Add Brand Strategy to Your Services

Ian Paget: Melinda, it's been four years since she was last on the podcast, slightly over actually, which is mind blowing really. You were one of the first 15 guests on the podcast. So, it's been a while since you've been on. And I know at that time, you were bridging that gap between graphic design and brand strategist. And I know now you are doing teaching.

So, last time we spoke, we spoke more about graphic design. This time, I think we'll do a little bit of a session on strategy, and we'll see where this conversation takes us.

Melinda Livsey: I love it. And thank you so much for having me. And I am so excited and honoured to be back again, to be invited back again. This might be the first time I've been invited back to a podcast. So, thank you.

Ian Paget: You're very welcome. Okay. So, I think we should start with the question of brand, because I know when I've read books on what a brand is, everyone seems to have a different definition. So, how would you describe what a brand is?

Melinda Livsey: Yeah, I agree with you on the whole different definitions. And sometimes I even hear the same definition, and it's very much like when you say a word too many times and it stops sounding like a word. And I feel like that's happened with me with brand. So, I had to figure out ways to describe what it is in order to make sense to people I'm talking to.

Ian Paget: So, you've had to come up with your own definition?

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. So, I describe it as people's perception of a business. So, I use the word perception a lot. I connect with that word. Some people that I've been talking to that I share what brand is, like for people who just have no idea, I keep trying to figure out, "Okay. What word could I use that they could understand?" So, I use the word perception. I also use the word personality. I use the word reputation. So, anything that we think of, what do we think of when we think of a business? Those are our perceptions. It might be the reputation. It might be a personality. Those are usually the words I go to when I'm describing what a brand is.

Ian Paget: That's a fantastic way of explaining it. So, I think we should use some of the time to talk about brand strategy. And I think it'd be worth, bearing in mind the audience that we are talking to, it's a podcast about logo design. So, it's mostly going to be graphic designers. And I know, like I said, at the start of the conversation, last time we spoke, you were bridging that gap between designer and strategist, and now you're actually teaching it. So, I'm not sure the best way to ask this question really, but what does brand strategy look like to you now? How would you describe it?

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. So, if we take that, the definition of brand that I was using, and then I take the definition of strategy from the dictionary, because I like simplified things that I can remember. Everything else seems really complicated. And in the dictionary it simplifies it down to a plan of action. I'm like, "Okay. I can get that." So, it's a plan of action to create the perception or to create the personality. So, how are we going to go about creating that personality or creating that perception, creating or influencing the reputation? That's what I consider brand strategy. So, it's a plan for a brand. It's a plan to create that personality for the business. So, that's how I try to simplify it and boil it down into the easiest to understand way. And then of course, there's all the, how do you do that? What does that look like? But that's how I would define it to someone who would ask,

Ian Paget: Do you mind me asking some questions about how you approach it? Because I know that you do have your bootcamp and you have courses and stuff on this. So, if you are open to discussing some of that.

Melinda Livsey: Oh, please do. Yes.

Ian Paget: Sure.

Melinda Livsey: I'll go into anything you want to know about it.

Ian Paget: Yeah, sure. Okay. So, taking it from the context of graphic designers, I know when I started working on logo design, I guess my focus really when I started out was just making a nice looking image. And I know that, I guess I've started to think more in a strategy way, but since stepping back and looking and understanding what brand strategy really is, it's a much bigger thing than I ever realised. So, I think it'd be good, maybe breaking down this conversation into a few things. So say, if you are say a graphic designer, how do you feel that you could use strategy to improve what you're doing?

Melinda Livsey: I love this question, Ian, because it's the first thing I think I was thinking about when I went from graphic design to starting to implement strategy in my whole process. And the first thing I wanted to do was give... Well, a couple of things I wanted to do. One is make my design impactful, because a lot of times I was hired to do design and I had no idea. You had just said, you were just hired to create things that looked good.

Ian Paget: Yeah, exactly. I think most graphic designers are like this at the beginning, especially, we want to draw nice looking pictures.

Melinda Livsey: Oh, of course. And if you can't do that, then what are you doing? But then as you go on in your career, at least when I did, I went onto my career and I realised I made all this beautiful work that I connected with a lot of times, hopefully, the client did too, but then I didn't know what it did for their business. And I was just making really pretty stuff.

