Ep. 104 The Secret to Showing Up Confidently as a Business Owner

Megan Tobler (00:01.518)
Victoria, I have been so excited to have you on today's episode of the Self -Starter Podcast. So thank you so much for joining us.

victoria (00:08.053)
Yeah, thank you. I was so excited to get the invite.

Megan Tobler (00:10.862)
Absolutely. Now I have to say, last week we were emailing a little bit back and forth and we already figured out we had a lot in common and that's the fact that we're both moms. But I bring that up because on your website, you mentioned that you're confident that you can help your clients because you're actually a lot like them. So for those people that maybe aren't familiar with you, spill a little bit about who you are so that way we can see what else we have in common.

victoria (00:36.981)
Okay, sure. Yeah, I'm sure that our stories align in other areas too. But I am Victoria Marcoullier for those that don't know how to say my last name. I am a wife to my husband James. I have two precious little girls. And about five years ago, I started a company called Brandwell. And that's a branding and website design studio, specifically for female entrepreneurs, female service providers. And I'm sure we'll kind of get into my story of like,

brand well and niching down and stuff like that. But basically, I realized pretty early on in my business that there was a group of people I loved working with and a group of people I felt got the most value from what I had to offer. And it happened to be the people that I related to the most, the people that I understood their pain points because I once had those pain points. And so,

that was kind of how brand well became this like go to female design agency. I have an all female team and then I always say like, in God's humor, he gave me daughters, you know, just to kind of keep with the theme here. I don't think I'm done having babies and I don't know what I'll do if I have a son, it'll be hysterical. But I love it. I just feel like

this is what I was created to do. And you know, having a business that affords me the opportunity to be home with my kids most days the week, like as we record this, they're upstairs with a babysitter. Yes, but I just love that, like, I get to choose when I'm away from my kids. And when I'm not, I get to choose when I'm working on my business and when I don't. And like, that is what I want to help more women do. And the the fastest and the best way for me to

help women do that, that aligned with my skill set was to build them brands and websites that helps them share their stories and what they had to offer so that they could build a similar lifestyle.

Megan Tobler (02:29.454)
So good. And as you're talking, I'm definitely checking off the box for all these different things that we have in common. And a huge one of them is the desire and the passion to be able to connect with and to really help these female entrepreneurs because that's what Stealth Starter is all about. It's really helping these people create a life basically beyond anything that they had ever dreamed of before. And that's what you're doing as well. But I want to pick apart one little thing that you said here. And you said that you wanted to create a business that aligned with your skill set.

So if we could maybe just rewind a little bit and talk about what the skill set of yours was and how it transferred into creating Brandwell.

victoria (03:03.925)
Okay.

victoria (03:07.861)
Sure, so I'm one of those people that just always knew I wanted to have my own business. I was raised by two entrepreneurs. My mom and dad both had their own companies. Fun fact, I have two sisters. Everyone in my immediate family owns their own business. And everyone's doing really well, which is just so cool to see that. We say like props to mom and dad for instilling some good lessons in us as entrepreneurship. But yeah, so I...

I certainly tried my hand at a lot of things before I landed on Brandwell. And I say that to hopefully encourage some people who are in that like side hustle stage or like the idea stage of their business and or maybe you've launched a couple businesses and they haven't worked out very well. And me too, I certainly tried my hand at day of wedding coordinating, I had an eBay business, I had done a lot of little things. Just because I think that I had that like entrepreneurial gene passed down for me, I knew.

I wanted a business that afforded me flexibility like something that I loved about my childhood and my upbringing was that my mom I never would have referred to her as like a working mom. Which she did she she had an interior design business and she had great customers and you know made a nice secondary income to for our family. But she was always there. She was always the one to drop me off at school in the morning. She was always the one to pick me up. And I love that. And and I want to now.

give that to my children. I want to be that present mother the way that I had a present mother growing up. And then I also just realized that my dad, he had a business in another state actually, and he was the most present father. We had three girls, but we all loved sports. So I did volleyball, I did tennis, my sisters did volleyball. We were just all in different things.

