things like marketing tasks for admin tasks.
A lot of the things that I’ve been thinking about recently, and it’s been something I’ve sort of been reflecting on for a while. Um, maybe sort of from December as it kind of. Becomes that reflective time of year, but then also thinking now ahead in January of like, how should 2023 be? And I’ve been thinking a lot about how business can feel fun for me or doing kind of the things that I enjoy and following that rather than pushing the things that I’m not enjoying so much.
Now, if you’ve listened to some of my other podcast episodes, or if you’re on my newsletter list or follow me on Instagram, you’ve probably seen that. Instagram’s something that I’ve kind of put a bit on pause really, because I wasn’t seeing good results for the output. But also it’s just taking up a lot of head space for me at this point.
Because you can’t just post on there. You do have to engage. And as someone that is quite quiet and introverted, that is quite draining for me, especially with my work and home and life situation as well, to find that extra energy to do all of that. , but there’s, there’s always other ways as well even as a product business owner, you could look at things like, advertising, whether that’s online advertising or, in media, printed media.[00:16:48]
If you found a really niche magazine. A lot of your customers, would be reading then that could be a good avenue for you. There’s still potential there. The paid of social media adverts can be really effective as well. I mean, I dunno about you, but I do get targeted with different adverts and they can be really targeted, like I say, and then you end up wanting that thing.
So they do work. It’s very, dependent on your strategy and your budget, and also the type of audience and thing you are targeting. It completely depends how much your ad spend is actually gonna be, but it could be something worth looking to into if you wanted to reduce your social media.
I agree with what I think a lot of marketing experts would say, and that’s email lists are so powerful, because you, you get directly into people’s inboxes. So they give their email to you, maybe because you’ve incentivized with a discount or a freebie of some kind lead magnet, and then you can email them and you.
Ensure they’re getting the type of products that they want to see. They’re reminded that your business, your brand exists,
and that could be on a weekly basis. It could be fortnightly. At the moment, , I’ve only been emailing once a month, but I’m looking to increase that. , but especially I think for, if you are a product based business and you [00:18:12] regularly have new stocking coming, then you could definitely be sending out regular newsletters with look what this new thing is in, or just talking about different aspects.
Like everything, it might not be for everyone, but blogging is an avenue as well for marketing. And this can work equally well for service-based businesses, for product-based businesses as well, I think because it does depend. And it might be more lifestyle content, so it can be more supportive of your brand, maybe in that instance of a product based business rather than, Being really SEO optimized, but you might be able to turn.
It does depend on what you do and what your product is. So if you’ve got, uh, quite a niche product or something quite different about it or a way that you can talk about it in a way that’s SEO focused, then a blog could be a good avenue for you. There’s always things like getting some PR and publicity, which could obviously give you a massive boost and visibility it might not be easy to get featured, but it’s definitely something to try. , maybe you could also look at, being on different marketplaces.
Things like the, not on the High Street or Etsy even, they have a built-in set of buyers. They have people that are coming to them to look for things like gifts, to look for treats for themselves.
And it could be another way to help get your brand out there in that growing phase. So [00:19:36] yeah, these are just some ideas. Um, I’m not like a marketing consultant. I do work in a marketing agency and I’m obviously got a background of that and, but I would say my thing is designing compelling marketing. designing, and being strategic within that marketing and the strategy.
If one of the things you are kind of conscious of going into this year, or now we’re in this year is, knowing whether your brand, website, or marketing could be improved, but not sure how. Maybe you have an inkling that you could be doing better or maybe you are sure. But dunno what the next step could be. You’ve possibly been asking around what people think of this or that, and you aren’t really any clearer about what you actually need to do. What will improve your brand? What will improve your marketing?
What will improve your website? An audit will assess your brand identity and web presence to provide you with guidance and suggestions that you can either implement yourself, take on to another service provider, or book me to work with you on.
it’s hard to be objective, so get clarity on what isn’t working, and you can book your audit at elmleafstudio.com and I’ll put the exact link in the show notes as well.
something you need to try and get clear on when you are looking at your goals and what your vision is for this year is what will help you. Do you need to look at your branding? Do you need to improve your website? [00:21:00] Can it be optimizing the things that you are doing, whether that is your market or your current website. Maybe you don’t need a redesign, maybe you don’t need a rebrand, but a tweak, a refresh. Maybe it’s looking at optimizing how well your website performs, whether that’s conversions or even if you do have a goal to be a bit greener this year, can you make your website improvements so that your site is faster and lighter?
And make your website greener, which is an episode I’m gonna do soon is some ideas. But of course if you are interested as well, I have a v I P day and that could be something that we could look at ways to improve your website within that day, um, or potentially onto a bit more of a project if you did want it as part of a redesign too.
So get in touch if that’s something of interest. But outside of those things as well, like do you need. , do you need to look at a community that you can be a part of? I’ve really found in the past year that that’s been something I’ve enjoyed being part of, got a lot out of, and it can lead to business as well.
It can lead to those connections that get your opportunities of course. But let’s just get about getting support for yourself too. Maybe it’s looking at hiring a. A business coach, a marketing coach, maybe you just need to do [00:22:24] a, v i p day and sort some things out. So try and get clear on what’s actually gonna help you going forward this year, because if you know the things that you need to work on, maybe that’s mindset as well, then you can go and make a plan to work on that to set yourself up for the best.
So, yeah, all of this kind of wraps up. Again, like I said, it’s about, um, for me, thinking about how can I make my business joyful? How can I be myself and do this, and what’s the right strategies for me? . It’s not about a one size fits all. It never is, and you need to be doing the things that help make your business your brand work for you.
I’ve got an upcoming episode, which I’m really excited about. I talked to you, Karen Weber from Goodness Marketing, and she’s all about ethical marketing and doing it in a way that feels joyful and does good and is good. We had such a great chat.
I think you’re gonna love it. So look out for that one. That will be coming out soon, especially if marketing’s something that you want to work on this year.
So for this week I’ve picked F I D C Fisk, maybe, um, a notion template called Life Planner. I’ll put the links again in the show notes, um, because I probably pronounced that wrong, maybe. Didn’t explain it well, but that was a really good starting point for me to, break down my goals. And it has built in templates that you can [00:23:48] look at setting your overall goals.
You can then, um, think about which quarter you want to work on that, and also you assign it to like different areas of your life, such as. Careers or life and wellness. So it really helps you to see what you are trying to achieve basically. I adapted it, it partly with another template that I’d previously bought and just to suit myself, which is obviously the cool thing about notion, you can edit the templates.
So, yeah, this episode was probably a little bit more rambly. I hope you found it helpful and gave you some things to think. Like I said, there’s gonna be some links, um, for the things that I’ve mentioned. If anything here has got you thinking or if there’s anything you’d like to share that I’d love to hear from you.
I’m accepting questions as well for a potentially a q and a style section on this podcast. Now, obviously, if no one submits anything, then that, then let’s pretend that never was said. . But if you do have a question about your brand or website or marketing and design, art and illustration even, I haven’t really talked about that yet, but outside of my design work, I am an artist and an illustrator. If you want to talk about ethical business, greener marketing, greener websites, any questions kind of along those lines, if it fits within the like conscious brand bubble. And see what I come up with for an answer.[00:25:12]
I’d love to hear from you. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode.
I want to leave with one last thing, and that is that I’ve now created a resource library on my website. So if you sign up to my newsletter, you get access to that and it includes things like a, website planner, planning guide. I’ve got some worksheets in there, like brand reflections. So if you are kind of reflecting on your brand ahead of this year, coming up, we’re now in January.
Of course, then you can get access to that. I’ve got in there an email marketing, um, like platform tracker. So if you’re thinking about different ones, and I’m just gonna be adding to it as an, when I’m able to create different resources, it’s also got , a Canva template for customer persona. So if you haven’t really like dialed in and , got down who that customer persona, then that’s a template that you can use to start figuring that out.
If you go to elmleafstudio.com/newsletter, that’s where you can find the form to sign up. You will be obviously subscribed into my email list. , type of things I talk about are the type of things that I’m talking about here. So if you like this, then you’ll enjoy the newsletter.
Of course, you can unsubscribe at any time. . And if you did just wanna receive those things and you don’t want to be on a list and you don’t even want the faf of joining and then I’m subscribing, send me a message and I’ll get you [00:26:36] access, that’s absolutely fine.
I think I’ve covered everything that I want to talk about. This has got kind of longer than I thought it was going to. It turns out I can get talking. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. You can find the show notes at elmleafstudio.com/podcast. I’d love to connect over on Instagram and that’s @elmleafstudio.
If you’d like to stay updated, you can also join my newsletter. And if you go to elmleafstudio.com/newsletter you can sign up there. And you’ll also get access to my free resource library. Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the consciously created brand.