And then I started running into issues. We weren't hitting the target that we wanted to. That I wasn't actually hitting the target that the client had in mind. So, I had some of those issues. But I think the big one for me was it felt like my design was purposeless. I was making really cool stuff, but what was it actually doing? Was it making a difference in their business? And if so, how did it make a difference in their business? And then beyond that, what were we actually aiming for? What were we really trying to do versus just have a better perception of the business like that it looks better or that it shows up better in the world. Is there something more to this?

And I think I was craving purpose. I was craving meaning. I was craving to have an impact on my client's business. And so, strategy for a designer for me at that time was helping to give my design purpose. It was helping to give my design something to aim at. And then it was also helping me measure success, whether or not the design, as beautiful as it may be, was it actually doing the job that my client wanted it to do in their business? Were they actually getting business outcomes from it? So, that's what I started to notice was changing when I implemented, starting to use strategy in my design process and a lot less revisions. We were hitting the target. We were all on the same page then. It was a way for me to get me and my clients on the same page on, "What are we even doing? Why are we doing this?" And how to measure success. And so, it just, for me, it made my design process so much better to just add that extra piece. So, that's the first way. Yeah.

Ian Paget: So, I did the course with Marty Neumeier, Level C. I believe you've done that as well. I've only done level one. I don't know if you've done any more of them because I know there's like level three out now.

Melinda Livsey: Yeah, I've just done the first one too.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Okay. So, as a designer, so somebody has hired me just to do the logo design, I say just, but they've hired me to do the logo. With Marty Neumeier's approach, if I was to do brand strategy with that, it's very disruptive. It really goes to the core of everything that they're doing, to the point where it almost dictates their entire product line and everything. It's pretty, I don't know the best way of saying this, but pretty brutal. It's really full on hands on business strategy really.

As a logo designer, and it's something I've been thinking a lot about, that feels very much like I'm treading on toes a little bit when I've just been hired to design the logo. So, it is making me think a lot about how should graphic designers position themselves, if they want to work more in a strategy based way. Should they be seen as strategist first to do the strategy? Or is there interesting ways for somebody that is a graphic designer to implement strategy without going too far? Because what I'm doing at the moment, it's just understanding who they are. I'm not really doing what I feel that they really need. And I think this would be interesting to see if you have a good answer for that question.

Melinda Livsey: This is, a juicy question. I'm loving this. Yeah. There's no right way to go about this. So, one could immediately position themselves as the strategist that's going to help you disrupt the market. Cool, if that's what you want to do. If you're a designer that wants to ease into this, let's say, I have this view of branding and strategy is that it's truth telling, it's just like you said, understanding your client. And then to me it's then how do we represent that to the world? And so, if the client actually does desire to be disruptive, and they do have a potential to be disruptive, then of course, I want to help them and I want to highlight that. And let's lean hard into that. Not all clients are willing and able to do that, nor do they want that.

And so, I really try to see what is my client's goal? What are they trying to do? Does disrupting the market make sense? Okay. Then I'll take the stuff from Marty's philosophy and approach, and maybe use it here. But I think the easiest way for designers, at least this was mine, and I'll say it from my experience is for me, is that I didn't hop just from design and then become this brand strategist. I eased my way in very slowly over the years. So, what I did was I saw that I still wanted to do identity design, so what I did was I just added strategy, a strategy phase to the beginning of my design process, where if someone hired me for a logo, if they hired me for identity, that's just the phase they go through, no matter what. It's built into the price. There you have it.

And then as I got more comfortable and I saw the benefits that people were experiencing because of that strategic process, I started pitching it on its own if, when in the sales call, because I do sales calls, or I did a lot with clients, that is when I would uncover what is the goal that they're trying to reach and what motivated to ask me for identity. And once we drill down, we might find out that, "Oh, you want to do identity because you're scared that how you show up in the world, you're scared of this competitor that just came up. And you're worried that if you don't do something right now, they're going to take all your customers from you."

Or, we want to raise our prices. And we know that our current customers are not going to pay our higher prices. So, we need to start targeting people who will pay us that. So, that is a shift in perception that we need to do. So, that's what's motivating them to hire us for identity. To me, that gives me a clue, "Hey, you know what? They would actually really benefit from a strategic process, from a brand strategy, so that it can dictate everything going forward."