And my dad had the ability to be at our games and then be in another state running his business the next day. And like, it was just what I saw modeled for me at a young age. So I knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I didn't always know what it was gonna look like. I went to college, I got my degree in advertising and public relations. And that was fascinating to me. Like I knew I loved consumer behavior. I loved studying the psychology of why people buy things like marketing.

victoria (05:26.933)
is and always will be like my sweet spot, I think. And then out of college, I actually got a job at a marketing agency doing website design and account management for physical therapy practices actually. And so I spent about four years there, but it didn't even take me the full four years to realize that like, okay, I'm learning some hard skills now. I had soft skills that I think made me a good entrepreneur.

I could communicate. I had watched enough of how my dad built his businesses to know some of those administrative things. And it was when I started to realize that like, okay, I know how to design websites and just about everybody needs a website these days. And my husband came home from work one day and he said, hey, my buddy owns a few food trucks and he needs a website. You know how to do that, right? And I was like, well, yeah, of course I know how to do that. I've been doing it for a couple of years at this company. And so,

That was actually my first paid customer. It was a guy who didn't pay a look of attention to branding who had food trucks. So like so opposite of like the demographic that we serve now. But that taught me that like, okay, I have a skill that's desirable that people need. They're willing to pay money for it.

And if I can figure out how to get this out there in front of more people, you know, maybe this is going to be the thing that allows me to create a profitable business. And so I, I freelanced for about a year and a half. And then, I decided to put in my two weeks notice and take brand well full time. And literally the rest is history, but that was when I realized it was working for that web design company being like, okay, this kind of joins all of my skills together of like.

I love people website design is not like something that happens overnight. It's something where you're working with people for weeks at a time. I love design. I love marketing and there's so much strategy in designing a website. It has so much marketing in it and it was just the perfect trifecta of like everything coming together and I love it. I still to this day love it.

Megan Tobler (07:30.446)
So good. And what a blessing it was that you were just born into a household that was so entrepreneurial, because a lot of the people that I speak with, they are actually coming from more traditional upbringings where their parents went and did a nine to five. And they have to actually convince them as to why they should be an entrepreneur. And they're going to be OK and to let them do their thing and let them follow their passion. So the fact that you had that foundation already is just

huge. So I think that's amazing there. But even though you knew you wanted to be an entrepreneur, you graduated and you still went to spend four years working for another company. So I can assume why you did that, but I'm curious to know why you decided to be able to go work at that physical therapy practice to do this marketing and their website design rather than just jump straight into entrepreneurism.

victoria (08:01.077)
Yeah.

victoria (08:19.637)
Mm -hmm.

victoria (08:25.589)
Yeah, I would say it was mainly for financial reasons. Most people fresh out of college maybe can't take that risk of starting their own business. So I think maybe I did it for financial reasons. I was also getting married. I got married shortly out of college at 23. And my husband, this was something that...

I knew about him from the day I met him, but my husband had always wanted to go to PA school. And so that was very much something that we had agreed upon that like I would work and support him through PA school after we got married. And then of course he would have a great job as a PA and I would certainly be able to like reap the benefits of that season for the rest of my life. So that was a mutually decided thing before we got married. And so unfortunately for me being like so entrepreneurial,

there were times where I was like, like I felt like I was dragging my feet and I just wanted to dive head first into running my business, particularly after I had my first handful of paying customers. Because it's like once you taste that once you know, okay, well, if I could take the 40 hours a week, I'm spending at this company and I could pour it into my company. But it was just too it was simply too risky for us. There are some couples that are like not as risk averse and are willing to like just dive off the deep end but

We were a Dave Ramsey family through and through, and we were trying to get through PA school without taking out any loans. A little backstory, my husband had taken out loans to go to college, as many people do, and he paid all of those off before our wedding so that I wouldn't carry that burden with him. It was really incredible, really cool part of our love story. But then it's like, you finally get out from under that umbrella of having these monthly loan payments, and PA school's not cheap, and we're like,