[00:00:00] This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.

[00:00:13] As you consider your goals and plans for 2023, you might be considering a rebrand. If you’ve never done this before, it could be quite a daunting prospect. The answer to the question should you rebrand in 2023 can only be answered like most things with it depends a rebrand is undoubtedly a big undertaking for some businesses it will just be rolling out digitally. But if you’re a retailer or e-commerce brand, that could be even more touch points, like packaging, social media, your website.

[00:00:45] Now, if you don’t know who I am there, my name is Kirsty McGill I’m a brand and website designer. I’ve been doing this for 12 years now, in that time I’ve worked for many different companies both in-house freelance and in agency settings. So I have quite a lot of experience working on brand identity, graphic design, marketing, and website design. And basically getting to understand what works well for brands.

[00:01:12] As I’m recording this tomorrow starts my free 15 day brand Presence Polish up challenge. It’s the first time I’m ever running it and honestly, I don’t know if I’ll run it in the same way [00:01:24] again, but I plan to rerun it in some form. It’s just whether it’s seeing how the challenge goes and if the format works and hopefully get some feedback. Now that to say that sometimes it’s just little things that need tweaking with your brand. You might not be at the stage where you’re ready for a rebrand, but equally you could be.

[00:01:43] It is about figuring out whether that’s the right thing to do for your business. And if it’s the right timing for you as well. ’cause a, rebrand is a big undertaking and there’s just a lot to think about .

[00:01:55] You might decide on reflection that your sort of efforts might be better spent at this stage. Just refining what you’ve got, maybe a little refreshed as all this needed. Maybe need to work on the appearance of your marketing more or your website. It might not be. Down to the actual brand like identity itself. There’s many different aspects obviously is going into business.

[00:02:21] From the product or service that you’re offering and how that fits within a market. To the way that you’re doing your marketing. And then of course your website and whether that’s appealing. And working well for you.

[00:02:37] I have a free download that I’m going to include in the show notes, which will help you with the reflection on your brand. It was called brand reflection. So definitely click to [00:02:48] download that. If that’s something that you think would be beneficial for you and it’s completely free. Just sign up with your email. And you will be added to my newsletter, but you can unsubscribe at any time. Even if that’s straight after, that’s fine.

[00:03:02] In the last episode, I covered about doing a website audit. So if you haven’t listened to that one and you feel like that might be an area to work on, then go back and listen to that. Keep listening. But yeah, that might be an extra one for you to listen to. So, yes. I saying it’s, there’s so many different aspects. And obviously your brand identity is a big part of that. There’s also a point I want to make about how your branding isn’t the same as your brand identity is often used quite interchangeably, even with people that are designers and they do, they mean that they’re going to do mostly the brand identity, but they say branding.

[00:03:41] I think it’s partly because a lot of people will use that term to mean it so I do get it, but just to clarify that your branding is everything as a whole. It encompasses everything about your business. Really. But it’s the perception that people will have about you about your brand.

[00:03:58] About your business. Whereas your brand identity is the things like the logo, the color palette, the fonts, the images that you choose and all of that visual side, it would be [00:04:12] icons, illustrations patterns that you use. And that create that memorable. Aspect But visually.

[00:04:20] It’s the markers. It’s the things that create brand recognition, basically.

[00:04:24] The first thing to do is reflect on 2022. And also consider your goals ahead for 2023. Now if maybe last year was a big year of change and growth for your business. Maybe it brought you to the point of feeling like a rebrand was a good next step. Then this is a good time to consider.

[00:04:44] Equally, if things maybe didn’t go as well as you hoped you could consider whether your brand identity is a factor in that maybe you’re looking to improve on things, if it wasn’t what you hoped for in terms of business last year. Sometimes you do need to invest. And in order to Uplevel your business and for your brand to be more aligned with the ideal clients that you have. So, if you are considering changing up the things like your packaging and your website, and well, maybe just a complete refresh then that can have obviously a positive impact.

[00:05:20] I truly think that design and creativity should be used more than just about making something look pretty or visually appealing. And obviously that is a skill, but really if you’re hiring a creative someone to do create service for you. You want it to be [00:05:36] solving an actual problem that you have. And even if it comes down to sort of a, a small problem, like you feel.

[00:05:42] Your customers aren’t connecting. Or your brand was DIY and it’s not as professional as you want it to look. Whether it’s a smaller problem like that. Or if you have a bigger overall image problem. It could be things like if your website isn’t working very well it isn’t converting

[00:06:00] the website design should solve that. It should help you to convert more. You don’t just want to re-skin it and make it look pretty. It needs to actually. I do a better job. Otherwise, you’re not getting that return on your investment. Now, that’s not to say that you obviously going to get an instant return on investment. If you work with a creative service provider, but.

[00:06:21] It should be a factor to consider that you should expect it’s gonna have that impact for your business.

[00:06:28] Good design and strategic design can help to build a trust and establish your business. You can build customer recognition and it can also help with customer loyalty too. If they feel… Aligned with your brand. Then they’re more likely to tell their friends. They will want to continue to purchase from you and be repeat customers or supporters.

[00:06:50] You know, you want that loyal fan and they need to feel that the brand is them it’s for them. It. He speaks their language. It [00:07:00] looks like the things that they find. Interesting. The things that appeal to them.

[00:07:04] This is why a huge part of branding and even for brand identity, especially if , it’s more of a holistic view you need to think about the strategy , you need to think about things like the brands position and messaging, and voice and all of that too, rather than just the visuals

[00:07:24] if you’re trying to convey something about a brand, so say it’s supposed to be like a fun and playful brand that’s going to come across visually very different to a corporate and serious brand. And it needs to suit what the businesses, but it also needs to appeal to the target audience and. And you see this sometimes with like, oh, I dunno. I’m just thinking off the top of my head. Cause I’ve just renewed my car insurance.

[00:07:50] You get the typical old school, like car insurance brands or not, not old school, even just general ones. Maybe they’re part of like a bank or something and they look like what you’d expect. And then there’s ones that I don’t even know if this still exists, but they used to be Sheila’s wheels. I think it was called in the UK and it was very pink and it was to appeal to women and the advertising was a bit more cheeky and like had, yeah, this bright pink. It showed women drivers. And it was just a [00:08:24] different take on it. Now, obviously a lot of men, I don’t think they actually took me, but, even if they did. Would be put off by that. But that was that’s intentional. Your brand can draw in the right people, but also can repel the wrong customers, clients, et cetera.

[00:08:44] And that’s not a bad thing. Like if it’s not right for them, it’s not right for them.

[00:08:49] Like I said earlier, it’s not necessarily as simple and easy and quick and cheap undertaking to rebrand. So there’s lots of things to consider. I’ve got to mention that it is a huge consideration when it comes to rebranding. It’s the financial investment. In, depending on how you look at it that could, you could be considering it as just an expense or an investment.

[00:09:14] You know, especially if you’ve been on the online world a lot, you, do you see the sort of coaches talk about making that distinction about whether it’s an investment or an expense? And realistically it depends on the stage of business you’re at. And so if it is a good timing for you because, if it is then that’s an investment. Whereas for other people, if it’s the wrong choice, wrong time, it’s going to feel more like an expense. It’s going to be an expense.