So, really the pivotal point of this whole thing, isn't the sales call. And when you find out what's the goal, what are they trying to do? And as I got more comfortable with uncovering the core problem and what's motivating them to even ask me for an identity, that's when I started saying, "Well, you know what? How about we just start small. We start with this brand strategy, workshop and direction. We get that down. And then we'll talk about design." And so, I had more and more clients that were okay with that, to the point where I liked doing strategy so much that I ended up referring out all of the design work and I dropped design.

So, it was this slow progression of, I just added it to my design process, then I started selling it on its own, and then doing design after. And then I started to just do only brand strategy, and then putting out, sending design off to somebody else. But I didn't even have to really reposition myself at the beginning because people were still coming to me for design, but it was on me to figure out how to drill down in the sales call to the actual problem that was motivating them to ask me for the identity in the first place.

Ian Paget: Yeah. That's where I see the real value of strategy, really, because I know when I've seen brand strategy promoted or sold online, a few years ago, it sounded like the thing that you needed in order to make more money from doing logo design say, but actually I found the more that I researched it, actually you find out that they need much more than say like a logo. They probably need a whole new name. They probably need to position their product differently. They probably need to write whole website. They probably need loads of things.

And I can see why actually you got to a point where you decided, "I'll share all of this out." And I'm making assumptions here. But maybe you didn't have the skillsets for everything, because if you highlight that they need like a big eCommerce website, if you don't know how to do that, obviously you're going to outsource that. And it makes sense, really, because if, if you're going to do strategy in the way that I'm starting to understand is the best way to do it, you are going to highlight that they need a lot more than just a logo redesign.

Melinda Livsey: Exactly. I love that you brought this up because this is one of the things that as an identity designer, I always like thinking, "Okay, but how do I do much? How do I do all those extra things for the business that I'm envisioning?" When you're a designer and you start envisioning like, "Well, I could imagine this logo on a wall. And I could imagine it in store. And what that looks like. And you start dreaming all these things up, but then you think, "Well, how is the client ever going to hire me for any of this?" I want to be hired for all that stuff, or I want to think up the stuff and then somebody else can implement it. Like you said, I definitely don't have all the skills for the things that were uncovered in some of the strategy.

I'll give you an example. One time I worked with a real estate developer. And they're out in Los Angeles. And they build beautiful homes, homes that I want to live in. They're just well designed. They're gorgeous. They cater to a very similar audience that I would fit into. So, I'm like, "Oh, I love this." And as I worked with them in strategy in the workshop, and we uncovered who they are and how they wanted to be positioned, who they were trying to attract, the type of ideal customer that they might make everything fit and towards that they would attract that type of person, we started to uncover things like ideas, marketing ideas, and PR things like, "I'm not going to do any of that stuff, but I'll help you think of the idea based off of who you want to show up as, and the perception."

And then what would that look like when, like we had a discussion about what if in the open houses, instead of just having a real estate agent that shows you around like normal, what if they had a spoken word night, because they want to attract the more artistic, creative, like a creative director that lives out in LA. They want to attract those people who are going out on the weekends, but not to clubs, but to something more like live music, or they're really into the local coffee shops. And so, what if we did spoken word nights that we hosted at these houses that were for sale or other things where they had a groundbreaking event for a group of 26 homes that were being built. And I got to help them with coming up with the idea to bring in a local artist that was painting on the blockades that were right there, covering up where the homes were.So, there was a live painter or local artist.

And then they brought in the local coffee. They had a local band. And all those things, those ideas came out of and were born out of the time that we had during strategy. And all that was given to the PR company. And they executed on it. And they even said, "Oh my gosh, this was so helpful because we know what we're aiming at. We know who we're trying to attract. And we already have some ideas based on what we had talked about to implement." And those are the types of things. And there was merch. There were t-shirts. There were pins. There were all the things that designers love. And that also came out of our time together and working on that, which never would've happened if I was just hired to do the identity, and that's it, and didn't go any further.

Ian Paget: Well, I know, doing that Marty Neumeier Level C thing, there's a really good exercise. And you'll know this because you've been on it, where he takes an assumption about an industry, and then you write down the opposite of it. And as an example, our group, we were finding ways to disrupt a garage. So, if you needed your car MOTed, an assumption is that you have to take your car to the garage to get the MOT. So, if you flipped it, the garage would come to your house to do the MOT. I know that's probably already a thing anyway. But you could create a whole business model based on this assumption, just by flipping something that you assume to be the average thing. And it's a really interesting way to come up with clever and interesting ideas. And that goes far are beyond just doing a logo.So, I see the real power in strategy.