What if we just work really hard and we hustle and we cashflow it? And so we did that and did it force me to put my dreams on hold for another year or two? Yes, but looking back, we are so, so thankful that we did it that way because also a valuable thing that I took away is I learned so much working in corporate America for four years. And I had one previous job before that too. So maybe working in corporate America for six years.

victoria (10:37.525)
that have informed the way I run my business. It's informed the way I do things, you know, similarly to what I had watched at the company I worked for and also why I do some things very differently. And I'm really thankful for that because you don't know what you don't know. And if you have no experience, but working for yourself, I think maybe you're gonna have a little bit more of that trial and error than if you get to like watch it modeled for you on display for several years and then you go and build something.

Megan Tobler (11:03.79)
Yeah, I completely agree. And first of all, shout out to James there. Sounds like an awesome husband that you have on your hands. But I also came from corporate America. I always wanted to do something in the entrepreneurial realm, but I didn't know what it was. So I got into the corporate world, worked for a bunch of startups. And to what you said about you learn so much, it's nice to be able to jump in to someone else's land, I guess you'd say, and to learn.

victoria (11:08.773)
Yeah.

Megan Tobler (11:31.95)
when it's on someone else's dollar. So that way you're getting all these experiences that you can then take and apply or not apply in your own business. So it sounds like you were able to do that. But it's really cool that James obviously knew that you had this ability to, and you're really good at making these websites and he brought that first customer to you. And like you said, it wasn't one that was in the niche that you've chosen today, but it also is a testament to show like your

very diverse, like you're able to work and to build these websites that are well branded for all of these different types of people here and types of companies. So you got this first food truck customer, you were thriving, you got multiple customers, eventually you decided to make the plunge. When did you decide to put in the notice? I know you said it was about four years into working at the physical therapy office, but what was the moment when you decided, you know what, I can actually,

leave. I don't have to stay here anymore and we have something really viable.

victoria (12:34.741)
So I had a positive pregnancy test. And it was my ticket to freedom. Now, ladies who want to quit your nine to five, I don't recommend just going and getting pregnant for that reason alone. My husband and I wanted to start a family. We always wanted to start a family. We were trying to kind of time that with when he would have a job and when he was done with PA school. And so he was he was graduating PA school. We had been trying to, you know, start our family and.

It took us quite a while to get pregnant with my firstborn. And so the day that I got that positive pregnancy test, I just knew, I said, okay, like this is it. I'm gonna go ahead first. I had been building Brandwell for like I said, about a year and a half. I had a viable idea. It wasn't something that was so risky anymore. Cause you know, I'd been producing a profit for quite some time. And I knew if I take the time that I'm spending at this other company and I pour it into this business,

I know that I can make this work. Maybe I wasn't gonna be able to make the same, you know, executive salary that I was making at this job, but I knew it would be enough for our family, especially with James going to start his job as well. And so I, this is terrible. I told my boss I was pregnant before I told my mother. And she to this day holds that over me. She hates that that happened, but.

we knew we had been planning for quite some time that when the time came when I got pregnant, I would go ahead and put in my notice and then I would take that nine months window to really try and get brand well off the ground as much as possible. To then allow me to have something viable while I was you know, maternity leave, which didn't really happen after my first baby, it did for my second. But yeah, it was like it was getting that positive pregnancy test and I was like, okay, this is my sign. And so I called my boss and

I certainly didn't tell him that I had found out the night before, but I was just like, Hey, like, I just want to let you know, I'm going to be putting in my notice, James and I are starting a family. And, and I did. And then so I put in my notice and then I took, you know, you find out about a month in. So I took the next eight months to pour everything I had into Brandwell. I hired people because I wanted to have a business that would live on even if I was taking a day off.

victoria (14:52.277)
And, and I'm so glad I did. So that was really the catalyst to everything going all in was realizing that, okay, you know, I'm going to have a family now. I know the type of mom I want to be. And just for me, I didn't see full time daycare fitting into my vision of what I wanted for my family. And the company I worked for, that was what was required. So yeah, I went all in and that's our story.