[00:09:43] If you want to work with an experienced designer. Or even [00:09:48] going further than that. And do you have the budget for it then? You know, if you want to be working with an agency or you want to be working with a brand strategist then they’re going to be charging an amount that would convey the value that they are going to bring to you. And it is going to then be that return on investment because it can add a lot of value to your business.

[00:10:09] If the new look brings in more of your right customers or clients and gets you more sales. Then that’s added a lot of value. And of course if the brand is done, right, it’s going to last you for many years. It’s not something that you’re going to change up in another year or two.

[00:10:28] Unless your business changes and evolves again, and it’s just not the right fit, but hopefully you get something that’s going to stick around for a while. And so if you think of it that way, it really does last. Now, obviously you’ve got things like your website and that should be more evolving, but the core of that even will stay the same and the look fit based on the brand identity we’ll be pretty set there. So yeah. It should last a while. It’s it’s not going to be something you do this year and then you need to do again next year and the year after. You want it to be something that you are happy with and it’s going to last you for many years.

[00:11:11] The [00:11:12] difference between a cheap designer and an expensive designer is probably going to be in their experience. A newer designer whilst being cheaper is likely to maybe I’ve just got started, be less experienced, may be self-taught and getting started is hard to say obviously in it. It could be down to light location.

[00:11:34] Of course, that’s a whole other topic about whether you should pay less because of where someone’s base, but let’s not get into that right now. More experienced designer is likely going to be more expensive.

[00:11:48] But also so let’s not forget that if you think about a time when you’ve been underpaid or you didn’t charge as much as you should maybe, or in your, in a job. And it’s actually really hard to get into a enthusiastic mindset for what you’re being paid for. If you’re being underpaid.

[00:12:09] So I think as a whole like, creative, Often can undercharge and I’ve done it myself in the past. And then you know, you do end up whilst I always want to do a good job. There’s maybe more of a limit to that. The, if you’ve been paid well for something and you know, the person’s invested in you.

[00:12:31] And you can really, you can put more effort in. You can spend more time on it, [00:12:36] knowing that you’ve been covered for your work and you’re going to want to do a really good job.

[00:12:39] Now. Not always, but you should expect for your investment, that during the process of working with someone, it’s going to be a good experience for you. And add some value to you there as well. So even if it’s things like the questionnaire process or the discovery bit hopefully you get a lot of, out of that too, in a bit more clarity around your business. And of course,

[00:13:03] The clarity that having a rebrand would bring. Especially if it’s wrapped up with some brand guidelines or even a brand board so that you know how to roll out your brand yourself, or keep working on it and keep working on the different aspects of marketing that you will need to do in future.

[00:13:22] Another consideration when it comes to whether you should rebrand is the time factor. Now, depending on the design and depending on your project, the timeframe could range from something like VIP day, which is really popular now with designers. Which I also offer myself.

[00:13:38] Or it could be a project that’s going to span over a couple of months, maybe even longer, I’ve certainly seen the projects can go on for months. And sometimes that is on the client side, but some designers, processes and agencies for example, are going to be that bit longer and there might be juggling multiple clients to [00:14:00] whilst working on yours. So it takes longer.

[00:14:02] And whilst the designer’s going to be the one doing the actual work. Of course. It does need a lot of input from from you as well as a client. Or from a team member, but ultimately most likely if you’re listening and you are the business owner, then you’re going to need to be quite involved in the process. So do you have the resources to either do that yourself or.

[00:14:25] To use I’m a team to manage a lot of the process that comes during a rebrand or a project like this. So that you can ensure that you are giving feedback to the design in the right time, or get anything across so that they can do their best work.

[00:14:39] If you are changing your business name. There, of course, even more factors to consider. So things like your domain name, social media handles. Emails. All of your design that references your name and is in your old branding would be things that you’ll have to change. So business cards, marketing, things like that as well.

[00:15:00] It’s again, another expense to consider and the time factor involved to change all of those things over to.

[00:15:05] That’s obviously not to say that. I don’t think it’s worth it because I do and it can really help, but it’s not a small undertaking and you can’t just go into this thinking that you pay a designer to whip you up something job done. Off you go with your new brand identity. I mean, Yes, to [00:15:24] an extent. Like I say, there’ll be doing a lot of the work. But. It does require that back and forth and it probably will require some work from you too. So just consider what you will need to do. It might also come down to the budget that you have, how much you be paying the designer to do versus what you’d be doing yourself.

[00:15:42] I thought I’d talk through a little bit about the rebrand process. So you can realize what you need to consider. The first thing of course is trying to find the person that you want to work with a designer, an agency. What specialism you might need to look for for them.

[00:15:58] You need to know yourself, somewhat the scope of the project so that you can brief the designer properly and say what you actually need doing. A lot of this can come out during the discovery process as well. If you have a call with them. They might be able to get those details from. You and might be able to think of things that you hadn’t thought of. But as I say, it can help a lot to get more accurate quote even when you’re completing inquiry forms or jumping on that call.

[00:16:26] The person that you’re working with then we’ll likely audit and assess your current branding. Which I think is quite an important step, it’s looking at what might be causing issues and making sure that they are sorted within the new brand.

[00:16:40] The designer will get to know and discover your brand. Which this could look like a questionnaire. It could like a bit look [00:16:48] like a bit of back and forth questions. Sometimes, depending on the project, there might be brand strategy involved, which might be a more of an in-depth conversation or some, some brand strategists do. This was like a workshop.

[00:17:02] then the next step is researching competitors in industry. This isn’t something I’m seeing you do. This is just part of the process. Looking for opportunities in market and could be creating a brand strategy. Then creating the creative direction, which is Ultimately comes down to a bit of a mood board.

[00:17:22] Or something who discussed a style scape. Once a creative direction has been signed off, then your designer will be working on logo, design concepts. And then we’ll present the strongest one or few to you. Most designers will show you between one to three logos. If they’re showing you more, which I have done in the past. And I think designers used to more do this. It’s moved away from that.

[00:17:48] It probably shows a bit of inexperience because you want the person you’re working with to be the expert, to be able to guide you as like, this is a strong design solution. Because. You’re the expert in your business, but they are the expert designer and she’d know what is actually the strongest concept and they probably do, even if they’re presenting multiple. We all have our favorites [00:18:12] usually. One that we think works best for the concept and for what we’re trying to achieve. But all the other options. And what often happens then is a client might go, oh, I like this bit from here and this bit from there.

[00:18:24] And it will just weaken the overall solution. Or it just creates that confusion or they’ll pick the one that. Is actually not as strong a concept, but the designer included in any way, hoping you wouldn’t pick it. So. That’s just to say that. Yes. You should expect to see maybe one concept that’s been really worked through or sometimes you might get up to three.

[00:18:49] Now I can’t speak for all designers, but I think this is quite common, too. Initially create the low group signs in black and white, but then we’ll present it in color and have started to form things like the color palette and. Font selection. And you need like illustrations as part of the logo, design process as well.

[00:19:08] Depending on the package that you’ve purchased, you might just see logos, but you also might see more of a a brand identity presentation at this stage. This could, this could include things like mock-ups as well. So you can really get a sense of how the new brand might look which is quite exciting.

[00:19:25] The next step would be any refinements. Or maybe going back to a different concept. If you weren’t quite sold on the one that was presented.

[00:19:34] once all of that’s [00:19:36] approved, the ideal is to get brown guidelines, these form a document, and it will break down how you can and can’t use your logo, whether this is entirely or in future for other designers. People to look at. It should tell you things like the fonts and the usage of that. It could give you alternate fonts, color palettes.

[00:20:00] Talk about. Any different rules as it comes to you. The visual identity side of your brand. And how this needs to be maintained for consistency.