I'm going to ask you a question because I think it'd be worth seeing if we can pour this back to being appropriate to people that are working in logo design, and then we can carry on, going in the direction where we talk about the possibilities of strategy, because I know there's a lot that we can speak about. And it'd be really interesting. You mentioned that when you started out, you added on this strategy phase to the start of your graphic design process, and obviously you've now stepped away from doing graphic design. And I think we can talk more about that as well. What did that strategy phase look at the beginning for you where you integrated it into your process?

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. So, someone approached me. And I had already practiced doing strategy for some people that I knew for free just to get my feet wet and understand it, and be okay, actually putting it into the service. And then someone approached me and actually asked me for a logo design. And I said, "Awesome. Okay, I will do that. I actually start with this phase first. Are you okay with it?" And I did tell them, "It's a new service. I'm testing it out. I would love your feedback." And they were okay with it. And what that looked like was me meeting with them and learning about who their company is, what they're trying to do. Now, at the time, this company, it was a tech company, and very hard to understand the tech side of it. And I learned very quickly that if I could understand what they're talking about, then I could help them communicate it to the people that they need to.

And that was the big issue, was that yes, he wanted a logo, but when I actually talked to him further, he wanted this business to work. He wanted people to understand what the technology is and why it's important, and why they should. I think at the time he was looking for funding. So, I got to know his business. And I got to know the origin of it. Why did it start? Why did he create it? What drove him to that? Why does it matter? Why does it need to be out into the world? Who would care about this? Who is this now for?

And so, I got his origin story and I talked. It's not something to me that I could just send a questionnaire about. I needed a conversation. I needed to talk with him. I needed to hear it in his own language and help him articulate it. And so, a lot of it is just me being curious, like understanding, what is this business? Why did you start it? And then understanding who is this for? Why does it matter to them? What problem are you trying to solve for them?

And then from there, we mapped out a customer journey. So, based off of who the type of business they are and how they wanted to show up, and what the perception they wanted to give out into the world, what does that look like, if someone were to walk through a whole experience with their brand? What are the different touch points? How would someone interact with them? And that's where you can bring in things like the logo. When might they see the logo? What do we need them to think or feel at that time of them seeing it, or the time of them seeing the design of the website? What's happening at that moment?

And I actually have discovered a hidden passion of mine is writing messaging, which as a designer, I stayed so far away from. I don't want to touch words. I don't want anything to do with words. I speak in visuals. But when I did this process, I realised, "Oh, how much of our design is influenced by the language that is used?" And if that language is off, then our design is potentially off. And if the foundation of the brand is off, our design can be off. And so, that was me with him. I can't remember. I spent a long time doing those workshops, because it was very difficult for me to understand what the technology was. So, it was hours of workshops with him to understand it. And then once we got past that, we built out a customer journey of what does it look like for a customer to interact with your business, brand-wise? What are they seeing? What are they reading? All of that.

And then we went into, I think you might have heard, if you've either watched or seen anything on The Futur, they call them Stylescapes, or brandscapes is another word for it, where we went into. Though here is what the business would look and feel like using a lot of imagery, using inspirational images. It's like a glorified mood board. So, it's like if you took the mood board, but then took it one step further.

Ian Paget: I've done a whole interview with Ben Burns on Stylescapes. So, I can pop a link to that in a show notes.

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. Yeah. So, then we did that, and then refined the logo and went from there. But I don't know if that answers your question.

Ian Paget: Oh, it does. It does. And I think as well, for anyone that's offering more than logo design, say if they are a more generalist graphic designer, within that strategy phase, you've highlighted so many places where you can help. So, I can see how this can be a starting point for a long term relationship with a client rather than just having that one off job. And then you're in this constant rush, try and find your next line. You can actually get large amounts of income from each client that you potentially speak to because you've highlighted so many things.

So yeah, it sounds like a good idea and it makes total sense, based on how much work you're actually putting into it, that this would have to be a separate process. It would have to be a separate chargeable thing because it's not like just sending over a questionnaire and summarising the answers. This is the full on, "Let's sit down. Work out, here you are, where you want to be." Well, It's working out a strategy. And you said, days of workshops. And that shouldn't be free. That's going to be a lot of work. So, it makes a lot of sense why it would have to be separate.