Megan Tobler (15:17.358)
speaking of everything that we have in common, I too, I didn't put in my notice. Unfortunately, I was let go with the rest of the company after I announced my pregnancy. So, but same thing, wanting to better the future for this future family, because like you, I didn't want to put my child in full -time daycare. I wanted to be present. And there's nothing wrong with daycare. It just wasn't how I envisioned it for my family as well. So what a big why, you know, when they always talk about like really understanding what your why is to help propel you forward.

There's no bigger why in my opinion than what you just described right here. Like that's like the ultimate why in my opinion. So that will definitely make you work hard for the next eight months for sure. But you hired people. So I'm curious how you went from being a solopreneur to being able to financially afford to be able to hire people. And what was the decision or what was the process of kind of hiring? If that makes sense.

victoria (16:11.605)
Yeah, yeah, I'm really passionate about like taking the fear and the stigma out of hiring for entrepreneurs because it's one of the only ways that I've been able to get where I am and you know, kind of scale my business at the same time that I'm growing my family. I had two babies in three years and those were the most explosive three years for my business too. So I wouldn't always recommend you do it that way, but that was how it happened for me. And so what was nice about working in corporate America while side hustling for a year and a half is,

I had an income, I had somebody paying me to do my job. And the way I decided to do it was even while I was still working full time, I brought on a freelance designer to help me work on Brandwell. So basically it was like I was doing my job because they could pay me more than what I was paying myself, which was nothing.

and I was taking a little bit of the profit that I was making through Brandwell and I was just pouring that right back into the business because I didn't need that money to live off of since I had a job still. So that's also another great reason why I strongly recommend doing your time in corporate America because if you're able to start a business without so much financial pressure,

I think it can make or break whether or not you stay in the game because we can only sustain so much pressure for so long. We all have different thresholds. But I think for me, if I would have been so worried about making ends meet, I probably wouldn't have lasted as long because there were months where sales are not as high or costs are higher. And that can be really overwhelming. But I had a job that was paying the bills. So.

I brought on my first contractor while I was still working full time and I had that salary there as my safety net. And then that taught me just a valuable lesson that if you can replicate yourself, you can make more, right? And so, you know, if we only ever operate our businesses by ourselves, then we're limited to a lot of things. Number one is time. We all have the same amount of hours in a day and you can only do so much within those hours. So whether you have kids or you have a full -time job or you have...

victoria (18:13.877)
you know, other obligations, mine for you, like, your business will always be limited by the amount of time that you can pour into it. So if I was like, if I can take more hours to pour in that aren't coming out of my 24 hour pocket, then that's going to help me grow my business. The second thing is just, you know, the skill and the creative ideas that are brought to the table. You know, I knew that.

in a creative industry, like we all get in creative ruts. Like that's just part of it. And that's been a big part of why I have a larger team instead of keeping it like a really small team and just charging exorbitant rates is because I value the creative diversity that I have on my team. And I know that if I'm having a bad day creatively, I can...

hop on a call with my other designers and we can all bring ideas to the table. So even that first contractor helped me see that like, wow, she's bringing me valuable ideas and she has a different style design that it's appealing to other clients that I wouldn't have been able to get because I can't design that way. So it took the fear out of hiring for me because...

It was relatively low risk. I had a job and I was only paying her out of what I was profiting, right? Like I would book the client first and then I would pay her to do the project. and once I tasted that, I mean, I just wanted more of it. And, and then to touch on the why, that you brought up just a moment ago of like why I started my business to have the flexibility, like so many entrepreneurial women do to be home with my kids. That why it did get me through the first year to two years of running Brandwell.

and it was a strong motivator. But then my motivator started to really grow beyond myself. And this is something I actually really teach in terms of how to build a powerhouse brand. And it's you have to, you have to develop a motivator or a why or a mission that goes beyond yourself. Because I was able to stay home with my kids and match my corporate salary within about one year. So,

victoria (20:17.813)
One would think, okay, well, I've reached my goal, my why, so now I'm just gonna keep it steady, right? What's the drive to keep growing and keep building? And I learned something after just serving those first, I don't know, 50 or so women that we worked with in that first year and a half of business was that...