[00:20:09] Obviously part of having a strong, compelling brand is doing that. It’s ensuring that things look consistent and cohesive. So it is a really important step. It, depending on the package you’ve gone for. Alternatively, you might receive a what’s called a brand board. Or a style guide or soul sheet type thing. And it’s more of a one pager.

[00:20:31] It will have on it, the logo. Any alternate logos, icons and color palette and fonts, but it’s all in one sheet. So it’s less detailed. It’s more of a, at a glance whereas the brand guidelines like an in-depth document. With words like with description about how you can and can’t you use different things.

[00:20:52] In summary, this has covered the main things that I think you should be thinking about when it comes to whether you should rebrand or not. It comes down [00:21:00] to your own decisions, like everything in business and whether the timing is right for you. It’s so depends.

[00:21:07] The benefits could be huge. It could really help to grow your business. It could help to attract more, right? Like customers and clients. It could help to retain them. It could build more awareness and brand recognition. there’s lots of pros, but as I mentioned, the main cons really are down to the cost factor and whether it’s an investment right now or not. And also the time commitment.

[00:21:35] I hope you enjoy today’s episode. If you. We are looking to rebrand this year. And I might be the right designer for you. I’d love to hear from you. You can go to my website at elmleafstudio.Com. And you can see my portfolio. If you look at the different packages that I have on offer. And how I might be able to help you then just reach out

[00:21:55] and if you’re feeling more stock or unsure. But you want someone to look over your brand and website? Then my audit service might be a good first step to working together. Or just to give you the tools to know what you might need to do to make those changes yourself. everything from your brand. I do touch on things like your voice and message.

[00:22:16] I will look at your website and your social media. And also actually any marketing assist that you did want to provide [00:22:24] me? Well, I say any a few. It will give you pointers on things to work on. It will assess what you’re doing right and wrong. So you can get a good sense of what I think is working well and not so well.

[00:22:35] If you go to my website and click work together, you will see that there. Another thing that I am. Experimenting with offering. Is what I’m calling brand clarity, Voxer, which if you don’t know what Voxer is, it’s like a walkie talkie app where you can message back and forth. So like voice notes, a little bit like WhatsApp, actually, you Right by text or voice notes and even send video messages now as well. You get access to me for a whole day via that. App bit of back and forth throughout the day. where I give you any guidance, answer, any questions, offer any advice. And I’m happy to also look at things that you want to send me where I give it a glance on my phone and get back to you. So it’s not as in-depth as the brand audit. Like I say, it’s a day. So you don’t have to feel pressured that you need to be SAP on a phone call. There’s no pressure that. You have to sit there. Wait, we each we’ll get on with our own different things throughout the day.

[00:23:38] But, you know, you can sit and reflect on something that I’ve said and come back with another question or. Ask me anything to follow up.

[00:23:47] It could be really fun [00:23:48] actually to get a question that you might like answered on the podcast. So if you have something that you think would make a good podcast topic, for me to cover an answer. Send me that as well. That could be really good. I love answering questions. Definitely that person that’s like in Facebook groups and in the communities that, I mean like, Ooh, Oh, I think I’ve got some advice through this. So I think that could be quite a nice one to try if anyone is interested in so mean question.

[00:24:14] All right. That’s it for today.

[00:24:15] Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the consciously created brand.

This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.

And today’s upside. We are going to look at the steps that go into a website audit, we’re partway through the month now. And so there’s a slight risk of you being a little bit fed up. Hearing about how you can improve your life and business in 2023. However, I do think that the new year is a good time to reflect and to plan for the year.

Plan out your goals, plan the steps that you’re going to take. It creates a natural time to reflect and figure out how you want things to look in terms of your business. Now, one of the things that I suggest you do is to look at auditing your website now.

It’s important to regularly review your brand and your marketing and your website. So today’s episode is all about how you can look objectively at your [00:01:00] own website to audit it. It can be quite hard to look at your own stuff. And everybody can I find that with my own things as well. Whereas when I look at someone else’s I can be really objective and have thoughts and advice and yeah, I get so stuck with my own.

I’m going to walk you through the things that I look at when I’m assessing someone’s website and auditing it. But if you’d like an expert eye on your stuff, then check out my audit service, at elmleafstudio.com and the link will be in the show notes for that.

Your website is kind of like a sales assistant. It’s your online home. It’s kind of the shop and the sales assistant. Really. If you think about it,

When you run an online business or an e-commerce business. It’s so important of course, to have your website looking right to be working well. Not to have anything that could be putting customers off to stopping them in their journey, through your website. It is of course critical because that is how you are going to be making your sales and [00:02:00] the website needs to be working well to do that unlike a sales assistant, your website can be working for you at any point of the day and always be on and always be at peak performance.

So it’s really important that your website is working as well as it can be. And the, it doesn’t have things that are putting customers off or stopping them in their journey. You want it to be converting? You want it to be looking great. And to feel on brand. These are the types of things that you can check over when you audit your website.

To have your website be effective and help you towards your goals. Then this is a really great step to do. And then with U D O Y or

if you would then need to hire, there are opportunities for you to look at things that you can improve.

One of the main things I see that people don’t necessarily get. Right. Or it can be a bit of a stumbling block when people are creating their own websites. [00:03:00] Is the navigation. And of course it’s one of the first things that a customer sees when they come to your website. Especially if we’re talking about the top menu in the header.

And this can look like having too many menu items. That’s just kind of confusing to look at. Not having the right menu items. So making it hard to find what the person coming to your websites, most likely looking for. It might be that you’re soft menus or mega menus. Aren’t set up very well. Or that you don’t use them. So a really good tip is actually to think about how you start the top level of the menu.

And this should be maybe six items, probably up to eight, absolute, maximum. And then what will sit under each of those menu items? So your most important kind of top categories first. If you’re shopping, you might choose to use your actual categories of products, some of your key ones.

But you probably want to. Then [00:04:00] break down to smaller ones underneath. So for example, you might have women’s and home and men. And then underneath each of those, you could have a mega menu or sub menus that break down things like t-shirts trousers. Et cetera.

Of course, it’s not just your menu that people use to navigate your site. There will be various links throughout various ways that people flow through your site. When I’m doing an audit, the next thing that I look at overall is the homepage and how easy that is to sort of scroll down through if it’s clear to what to click. where I should go next. Can I find what I’m looking for?

Now, especially if you are shopping, you need to be thinking about what you actually want people to go to next. So this will most likely be a shop page or category. Because that’s how you ensure that sales happen, but you’d be surprised that actually, sometimes it’s not set up this way. Or people aren’t [00:05:00] prioritizing the categories that they want people to shop with.

And so have a look over. Check the, you do have the things that you mainly want to prioritize as selling. And make sure that those links are on the homepage. Another point is to make sure that images link up. So if you’ve got a picture that represents the category and underneath you have the category and maybe a button, you also need to make sure that the image itself links. I can’t tell you how many times.

Even like, just generally browsing the internet. I see this and you go. You know, when you go to click on that image and then it’s not working. So that just makes a kind of a sticking point in the website. It makes it harder for people to use.

Another place that you most likely have links will be in your footer. So again, it’s making sure that you have the right things in there. And there. Clear and easy to use. This is a great place for things like the privacy policy contact [00:06:00] delivery and returns for e-commerce.

It’s where people will commonly know to look for them as well is helping your customers. If you kind of stick to the conventions with things like that, they know that they’re most likely going to be there and that’s where they will search for them. When they’re looking for things like what the delivery costs.

A small suggestion. For that I forgot to mention is sticky menus and they are the ones that when you scroll down on a website, they kind of stick to the top. So they’re kind of easy to access where whichever, whatever point you have scroll down on the page. And this can be. Used quite well. It depends on your site and whether that’s necessary.

Whether it is a good strategy for you. But you could certainly consider it and see if that would help your navigation of your site.

As a brand designer as well. I am, of course, going to be talking a little bit about the branding on your website and whether that is, or isn’t working well for you. [00:07:00] The first thing to say is to ensure that you were using your recognizable logo. Typically you want to use your main logo? However, sometimes there is a case for using an alternate logo that will fit better.