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. Yeah. And days workshops, usually I set aside two full days. I tell my clients, two, six hour days. We don't always use those. Sometimes we can do it super fast. I know people who do workshops in two to three hours and they get everything they need. That's not my process. I love to go really, really deep, and go through all of the customer journey and all that other. People don't, and that's completely fine.

But it's also, there's something we didn't touch upon. And that is facilitation. So, with my clients, a lot of times it's not just the owner or just the CEO I'm working with, it might be their team. And the bigger projects that I get, then there's a possibility that it might be a bigger team I'm working with. And so, then I have to learn how to get a team all pointed in the same direction at the same goal, which is a completely different skillset than learning how to design a logo. And I think that was a new thing too.

I think if a designer wanted to inch their way towards strategy, they could just take their questionnaire that they currently send, and then just have a call with a client, and use the same questions you would ask in your questionnaire and ask them to your client, but in a discussion, so that you can then go deeper and be curious about the things that might not make so much sense, or that might be a little off and go deeper.

But then as you get bigger and bigger clients, bigger problems too that you're solving. You might have teams that you're dealing with. And then you can learn how to actually not just facilitate a discussion between you and your client, but facilitate a discussion between you, and then your client, and potentially their teammates or the marketing director, or the person who's over finance. And how do you get a whole entire room who have different agendas and different goals all pointed in the same direction, wanting the same thing? So, that's like the advanced version. But that's what we're aiming for is, how do we help get... Because we've had these clients, I know I have, where we send them the design, the logos, and then they show it to their teammates and they're like, "Oh no, no, no, no, no, this is way off. We shouldn't be doing this." And then you get this feedback that you potentially could have gotten earlier, if everybody was on the same page.

Ian Paget: Yeah, yeah. Something I do that's more simple, because I don't actually go all in on the strategy at the start of a process. I primarily focus on understanding who they are, who they're competing with and who they're aiming to target. And I keep that fairly simple, just questions, answers. I don't see it really a strategy, but it's, I'm working in a strategy based way because I'm understanding who they are and working to create a solution. But something I do to make sure that everybody is on the same and wavelength to avoid that situation is I summarise everything and I get them to sign it off. And then if somebody does come in later on, I can say, "What we agreed upon was this. So, if you want us to include that, we'll have to go back and review the project goals." And I find that an effective way. And that's always worked. And that's always helped me to get a buy-in from everybody. So, I think that's a really basic way of working in a strategy based way, but it's nothing in comparison to what you are doing now.

Melinda Livsey: But that's a wonderful solution. I think you have found the perfect solution for the process that you use. And that's great. I think that's fantastic.

Ian Paget: And for me, I think it is partly a price thing because I want to target clients at a certain price point. And I feel with strategy, I would have to quadruple my costs. And that closes a lot of opportunities for certain types of people I would want to work with. But I think also likewise having that strategy probably opens doors for much bigger clients as well. Have you found that since you've been doing strategy only? I know you're teaching it now, but when you did offer strategy only, did it open up doors for much bigger clients than you were working with when you were just doing graphic design on its own?

Melinda Livsey: It did. It did.

Ian Paget: Oh interesting.

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. And I think one of the major things was that I was looking at it less as, that I was selling deliverables, because in the designer mindset, we're selling a thing. It's a tangible thing that you can see. But in strategy it's a different. I had to change my whole mindset and view of this, that I was not selling a deliverable. Sure, you get like a roadmap of whatever, but that's not what I'm selling. What I'm selling is a solution to a business problem. And that switch, and I think that's what I really liked about switching from designer to strategist, was that it forced me to see what business outcome my clients were trying to get, and then what was getting in the way, what brand problem was getting in the way of that, which I could have done as a designer. I just didn't even have the language. I didn't know to look for that. I didn't know what to ask. But when I switched to being a strategist, then I started focusing on the actual business problems.

When I started focusing on the actual business problems, that's when you can sniff out and find a real big brand problem, because now you know what to look for. Whereas previously as a designer, I didn't even know to look for that. And so, I'm not saying that every designer, that's their story. They might be really good at uncovering the business problem. And props to them, that's awesome. Not my story of. I had no idea. I was selling a deliverable. And that was the biggest thing for me. So, then I could start finding the bigger problems to solve and their brand usually.