Megan Tobler (20:25.742)
Thank you.

victoria (20:38.037)
they came to me so embarrassed by their current online presence. Like literally that was the word I just heard over and over and over again, like, don't go to my website. I'm so embarrassed by it or go to my social media. I haven't touched my website or it's a DIY. And after they would work with us like list, I would watch them because we follow all our clients on social media. I'd watch them like talk about their business on stories and like happily drive people over to their website, go to my website, check out my new website. And it was this shift of embarrassed to confident.

like self -conscious to confident. And I was like, my gosh, like I want more women to feel confident. Cause like I'm just naturally kind of a confident person. I was born that way of confident parents, you know? And I know that that doesn't always come naturally for some people, but I found especially in business, there are things that can really help you defeat that imposter syndrome and show up confident and be proud of this business you have. And one of them is showing up with a powerful online presence.

Megan Tobler (21:24.11)
Right.

victoria (21:36.565)
And I stopped selling websites and I started selling confidence. And I just realized that my mission was no longer to stay home with my kids. That was a byproduct of what I was doing. But my mission was to help more women show up confident online through design. And that is really where I started to see a shift from like, okay, yeah, I grew this business. I matched my salary to like, wow, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Like big things are ahead.

Megan Tobler (22:03.662)
That's a really good point that you make about the why and how it's really transformed. And I think that's very similar to how a business transforms. You make these goals, the short -term goals and the long -term goals, and the business is constantly going to evolve. And clearly, your why is going to evolve as the business evolves too. And like you said, you hit that within the first three, well, year and a half, right? You hit your why, right? So you're able to do that full time. And then you were able to break away and...

will not break away because you had already done that at that point, but you were really able to realize that this is a mission greater than yourself. And that's really where it sounds like your business just exploded and it completely took off because you were really understanding that you had something here to be able to transform these women's businesses and their lives in a direction that was beyond like their wildest dreams. So.

victoria (22:56.341)
Yeah.

Megan Tobler (22:57.358)
Speaking of how you do this for your clients, I really want to get into the branding aspect of it because on your site you say, here's your permission to ditch the DIY and the headache that comes all around with it. So why, first of all, are so many people starting to DIY it and why are you, I mean, you've already talked about it a little bit, but then why are we helping them ditch that?

victoria (23:21.621)
Okay, so I'm never surprised with an entrepreneur who's DIYing their brand or DIYing their website. Like that's why we're entrepreneurs. We do it ourselves, right? Like we see a need and we go and we solve it. So I DIYed everything in my business in those early days when I was side hustling and trying to build things. So I think there is a time and a place for a DIY. I really do. But going back to just those conversations that I was having with women after women after women.

where they were just so embarrassed by what they were able to create with their DIY. I just know that it's not the same. It's not the same. And here, I'll kind of paint a picture for you. So one thing I DIY'd was my bookkeeping for the first couple of years of my business. I'm not a bookkeeper. I've never been trained in bookkeeping. And I didn't really know what I was doing, but I was like tech savvy enough and I had Google and YouTube. So I was able to kind of like get by, right?

But I did not know my numbers. I didn't know my bottom line. I didn't know what my best seller was for my website where I could target my marketing towards that thing and make strategic informed decisions. When I hired a bookkeeper, which was not something I wanted to spend money on, like what a boring place to spend a lot of money every month, I started to see, what I was doing got me here, but it wasn't going to get me there. It wasn't gonna get me where I wanted to go.