And if it makes more sense, It does depend on the space. You need to be using your brand colors throughout. Ensure they’re consistent across everything from your marketing to your website. So definitely ensure you’re using your brand color palette. And of course fonts as well should be your on-brand font or a suitable web one. If you’re one isn’t available, you’ve chosen not to use that on your site for licensing reasons. But in your brand guidelines, if you have one that would be where a designer will often suggest an alternate font. When you can’t use your main brand fun.

Now, it’s not just those things that you typically think of as part of a brand identity either. Your website should [00:08:00] have the feel that you want your brand to have it should be the right mood and and aesthetic. All of that needs to come into it. It needs to have images that are reflective of your brand as well, and feel right and contribute to that mood, to that look and feel.

Your copy needs to be written in a way that has your brand voice come. And that’s in the messaging and the tone. If you are an e-commerce website, your product images should all be consistent. They need to be really high quality brightly lit clear.

They should be high resolution. Now, obviously, don’t make them larger than they need to be because you also want them to be small and load fast, and that’s important for site speed. , the way that your images are styled will also tell a story about your brand and convey it in a certain way. Is it minimalist? Is it luxury? Is it young? Is it for an older person? [00:09:00] So things like. The, the elements that you used in the recipe image or if it’s like a lifestyle one or a sort of a small scene. What, what else is in the image and what does that convey?

And it’s not just your visuals that help your brand come across, it’s your copy as well and the, brand personality that’s conveyed within it. What’s the brand voice? . I know for many people, and especially at first, you probably don’t have a copywriter. You probably didn’t hire someone to do that, and that’s okay.

It’s really normal. You end up writing a lot of it yourself. If you can afford to work with one, then that is gonna be so beneficial. honestly, if for, for most designers, they love if you can work with a copywriter first, because it really helps the website design too. But like I say, I know for many people that’s not gonna be something that’s gonna happen [00:10:00] straight away.

Maybe you could look at working with someone to edit your copy and to kind of polish it up, but it doesn’t have to be fully written. You can do so much yourself too.

When you are auditing it, obviously have a look at if there’s any mistakes, but you can also just get a sense of try and check and see if the personal’s coming across, if your messaging is what you wanted it to. and does it sound how you want it to, you know, is it friendly?

Is it professional? Is it light and casual, or is it a more serious tone with more authoritative elements? So all of these things need to be considered, and you can see if they, if you feel that the copy is conveying, that your call to action should be clear and strong. Showing what the next logical step is on your website.

Make sure you review that when you are reviewing your copy and website overall. Going back to a more [00:11:00] general point, have a look in do you feel that your website’s engaging? Does it make people want to look through? And I think this is even more so important if you are an e-commerce brand rather.

Services or something more informational because the key is keeping people engaged as they browse. And like I said, obviously that’s partly comes down to things like the navigation and the choices of images and how it’s styled and how it’s the copy written but you can really focus on selling through the visuals.

When I’m looking at a shop page, The things I look for on there are, are there sufficient filters? This is really important, especially for bigger categories , or if you have quite a lot of products I think you need to consider having one’s like a price slider or scale size, availability, color, collection if it’s a broader category, maybe sort of subcategories come within [00:12:00] that. If you are a website that stocks multiple brands, people might come looking for a specific brand that they know you stock and you can help them massively by allowing them to choose to filter down to that specific brand

I know most people have this, but definitely have that toggle that allows you to choose to sort by price and sort by popularity and things like that because people do look for it as it’s a helpful way to look through a page when they’re trying to narrow down what they want to purchase.

moving on to a product page. I do like to see a kind of a conventional layout for the most part here. It does depend on your website and it depends on your brand like most things. If you stick with conventions, it’s how people know how to browse and kind of expect to see. So I, I think it works well as well.

I think often the design choices there have been, intentional and they work. If you think of a product page that has [00:13:00] an image on the left, and then it has a bit of a short description on the right, probably with the selectors there, and an ad to cart button makes it in a nice prominent position for shopping.

And then you can think about adding extra details underneath that section. in a toggle perhaps, or in tabs because for some people they just wanna see the image and kind of get a sense of the product and they’ll be happy to purchase. Other people will want to maybe look at more details. You can make use of having links to things like style guides as well, or any extra details that they might need to know.

If you don’t already have this. Having a row with related or recommended products is a really nice thing to have. It should show more items that that customer specifically is likely to be interested in. And there’s ways that obviously the kind of. Plug in or however is this, is Bill will do that.

It should kind of filter and be [00:14:00] relevant. It’s not so helpful if it’s not relevant. Make sure that it’s something that’s generated and based on filters and categories to pull in other options for them. If they decide that that product isn’t for them, they can still keep shopping. And they might, or they might see something they like.

Now, if your website is looking great on all of these fronts, it’s easy to browse. People are clicking around, getting to the pages that you want them to see, whether that’s services or products, then they want to click to work with you or choose to buy. You don’t want any stumbling.

The next thing to audit is to check that process.

Let’s look at it as though we are an e-commerce website. When someone’s clicked on the product, what happens next? Do they see that it’s is, does the basket show a little indicator to show that there’s some products gone in? if you click through to the basket, does that work? Okay?

Does the basket page itself [00:15:00] function as it should? Can they click through to go to checkout, check how the checkout process looks and works, is it easy to use? Are there any. Places where it might become harder. So sometimes when you are filling in your details and you click submit and it flags something and you can’t figure out what or you might want to look at making sure that people can enter their address easily with a postcode lookup.

Make sure that everything’s actually working and that’s definitely worth testing when doing an audit, especially if you notice an odd day where sales have been down or something, it’s always worth going to check that everything’s working.

If you are a service provider, then this comes down to making sure your calls to actions are strong and obvious on a page so that invitation to click to inquire, you probably want to highlight it and check things like your forms are working, so that it’s easy for people to take that next step in the process.

[00:16:00] So far I’ve covered the kind of more visual aspects and the mood of the site and the feel of it, but your site also needs to be fast. And I did touch on this briefly when I said about the images, one thing that you can do is run it through something like Google Site speed checker to see how you are measuring up, and then you could look to make some improvements to you.

Make your website load faster because a slow site is going to really put people off. They might just completely jump off your site if it’s too.

It’s been shown that people, if they land on a site and it’s taking a long time to load, they will just give up and go most likely. You don’t wanna be that site. Another aspect you can look at when you are doing a order is to check for any broken links.

There’s some sites that you can use to do that. You don’t have to try and manually find them or anything, and I’ll put a link in the show note that you can go and use. Once you’ve found any broken links, make sure you fix them. [00:17:00] You can either do that by replacing it with a different link or redirecting. If that link no longer works if that link now needs to go to a different category, say you can set that up so that it just redirects and sorts that problem. because again, it’s a usability thing. You don’t want people trying to click on parts of your site that then don’t go anywhere or send them down a wrong path.

It all needs to, all needs to lead. Where it should. You want people to have the expected outcome from when they click on a button.

I hope that this episode today has given you some ideas and things to look at when you perform your own website order. I’ve touched on things quite quickly and lightly not gone super in depth it’s that overview of things that you can work on and look at.

If you would like a professional audit of not just your website, but your online presence, then my audit is a great first step to working.

Or of course you can take all my feedback and implement yourself or work with another [00:18:00] designer too. Get all the details@elmleafstudio.com. to summarize today’s episode, when you are looking at auditing your website, which you should be doing, you should look at things like your.

Your branding, your copy and content, how people will go through the website, check that there’s no broken links or things that will stop them in their flow of navigating. You should make sure that your categories make sense and have filters to make it easy for people to shop. If you are, if you’re on an e-commerce website and your product pages will want to have a clear layout, likely following kind of typical conventions, ensuring that the add to cart button is high up.

Thank you for listening to today’s episode of the consciously created brand.

This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.