Ian Paget: Well, what's really interesting, because I know so many graphic designers get to a point where they start working on strategy, and then they end up transitioning over. I think that's why we see these conversations happen quite a lot in the graphic design space. It's very, very common that is always spoke about.

But now you have gone from graphic designer to graphic designer, working in a strategy based way, to being strategist/teacher. When clients approach you, as a graphic designer, they want our logo, they want branding, they want the website, whatever. How do they approach you when you're a strategist? Do they come to you with different problems?

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking back at that. Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. It depends. But I'll give you the back to that example of the home developer. He had approached my good friend who is a designer and said, "Hey, I need a rebrand." And she had enough conversations with me to know, "That's a sign. I'm going to dig deeper into that." So, she asked them, "Why do you need a rebrand? What's going on?" So, she dug in and dug in. She realised that their desire was to build brand equity and to have people follow them and be excited about what new project they're coming out with. And so, it was this thing that was beyond the design, but it was a thing that they desired to have, which was a following in people that knew who they were and knew what to expect out of them.

And so, the client actually used the words, brand equity. And so, when she heard that, she's like, "You know what? I don't think I could do what you need. I think you need to go talk to my friend, who's a strategist, who actually can help you." And so, she was able to identify that was a bigger problem than what she felt comfortable solving, and that she knew that strategy could solve that.

And so, now I'm finding that clients will come because they aren't attracting the type of customer that they want or client. Something is wrong. This is a big one that I hear a lot is, "We don't know who we're talking to and how to talk to them. We're not clear on that." And that's the thing with moving from design into strategy has enabled me to do is solve messaging problems. I actually solve probably more problems with how the brand speaks than I do visually now. And that is opening up, again, it's opening up those big opportunities and big problems to solve, because it's another layer that I had never even touched before. I only touched visuals. And now, we're helping clients know who they're talking to and know what to say.

And I would say that's probably one of the biggest things people are now coming to me for is, "What do we say to them? How do we build a relationship with them?" And usually it's something to do with like, who is it? I don't know who they are. I don't know who they are and I don't know how to talk to them.

Ian Paget: It's really interesting. Something I'm thinking about is, I don't think all graphic designers have the skillsets to become a brand strategist. You are a really good communicator. When I first saw you on the Futur, you speak very well. You present very well. You're obviously very good at figuring things out. So, I'm curious what your thoughts are. Do you think there needs to be any particular characteristic of a person in order to be able to do this type of thing?

Melinda Livsey: Well, thank you. Thank you for the compliment. I really appreciate that.

Ian Paget: You're welcome.

Melinda Livsey: It's funny because I never thought of myself as a good communicator and maybe that's why I've worked hard at it, because I never thought of myself as that. "Oh, I got to make sure people understand me. So, how can I say this in a way that they'll understand?"

Ian Paget: I know it's something I do a lot as well. I know if anyone listens back to my earlier podcast, I'm a much better communicator now than I was. And it's something I've worked hard on because I know. And it's through speaking with people like yourself, to be honest. You can tell the difference between somebody that's doing well versus someone that isn't. And a big part of it is communication, how you present, how you speak. And personally, I just think that ability to communicate very well in the way that you do is one of the key things to being able to be a brand strategist, a successful brand strategist, because if you can't communicate things and can't articulate that back to the client in a way that makes sense, I don't think you're going to be great at doing this type of thing. So, do you feel there is any other attributes you need?

Melinda Livsey: I do. And I appreciate you calling this out. And I want to say that I think, and this might sound funny, but I think my curiosity matches my confusion. I know this sounds weird, but I'm a confused person. I don't understand things. I want to understand things. I want to be able to get it and I want to be able to get it enough to where I can communicate it to someone else. And I think I've been like this since I was little, just confused.

So, when I worked in design, I was all the time confused. "Why are we doing this? Who are we talking to? Why does this matter?" And nobody had answers for me. And I think that's where my curiosity led me to the next step of once I learned what strategy was, I realised, "This is answering all of the things that I was confused about." And then it led me to more confusion.

Ian Paget: Just like a childlike curiosity.

Melinda Livsey: It is.

Ian Paget: "What's that? What's that? What's that?"