And the same is true with a lot of things in business. Like I've had to outsource a lot of things and bring on specialists, but very much so is true for web design. So what we tell our clients who come to us with a DIY is like, first, we just say like, hey, like you don't need to be embarrassed. You should be proud of yourself for getting to this point where you even can have this conversation about hiring a professional designer to design for your business. You have a business, you have a proven concept. Like that is something to be proud of. But what got you here will likely not get you there.

And that's because everybody is DIYing right now. And like, I know I work in this industry, but like I can spot a DIY from a mile away. And so can your customers, you guys, they can tell when there are typos, when the spacing is off, when the images are from Canva that we've all seen 1000 times, they can tell and that's giving a message to them about your business and about the quality of your offers. So I think it's incredibly important if you have a higher ticket item, if you're selling coaching or one on one services and you're

victoria (25:45.301)
you know, up in the several hundred to several thousand dollar range. Like there's no excuse to have a DIY website at that point because one, you're just, you're doing yourself such a disservice in, you don't even know the amount of business you're losing because of that DIY. It's actually repelling the people you probably want to work with the most. And a good sign of that is if you're constantly getting inquiries from people who are trying to get you to work within their budget and not working their budget to work with you.

then you probably have a DIY. It's not doing its job. But I'm a firm believer that your website should be like the hardest working person in your business. And I know it's not a person, but like your website should be yielding results for your business. And so that's why as you get into those higher price points, like people expect more. You know, every industry is super saturated these days. And because of that consumers, buyers, you and me,

we're more discerning about who we work with and who we buy from. And one of the fastest ways to build trust online if you're working in this online landscape is through good design. So that's just like a non -negotiable for me as you get into a higher price point or if you want to change your target audience and start attracting more premium clients, like you have to ditch the DIY and you have to work with people who know what they're doing because at the end of the day, it's not just about having a website that looks pretty.

It's having a website that was strategically designed to, to convert your viewers into customers. And most DIYers don't know web design and traffic and conversion.

Megan Tobler (27:16.078)
And I can speak personally to this because I was definitely, well, I still DIYed my website. So I really DIYed it at the beginning. I will tell you that. And it was garbage. And recently I moved over to another platform and I bought a template to be able to do it. And it's still, I learned so much and it's not about just having a pretty website. It's like it's having a strategic website. And you mentioned that right there.

victoria (27:23.957)
Mm -hmm.

Megan Tobler (28:06.574)
When someone's listening to this and they're thinking about, you know what, my website, it's okay. It's not perfect, but it's okay. Why would someone then come to you? What strategically is your team doing to be able to really take their website from okay to this is yielding transformative results?

vicctoria (28:25.813)
Yeah. Well, first off at Brandwell, like, and it's kind of goes into why I built out an all female team and why we only serve women is like, we seek to get to know you, we seek to get to know your why your mission. And then secondary to that, we seek to get to know your audience and who you're serving. And then we take that information, and we build a website around it. And the website really should be taking those customers that we just took the time to get to know on a strategic journey of getting to know you learning what you have to offer.

aligning those offers to their pain points and then making it very easy for them to take that next step with you, whatever that is, to buy something, to book a consult. And so, you know, the whole process, like we don't design websites in a week. We design websites over the course of a couple months really, a month and a half or so, because we think a strategy informed design is the most valuable thing you can do for your business. And so,

that that's like the main thing I would say that we do is we we take the time to get to know you and what you're selling and why the person on the other end needs that right and like not just selling bells and whistles but actually selling like the benefit the outcome the confidence instead of the website right in my case so that's like a really important thing and then the other thing is like and I think this one's a little bit of a cliche because it's just used all the time but if you're

banging your head against a wall trying to DIY your website or even like, I'm sure you could speak to this with the template route, but like buying a template and then suddenly you spend a few weeks on it and now it no longer looks like the template that you bought, right? Like that, that is so frustrating. And when we spend a lot of time on tasks that we're not good at, that fuels our imposter syndrome. Like that just makes us feel like why am I even in this?