The Zeno purpose study showed that 94% of consumers globally said it’s important that the companies they engage with have a strong purpose. Today, I’m going to talk about why your ethics and values do matter to customers.

Obviously, we still be trying to make a positive impact and reduce damage as much as possible, both as people and businesses. But the thing is it can help your business as well. If you are being transparent, if you’re ethics and values focused.

When I was researching this podcast episode, the word purpose kept coming up. The Cambridge dictionary definition of purpose says why you do something or why something exists and I think more and more people are looking to buy support and work with companies that are [00:01:00] putting their values and ethics in the priority over making money now.

Research has shown time and time again, that many consumers do care about the type of companies that they will purchase from. I think people want to buy from businesses that are trying to do good in the world. And in fact, customers of course, actively boycott businesses that they feel aren’t up to that standard as well.

You see many calls to action from people to boycott certain companies that have been perceived to have done something or are involved with bad practices. And whilst this isn’t everyone, there is a growing number of people that do factor in things like that. Ultimately like put the purchases that people make are a reflection on them. And they want to be reflected in a good light by the, by those choices. someone might choose I certain brand that they perceive to be cool. You buy a luxury brand because you want to [00:02:00] say something about yourself to the world. it might not even have the best design, but it has that logo, it has that brand name on it, and people want to buy into that. And I think the same thing is true when it comes to ethical businesses and people wanting to buy that. They want to show that they care about the environment. And most people do when you, if you actually ask people, they’re going to say, of course they do. And they’re going to say they care about animals.

And it isn’t always easy to make the choices that ensure that we are protecting the environment and animals. But when it comes down to it, most people do care. And if they can choose a brand, that’s portraying themselves as caring about those things too, then they’re going to prioritize that over a brand that doesn’t .

A lot of people, whether they are vegan or not, they might choose to buy cruelty-free makeup and then we’ll look for that because a lot of people don’t [00:03:00] obviously don’t like the thought of that. Of course. Now, I’m sure you can all think of examples as well. Of whether that’s your own customers or in your family and friends. And the type of purchases that they make and choose.

We all want to, to make the right choice and comes from a good place. Doesn’t it like you’re going to look for the soap brand. That’s vegan, that’s palm oil free that’s environmentally friendly.

It’s not just me that’s obviously musing on this there are a number of studies as well.

In 2020. Zeno did a study all about purpose and some of the study findings showed that people were four times more likely to purchase from the company that had a strong purpose. And 4.5 times more likely to champion the company and recommend it to friends and family. As well as the 94% of consumers [00:04:00] globally saying is important that the companies they engage with have having a strong purpose. I think this just goes to show, like I was saying that.

The people want to be perceived well, and they want to be making the right choices. And so they’re going to recommend those types of companies to their friends. And this is the same for your business too. If your foundations have good ethics and values and. Then you need to make sure that you are portraying that to people because it will help sales, ultimately it will help people want to recommend you. And talk about you.

Another study in 2021 by OpenText showed that nine in 10. So 88% of global consumers try to prioritize buying from companies that have ethical sourcing strategies. And 83% would spend more for ethically sourced products. It showed that gen Zed and millennials in particular would choose not [00:05:00] to buy from companies with unethical sourcing.

Now this goes to show that it goes a little bit deeper than just the surface stuff as well, because this is really talking about. The ethical sourcing strategies.

Nowadays, when we’ve got social media and people can find out about things that have happened in the sourcing process. , when it comes down to like workers or how things are made, and how resources are gathered and accessed and taken. We know this more, it spread around in it, shed on the news. It can share this across social media. So we’re more and more aware of that.

And we want to be making the better choices because we see the devastating impact they can have for humans, the environment animals.

You have to a possible try and ensure that it goes a bit beyond just the surface level of like this products, vegan or [00:06:00] organic. It goes to show that the sourcing matters to. This comes down to the various aspects. If you’ve got a product, it’s not just about the actual product inside. You might need to consider things like your packaging and manufacturing of that too.

The commercial argument is strong. 64% of consumers find brands that actively communicate their purpose, more attractive. And that’s from a 2018. Accenture strategy. Who conducted the 14th annual global consumer pulse research. So, if we look at that again, 64% of consumers find brands that actively communicate, their purpose, more attractive.

This goes to show that you can use it in your marketing. We want to always avoid greenwashing and trying to be perceived in different way than we are, but. you can definitely talk about it. You should be putting it on your website. Putting it front and center in your marketing, [00:07:00] in your social media, you should be talking about it on your packaging because it is going to appeal to people. That literally shows it. I think for most people, they wouldn’t be put off by the fact that you talking about the various ethics and values.

Like I briefly mentioned, it’s not enough to just focus on the product itself. For companies that have employees, the ripple effect matters to. Company culture has become increasingly important to employees and customers. I think again, it comes down to we are more aware of who we’re buying from. We can go read reviews online. We can go and look on, is it glass door where you can see what employees are saying about the company?

And you might see stuff called out on social media, otherwise. There might be a brand that you love and then you see something. The actually, oh, like the employees are treated really [00:08:00] badly. Really reflects badly on the company.

We’ll say, as people themselves become more interested and passionate about the environment. And they, they want to work for companies that are doing good. I think you see a lot in the creative industries actually. So, there is quite a lot of, designers that will talk about wanting to work with charities and, non-profit companies, environmental sector. All things like that, because if it’s something they’re interested in, Then you don’t want to work for the brands that aren’t as ethical.

I have another statistic here. This episode is probably going to have a few more than others because I just thought rather than just talking about how I think that these things matter to people. There really is the supporting evidence. So 65% of consumers are influenced to buy a [00:09:00] brand product or service by the words, actions, values, and beliefs of a company’s employees. Not just the CEO or marketing spokesperson. That’s from Accenture strategy who conducted the 14th annual global consumer pulse research.

This shows again, the people will listen to and maybe even see cow or certainly see what the employees of a company. Are doing and saying what they’re saying about the brand product or service, but probably equally there’s a high profile kaseman employee doing something negative. That’s not going to reflect well, too.

In particular for larger companies. They we’ll be held accountable when there are injustices or consequences in their supply chains due to poor working conditions. There’s been a lot of incidences in the fashion industry. That were very high profile really showcasing the garment workers in poor [00:10:00] conditions or tragedies that happened? Of course, then the company should be held accountable because especially as a large company, their purchasing power. Has. Consequences. They, they could choose to pay more. They could choose to insure the facilities at better. The worker’s rights are upheld and. It is down to them to ensure that that happens.

Because they have the money to, I think it’s probably going to be less. Critical or less. I think as a smaller company, it’s less likely that you’re going to be held accountable. If something were to happen in the supply chain. It’s probably less likely to be found out as well, but even so it could happen. You might, you could get swept up in something, but yeah, I just think for the most part.

People would be more forgiving and understanding the, the lack of control that you have within the supply chains that you work with. And that’s not to say don’t do any due diligence. You’ve got to. Oh, C [00:11:00] try and S.

I can think though, I’m just recently seeing a small, local brand getting swept up in. A lot of, sort of blame and finger-pointing negativity surrounding them because they weren’t able to deliver their products. Partly because of the recent Romell strikes here in this country. And like I say, like with social media nowadays, it’s so easy to complain and talk about it.

Another fact that I found from Accenture was that 53%. So more than half of consumers who are disappointed by brands, words, or actions on a social issue, complain about it. This doesn’t just mean complaining in a letter writing exercise that might’ve happened in the past, now we publicize it. Now we talk about it on social media. We tell our friends. We may be take it to the news even. It becomes [00:12:00] more high-profile than it ever might have in the past.

And again, it just shows how more and more, this is important.

So, what can you do? For most of you listening, you will have a strong purpose already built it on your own ethics and values for your business. And if we’re thinking purely commercially, you need to know and understand what issues your target customers care about to, to ensure that you can address it.