Melinda Livsey: Exactly. Exactly. I think I tapped into, I didn't let my confusion stop me. I actually leaned into my confusion. And when I was confused, I got curious about it. And when I got curious, it led me to the next thing that I'm like, "I really like this. Oh my gosh, I can write messaging. Oh, but how do I say this in a way that they'll understand?" And I think it was less of even concentrating on being a good communicator and me just wanting to understand and not be confused, and let my curiosity lead me to the next step.

And so, I don't think every designer is cut out to be a strategist, but I think mainly it's because they just don't want to. And that's totally fine. And we need really good designers who want to be designers, who enjoy it, who do well at definitely their job.

Ian Paget: Definitely.

Melinda Livsey: I value them so much. But I think the ones that might want to explore something, if they're really confused and they hate being confused, and they want to understand something, well, lean into that. Be curious about it and see where it leads you. And a lot of the people that I hang out with, the ones that are in my bootcamp, my teammates, we all have a very similar story where it just wasn't working for us previously. We wanted to understand more. We wanted to understand, "Why are we doing this to design? What's the backstory of the business? What's the backstory of the founder? Who are we trying to attract?" And our confusion in that led us to ask questions and be curious, which led us to usually, it's brand strategy, in this context. So, I think that's what it boils down to.

Ian Paget: Oh, definitely. I keep bringing up Martin Neumeier, but his book is called Brand Gap. And the reason for that is because it bridges the gap between different things. If you are someone in marketing or if you're a graphic designer, or if you are a CEO, what is the thing that bridges everything together? It's branding. And I think that's why so many graphic designers end up either going into strategy part lead, so that they understand what they're doing. And I think that's really important. I think if you want to be a good graphic designer, you need to have an understanding of who the client is, what they're wanting to do, what they're wanting to achieve. And then you can solve that problem effectively. But then I can also see how it's like a slide that you can keep going down because there's so much that you can learn.

You know these pictures like the iceberg, where there's the top bit is sticking out, and then you realise there's this whole thing underneath. That's what brand strategy is like. Because once you start learning it, you realise like, "Oh my God, that I haven't even scraped the surface. There's so much to this." And I can see why someone, especially like you, where you got that constant curiosity, where you're like, "What's this? Why is that?" You want to ask questions with that childhood curiosity, which is great. I love it when people never lose that. I think that's a really important thing to keep. But yeah, I can see how you would choose to step away from graphic design because there's so many questions that you want to ask.

But I do want to make it clear for the audience, doing graphic design, people need to do graphic design. If you love it and you enjoy it, don't feel that you need to step into brand strategy. Clearly, if you love it and enjoy it, choose to do that. But if you love and enjoy graphic design, don't feel pressured to go into strategy, if you don't want to. There's ways of working in a strategy based way without becoming a full time strategist.

Melinda Livsey: Exactly. And I think too, us strategists need good designers, because one of our fears is that the strategy that we come up with and the brand that we're helping the client imagine doesn't end up being executed in the way that we hope. I know that designers have that fear too. But when you've thought of this brand, and how it could interact with the client, how it could show up in the world, and then it goes to their in-house team, that maybe isn't the most skilled designer, or maybe they do it themselves, that this vision of this brand that we had just falls flat. We need good designers. And so, I would say if a designer hasn't thought about this yet, maybe finding a strategist to team up with or to see if they could be a referral partner for the strategist.

Ian Paget: I was just thinking the exact same thing as well, because I think if you are able to solve strategy well, you can provide effective solutions. And they go hand in hand. So, either you need to be a graphic design and go down that rabbit hole of understanding brand strategy. Or you could just find somebody that does that bit, and then you do the graphic design bit. But you know that you're doing it well because you found somebody that can do the strategy. It really goes hand in hand. And I actually think that's a really good way of collaborating really. So, graphic designers needs to collaborate with those strategists. And that would be the best way of succeeding really.

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. Yeah. It works for everyone. And I want to say too, that if a designer... I've worked with a lot of people who they are designers, they don't don't want to lose that, but they want to add strategy. And you know what? If they can do that well, and they like doing that, go for it. That's the beauty of this is that you get to create the type of business that you want and the type of services that you want to provide. And if that means both design and strategy, awesome. If it means one or the other, cool. It helps to know what's out there and what could be influencing your work maybe better than help you out. So, it's good to know about strategy. You don't have to be a strategist, but it's always good to expand our knowledge of what's going on, especially that's going to help potentially our clients' businesses and impacts everyone.