Megan Tobler (29:59.886)
Yes.

vicctoria (30:11.509)
even though no one expected you to be a great web designer, that's not your skill sets. That's not where your training lies, right? So freeing up their mind and therefore their time to operate in what they are skilled in and what's actually driving revenue and then letting a professional come in and do what they're good at and operate in their skill set. And that's just like a blanket business rule of thumb. You know, I was learning something the other day that's like really inspired me.
on what it takes to get from zero to 100 ,000 in your business, and then from 100 to 500 ,000, and then 500 ,000 to getting to that million dollar price point. And so one of the things that they say is the zero to 100, it's typically just you, right? You can scale your business to six figures, and a lot of probably your listeners are on that journey now, or they've hit it, and it's so exciting. I remember when I hit that lucky little number, and it was just so thrilling. And then, and I've learned this, to get to,

that next stage, you have to bring on like a specialist, somebody who can come in and like take over one area of your business to free you up then to do other things. Okay, and then this is the stage now that I'm working towards and I would love to get to, but to get to a million, to get to that million dollar price point, like what got you to 500 is not gonna get you to a million. And that's where...

you now have to have several specialists in. And so I think what happens with a lot of entrepreneurs is we just stay in the generalist, right? Like if you're an entrepreneur, you have like your one thing, let's say you start a copywriting business, like you're good at copywriting, but you're technically a generalist in every other thing that's required to run a business, bookkeeping, marketing, website design, all those things, right? So if you want to get to that next stage, let's say you bring on the website designer, bring on a specialist to help you grow your business in that way.

And it's just showing you that at each successive stage of growth in your business, you have to bring on specialists or you're never going to get there. And by the time you get to a million, everybody is a specialist. You have a marketing person, you have a selling person, you have a website person, it's just like everything. But I think like even, even for myself, you know, like I, I have to remind myself all the time, like, Hey, as long as I'm trying to do this myself, I'm going to be holding myself back a little bit. It's gotten me here, but it's probably not going to get me where I want to go next. And I think that's what a lot of people need to understand about.

victoria (32:29.781)
your DIY website because we live in a DIY world and I love Squarespace and show it and all these platforms that do make it very easy. A DIY is great for the starting point, it's not great for the long term.

Megan Tobler (32:42.158)
Agreed. And I am a firm believer that sometimes it takes money to make money. So you need to constantly be investing in yourself just as much as you're investing in your business. So you've obviously learned a ton along the way. Have you invested in yourself personally, as such as investing in a coach or anything like that, to be able to take your business from you single -handedly running it to having a large team within your agency?

victoria (32:46.741)
Absolutely.

victoria (33:06.997)
Yeah, I have so I have a sales coach actually and I've been working with her for three years Her name is Gwen with grit and tenacity. I'll just give her a shout out, but she is phenomenal and I had to bring her on Just recognizing areas of weakness for me. Like I'm very much a people pleaser. I like want I want to say the right thing that makes everybody happy and When you're selling a high ticket item and you're dealing with a lot of different leads that come in like one You need to know how to properly vet

clients coming into your business and you need to know how to effectively say no to certain people, which was not easy for me. And then two, you need to be able to like follow up and hold people accountable. If they inquired to work with your business because they had a strong why and they knew that they needed website design, like now it's your responsibility to hold them through making that decision, not letting them get in their own head and talk themselves out of it. Well, that to me just did not come naturally. That felt pushy, that felt salesy. And so I brought on a sales coach and she was...

incredible in dramatically transforming just my mindset around selling and really giving me the confidence to really take Brandwell to that next level in terms of sales. So that's one of the things. But then like, yes, I invest in my business a lot, much to my husband's dismay. He thinks the only reason I have a business is just so I can spend money freely. But I think what you said is just it's a good lesson to have that like you if you want to make money, especially the higher priced offer you have.