I’m not saying the company would, but if you focused on say using organic cotton, but then send it out in a re and recycled. Unrecyclable plastic mailer. And your customers, don’t like the use of plastic, which is quite likely. . Then you might get some negativity. You probably will get some complaints and it will also just cause a bit of a disconnect.

So obviously need to consider things like that and try and going head in this year looking at aspects that [00:13:00] could have an issue for you. And try to come up with a better solution if you can. Now, I think the things that you must do are be transparent as much as you can be.

Make sure you use the positive messaging within your marketing to help your customers make purchasing decision. Because like the statistics showed they will be looking at things like that. And it will affect their choices. Whatever stage of business you are at, you can look at ways to build this in and makes most steps. It’s always good at various points to stop and reflect. And of course, January is the perfect time for that.

You can look at making. one more small step. This month, this quarter. Or even this year, and you can map out a pathway to making your business more sustainable. And it doesn’t have to be all at once. If you think about a lot of big companies, you see stuff like, oh, by 2030, [00:14:00] we will have done X, Y, Z. So I’m not saying go out and do everything now. Right now. None of us are perfect. I’m certainly not. I’ve tried to do small little steps for this. Always more and I wish I could do more. But. Like you I don’t necessarily have all the resources for that at the moment. But yeah, it’s about doing what you can

Coming up in an episode soon, I’m actually going to cover some things you can do to make your website a little bit greener. That might be a good step to take.

If you want to look at kind of incorporating more of your values into your like whole branding and the messaging and the visual side of it as well. Then if you’re interested in working together, you can go to my website elmleafstudio.com. I have a number of services the cover brand identity and website design, and like the websites. I try to make them a little [00:15:00] bit greener. And for the branding, we could talk about ways to ensure your messages coming across well, and we’ll connect with your target audience.

As you’ve had customers increasingly want to support brands that align with their values. Stand up for social issues, show transparency. Have ethical sourcing and treat employees and work as well. I think that in general customers will be more lenient and smaller brands that are coming from a good place and trying there is different expectation and understanding then for larger corporations.

It’s about thinking of what matters to you and your customers. And what you can do now and in future, as a business that has built ethics into your core, you have the advantage of being able to highlight these things to your customers. If your branding isn’t truly conveying your value is you can find out more about working together at elmleafstudio.com.

Thank you for listening to today’s episode of Consciously Created Brand.

This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.

Hello, welcome to the first proper episode of the Consciously Created Brand Podcast.

Today the topic is, is it time to start working with vegan business owners? And this episode is going out in January as most people know, or Veganuary as it’s sort of now become known. And so Happy New Year and happy Veganuary to you too.

Today is just going to be a kind of casual conversation about it. And just some thoughts that I’ve had is I haven’t really researched it, or it’s not going to be a deep in-depth discussion around it.

I hope that you’ve had a really good festive period and enjoyed Christmas. Maybe got a bit of a break before getting back into the swing of things. [00:01:00] So Veganuary, the exciting time for vegans when suddenly everyone has a new, exciting offering. But course it’s only for this month. That’s whether you end up liking it or not.

You know that probably come February, it’ll all be gone again. I’ve been vegan myself now for five years. I didn’t actually get started myself during Veganuary. It was, I think it was June or July time. Funnily enough, I think I remember feeling like I’d missed the kind of Veganuary boat that year. But I decided to try it anyway, so I’ve not quite been through that experience myself.

I do remember a few years, like before that I think I did try a challenge for a little while to, to go vegan, but I didn’t stick with it at the time. But of course, yeah. Now I’ve been vegan for five years. I can’t see myself ever changing back from that. And of course, it’s about more than just what you’re eating, it’s about the lifestyle and the choices that you make there.

As a business owner. The fact that I’m a vegan business owner is part of my [00:02:00] branding a little bit. I mention it on my website. I’m not, I’m not pushing it and it’s not a huge part of. But I do acknowledge, that I am and sort of say it as a little bit of a selling point, I guess in the, if there is other people that align with my ethics there, that they know that I am vegan.

And I also list out other steps that I take, such as, you know, eco hosting and trying to make my website greener. Being part of ecology, where they plant trees each month. and it’s just little things like that. But for me, it’s obviously a big part of my life and important to me. when, when I first, when I first started this business, I was looking at sort of different communities to join, and then I came across the vegan business tribe.

and I’ve been a member of their online community since, and obviously as in the name it’s for vegan [00:03:00] business owners. And it’s kind of got me thinking about whether vegan businesses should hire other vegan service providers. So whether you are a product-based business or a services too, and if you are vegan or if you, the product that you sell is vegan then should you hire other vegans, basically. And of course, it’s always nice when your ethics align with the people that you are working with, right? As a vegan brand and website designer, myself, I might be slightly biased when, when I talk about this in my viewpoint, but actually I do know for myself that at this stage I wouldn’t strictly only work with vegan clients.

And it’s also not an absolute criteria for me if I was looking for help with my business because ultimately we do want to find the right people that can deliver the results for our project. You know, it needs to be within our budget they need to be able to do the work. If we’re talking about design in, in a style that you like, for example, or have other [00:04:00] things that match up and that you know that, then they’ll be the right person for you and their kind of life may or may not be a factor in it. I think like with anything else, if it was a religious thing or other beliefs or something, you are naturally going to feel slightly more aligned with people that do you share similar lifestyles with you, for example, or just similar beliefs and values?

but it’s, it probably isn’t, the only consideration, and you might choose also to not factor it in when making decisions about who you’re going to hire or work with.

Just like, I think if I was looking for someone to work with for support at the moment, for me, I’m busy mum and also trying to, you know, run the business. Might not have as much understanding from someone who wasn’t a mom. If I was saying, looking for. Sort of a business coach, for example, whereas if they [00:05:00] also had children or have young children, they can really understand like the sort of situation that I’m in and then they’re able to help more maybe, or they just have that understanding.

And I think that was kind of the same swore I was trying to say. If you’re a vegan business and you’re working with another vegan. One of the first things that I thought about was if you are a vegan or ethical business is, especially nowadays, I think there’s more and more of a push towards transparency where you are saying on your website, you know the values and you might list who you work with.

And certainly, for example, as a website designer, often website designers do have in the, they put in the footer of the websites they’re building, you know, website, buy. The company name. If you have that on your website, people are gonna see who has done your website and might click across. Now, you wouldn’t want to be seen to be working with someone who has a portfolio full of projects that do not align with your brand ethics.[00:06:00]

If you are a vegan business and then this person’s portfolio is full of meat-based products or other industries that you disagree your customers could click across and see that, which wouldn’t look great. It might mean as well that they would have other practices that you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t particularly like or want to be associated with too.

Equally, I think that you can have the benefit of if you are working with someone who’s vegan, you’ve got vegan brand. They’re going to kind of know and understand the lifestyle behind it, the values behind it, and more than someone that isn’t vegan at all. So that can be just a good starting point, really. And they’re also going to kind of understand a bit about your customers and the journey that they are on.

I don’t know how true this is, but I do. Often if someone is vegan, often there is a link with caring about environmental stuff too, or societal issues, and a lot of that [00:07:00] sort of values will come through too in working with them.

It’s definitely something I’ve noticed. So I think if things like that are important to you, you might get the extra benefit. If you are seeking out another vegans business owner to work with, that they will have other sort of supporting beliefs and values that will translate across into the work.

So, for example, again, with myself, I care. being a bit more eco-conscious. And so I have taken the time to kind of learn about greener graphic designs and greener websites, and I can bring those skills too. And it’s not just about being vegan.

Like I mentioned, I am part of the the Vegan Business Tribe, which is all about supporting other vegan business owners.

And they care. They kind of want, they want to make sure that it’s the vegan businesses that’re succeeding.

there is, I’m also part of a vegan [00:08:00] founded. You basically can apply if you are a vegan, if, if you run a vegan owned business. And their whole argument is about not funding non-vegan businesses and lifestyles.