It's required that you spend money and I saw something on social media several months back that really stuck with me I thought it was a good quote and it said like you need to spend your price point. So I have a $6 ,000 full brin website design price point. That's like our best seller It's not our lowest ticket offer and we have things that are more but that's like our the median range and I had to ask myself earlier this year. Have I ever spent $6 ,000 on an investment?

for my business and this year I can say yes I have but it's good to spend your price point and realize okay this is what people expect out of this price point because this is the thing with a lot of people like they want to raise their prices, they want to command premium rates and they've never invested in a website, they've never invested in a coach, they've never invested anything even remotely close to what they're trying to get from their clients and that will come through, that will come through and people will be able to tell.

victoria (35:31.125)
that's when you feel like you're faking it till you make it and like that's just not a phrase I like to teach at Brandwell and through my strength of brand strategy course the branding business school is like fake it till you make it is not a phrase you will hear from us like we teach confidence and that's informed by knowledge and like having a clear mission and vision for your business.

Megan Tobler (35:50.126)
And speaking about what you do offer, how can people work with you? What are the different ways that people can hire Brandwell?

victoria (35:57.749)
Yeah, so first off, I just mentioned our brand strategy course. This is like a really good point of entry for people who feel like their brand is all over the place or they like think that they've done the preliminary branding work like target audience mission vision, but they really haven't crafted like a cohesive brand identity. They don't know their brand voice. They don't know their key messages. They don't maybe know that like outcome statement of selling beyond like the features and the bells and whistles.

The branding business school is like where I would recommend that people start that is a self paced online classroom It's of course taught by all women And it's it's for women But again, it's like I'm so inspired to learn from people who I know have stood in my shoes And they've done this with toddlers running around in the backgrounds like that's really motivating to me So I created this online classroom where other female founders are just in myself I teach most of the course are teaching you the foundational

knowledge of building a brand identity. Once you have that foundational idea, you know why you exist, you know who you serve, you know your help statements, all of those things. That's when design comes in. Most people jump right to design. And so then we have branding, and we have website design. Those are like the two packages we have at Brandwell, and we've only had two packages for four years, and it works well. It doesn't overwhelm our customers, and we can easily guide them like, okay, this is what your business needs at this time.

But something that is cool for people that are like ready to dive all in is the branding business school is included in our design services. We just know not everybody's ready to dive headfirst into, you know, a four to $6 ,000 investment. And so we created that like other option for them to get started with it. And then they can actually apply the price of their course into a design package at Brandwell. So those are the three ways that you can work with us is through learning brand strategy, it's like coaching and then branding and website design.

Megan Tobler (37:51.246)
I like that you have it simple for your clients to be able to know which direction they're going to start with. And for the majority of our listeners today, the branding school is the branding business school is probably, like you said, the foundational part where it's a good entry point. But at some point you really are going to need someone to be able to build your website and more than just build your website, allow you to really feel confident as a business woman. So if someone is really enjoying this conversation today and really wants to finally show up confidently.

Where could they go ahead and find you?

victoria (38:21.845)
Yeah, well, of course, I'm going to say my website. Brandwelldesigns .com is our website. You can learn about the Branding Business School there. You can find our social links there. Everything is there for them on the website.

Megan Tobler (38:33.006)
Wonderful. And one last piece of advice that you could share with our listeners. What would you give them?

victoria (38:39.317)
I would say this is important with branding and I have to work with a lot of people on this. I would say stop copying the competition. The fastest way to blend in is to try and look like everybody else in your industry. so sometimes that means put your blinders on. Sometimes that means actually unfollowing everyone else in your industry. That's also going to help your imposter syndrome if you struggle with that. but when you can learn how to just be uniquely yourself and to how to have your own approach to your business and your offers and how you serve people.

That's going to help you build your brand faster because it's your brand. You're not trying to copy somebody else's.

Megan Tobler (39:14.99)
That's so good. Well, Victoria, thank you so much for this conversation. I know that this is something that you built for women and now it's being built by women. I'm going to come, let me, that was really bad. That was really corny. So Victoria, one second. Victoria, thank you so much for sharing your story today. I know that this is one that I will definitely remember for years to come. So thank you so much.

vicctoria (39:40.021)
Thank you, Megan.