So they talk about, you know, how McDonald’s, for example, brings out the vegan burger, but they don’t care about the vegan lifestyle. They don’t care about those beliefs. are just bringing a product to market because there’s a market for it. And that’s kind of what they care about. they say that if you are supporting vegan business owners, you’re not funding non-vegan lifestyles.

Just another thought I’ve had as well. At this point I do, I think where it’s not hugely mainstream. Often if you are looking at potentially working with another vegan business owner, you’re probably, you’re gonna be supporting a small business too, which is a, obviously a nice thing. And same with a lot of the businesses that have vegan products.

So there’s, there’s that nice extra aspect there too.

on the other hand, on another, [00:09:00] the other side of the argument is, I think ultimately for most business owners, you of course want the person that can do the work. and if they’re vegan, that’s the cherry on top. But you are not gonna necessarily, if you can find someone that could do the work better, because maybe there is less options of a vegan service provider, or other vegan business that can work with you.

And if you can’t quite get what you need, then you are gonna go somewhere else. And that’s, you know, that is, that’s okay.

there’s many factors to consider when you’re looking to work with someone from the personality to the working style, to the work that they can do. Or maybe you’ve built up separate relationships with other people.

You know, I’m not only in vegan business communities, there’s other ones that I am in because, for example, like a one that’s for parents and I am. I might have create or you know, you create relationships in these other places, and [00:10:00] so if there’s someone that you’ve got to know and that you want to work with, that’s not just solely from a vegan community, perhaps

Recommendation for this week. My recommendation for this week is checking out the vegan business tribe. If you would like to support other vegan businesses, they have an amazing directory that you can find people that could, you could work with in your vegan business. And equally, if you are vegan business or vegan business owner, they are a great place to join for quite a low monthly.

where you can meet others and you can join networking as well as get support for your business.

I hope if you are a vegan, which if you are listened to that you are either interested in that or likely that you are, then I hope you have a fantastic, veganuary enjoy all the goodies that are here and yeah, give it a thought. Let me know what you think. I’d be happy to hear. Whether you would, [00:11:00] whether it’s something you’d specifically seek out is working with another vegan business owner, or if it’s not at the top of your priorities.

Yeah. I’d love to know what you think of today’s episode. You can message me on Instagram at elm leaf studio.

This is the consciously created brand with me. Kirsty McGill. The consciously created brand is for the artists, creators, makers, and curators. Consciously creating businesses that aim to do better, putting planet and people over profit.

Hello, this is the first episode of the Consciously Created Brand podcast. I’m Kirsty McGill from Elm Leaf Studio, a brand and website designer, an illustrator, mom, toddler, sometimes all painter and hobbyist roller skater.

So in today’s episode, I wanted to introduce myself, what this podcast is going to be about and the type of topics that I am going to cover here. So as I mentioned, I’m a designer and an illustrator. I graduated in 2010, so I’ve been doing this 12 years, and in that time I’ve worked in a range of companies. From in-house to freelance to agency settings, and a broad range of industries as well. My first job was at a makeup company called Jemma Kid Makeup.

That back in the day was quite popular. It was stocked in a number of shops such as Harvey, Nicks in London, target in America, and Boots, I believe for a little while too. From there, I went on to work at a luxury bed company, then a fashion retailer that had a number of stores around the south. And then I moved on to working in a fashion e-commerce website design agency, and then to a marketing agency. So I’ve had a broad range of experience, , cover. Print design, packaging design, websites and e-commerce in particular, as well as general graphic design, social media, pretty much everything that you can imagine.

I have done most of it at some point.

I started Elm Leaf Studio in 2022. It initially began as an idea back in 2020, and now, yes, you’re probably thinking the pandemic year, but also I was pregnant and I hadn’t realized when I first started this idea for the kind of website for the company that I was so, That got put on the back burner. I was very tired and of course anxious and there was the whole pandemic thing going on as well as growing a baby.

Then of course, as a new mom, I’ve been rather tired, so it’s taken me a while to get here. But this year I finally had the time and the head space to launch it. At Elm Leaf Studio, I’m a brand and website designer for fashion and lifestyle, e-commerce brand.

Now Elm Leaf Studio isn’t my first time freelancing, or even my first time trying to run an online business. I have dabbled over the years with picking up freelance work . A lot of the time without really putting much effort into that. So obviously, you know, through your contacts, people know you as a designer, so you get past work here and there.

Or my old work has reached out to me to ask me to do bits. This is the second time I’ve been trying to do it more intentionally. And to be honest, the first time I probably wasn’t really ready to actually run a business. I wasn’t in a, in the right sort of mindset.

I did for a time try and start creating a eCommerce website, but I didn’t really make much effort to market it, so I wouldn’t recommend that strategy .

You know, it’s one thing, isn’t it? To do the work for other people and help them have really great brand and website and marketing, and it’s another two. You do it for yourself.

Sometimes all of our experience needs to come together in order to create the businesses that are going to succeed. All of our failures, all of our attempts, all of. Half getting started and even getting things going and then giving up all that can then help inform where we are now.

I wanted to bring all the other experience that I’ve done, but to help more eco-conscious and ethical businesses with their brand website and design to help them stand out in crowded markets.

I wanted to start Omni Studio to use my skills to help the companies that are trying to do a little bit better in the world. You know, I’ve worked for a wide range of industries, like I’ve said, and one particular standout moment is as a vegan designer, I have done a website for a butcher as well as other, um, companies that aren’t always in alignment with my ethics, cuz you have to do the jobs you get.

And also in the previous web design agency role, I did a lot of e-commerce for fast fashion sites too. So now I want to do ones that are for, you know, the more eco-conscious fashion lifestyle brands,

I’ve been working on this business on the side of a part-time job and a stay at home mom to my toddler, so I completely understand and know what that’s like. If that’s you too, and you are building your business on the side.

The reasons why I’ve started this podcast, I want to, partly from a personal point of view, get better at speaking and practice talking about what I do and my ideas and thoughts and getting comfortable on camera.

It’s going to be a bit of an experiment. I want to commit to it and learn and improve and see kind of what the outcome is. I think like a lot of us, we are spending a lot of time on social media, maybe marketing our businesses and not always seeing the payoff that you would hope for from that because it does take a lot of time and energy, especially if like me, you are maybe a bit more introverted or, um, get a bit drained from things like that.

I dunno about you, but I do find that social media in particular can be quite draining. I, I do love Instagram and obviously it’s a very visual platform, but I feel like you have to be on it a lot. The, just posting your content doesn’t really probably get you very great results. You do have to be on there engaging, seeking out other, other accounts to follow to. So part of my thinking for this is that I can create one piece of content, this podcast episode, turn it into a blog post, and then use snippets of it to go out to Instagram and Pinterest as well.

My aim with this podcast is to help small, ethical businesses like yours to grow and gain more recognition. And ultimately make more sales from a brilliant website experience.

On this podcast, I’m going to be sharing what’s working well for me and what’s not working so well as I go into my second year of business. And I’ll also be looking at what can work well for other types of businesses like product based and e-commerce , especially within the ethical and eco-conscious in. Because of course, that comes with its own differences and unique set of challenges and advantages to

with the consciously created brand, I want to bring all my experience in design websites, branding and marketing together to help ethical small businesses like you promote your products and ultimately get sales. Because I believe that businesses like yours are the ones that should be talked. Should be the one succeeding over, you know, these big businesses that don’t care, that aren’t putting any effort in, into creating better solutions in the world.

The type of topics I’m going to talk about will be making your website greener. What makes a compelling eco-conscious brand? How design can make a difference. Bringing your values into your branding. Building a values led business online, why your ethics, values do matter, ensuring your design is appealing and cohesive. Using social media in a sustainable way, ethical marketing,

being a mum and running a business. overcoming the challenges that small businesses like, like us have.

so this show is for you if you are an artist, a creator, a maker, curator, creating your conscious business. Aiming to do better. That’s putting people and planet over profit

Thank you for listening to today’s episode of Consciously Created Brand.