Ian Paget: Exactly. Exactly. I know you are the type of person that doesn't necessarily stick with one thing. You like to find things that you enjoy. So, you started out as a graphic designer, and you were moving into that strategy space. And that's where you were the last time we spoke. And I know now you've gone from strategy to teaching. What was the reason? Why did you decide to go into training?

Melinda Livsey: So, I was sharing. So, I was on a YouTube show called The Future, years back, and being coached live for the world to see on my business and how to grow it and whatnot. And I remember Christo telling me, "You know what? It would be really cool if you documented this process somehow." Well, my growth and what I was learning, and all those things. And I thought, "Well, I am not going to do any more videos because no, but I can write. I don't mind writing."

So, what I did was I started a newsletter. I don't even know how many years ago. And I wrote once a week for I think two years. I wrote once a week and I'd send it out to my list. And people that found me from the show and Instagram would follow along and just want to see like, "What are you learning? What are you doing?" And I would just share what was going on, what client project I just had, what I was learning, how I was growing resources, all the things. Just sharing what I would with a colleague or a friend.

And I started to have people follow along my journey. And they would ask me, "Okay, what's your process? Can you share it with us? When are you going to come out with a course?" And they actually were reaching out to me asking me for it. And I thought, "Okay, fine."

I love teaching and communicating very complex things in an easy to understand way. And I thought, "Well, I've already been sharing at least so far for two years, why not just make it official?" So, that's when in 2019, I came out with a beta course. And I remember of a beta program of the Brand Strategy Bootcamp that I have out now. And I remember an email I got and she goes, "Well, finally, I've been waiting for this forever."

And so, I had been building an audience. And it wasn't huge, but maybe a 1500 subscribers at that time on my email list, that had been following my journey for years. And they were getting a behind the scenes look this whole time. And now I was saying, "Hey, I'll actually show you even more, if you want to take this program." And it's grown ever since then. I think we've had more than 130 people go through a bootcamp and wild results that they've had. I've had people work with clients that have gone on to Dragons Den.

Ian Paget: Oh wow.

Melinda Livsey: I've had some of the bootcampers team up on big brands that they've worked on. I've had just all these different results that people are getting. Someone actually used what they learned in the bootcamp and pitched their own product to a group of investors, and she said based off of what she learned from our program.

So, people are getting their own, what I find really rewarding, is that they're not just a cookie cutter of me. They're not just implementing my process and becoming me. I don't want that. I want them to become more of them. And that's what they've been doing is they take what I'm showing them and all the different perspectives that are in the community, and they use it to get to that goal that is for them, that they want, like that one that wanted to create her own product. Someone else won a $500,000 grant.

Ian Paget: Wow.

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. And she also attributed it to the community and what she had learned with us too. So, people are getting these crazy different results than I expected from a brand strategy bootcamp, but it's the principles and the different things that we're showing them in there and working on with them and coaching, and whatnot that I think help them just reach their own potential, whatever that may be.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I think something I really notice with brand strategy because I have gone down that rabbit hole, even though I don't actually offer it as a service, it's interesting to learn about it. And you find every book you read, there is a different process, a different tool, a different technique. And I think something I've noticed with every brand strategist that I've spoken to, nobody works in the same way, because it seems more like your main goal is to be a problem solver. So, you're going in, there's a puzzle that needs solving and you need to fix it, but you just happen to have all these possible tools that you can go in with. And it could be this tool, that tool.

And I think the more that you read and the more that you learn, it's not necessarily helping you to figure out that problem because every company has a different problem to solve, but you can have tools and approaches, and techniques, and so on, that would actually solve the issue. And that's how I've seen it. So, it's a never ending learning process, but it's actually quite nice that that there can be somewhere or someone to go to start you on that journey. And that's what this sounds like, that you are bringing people into this, that you are allowing them to learn from each other and just to grow and develop, and start them on their journey on this never ending quest for becoming a brand strategist.

Melinda Livsey: I think, Ian, you nailed it with that. You nailed that. I think that's what we try to tell our group is that, this is just tools. Like you said, they're just tools in your backpack. There are approaches. There's methods. And I think people come to us when they have looked for a perfect framework, a perfect process. They've learned other people's. And they're like, "This just doesn't feel right. Something isn't there." And they get to this very frustrated point of like, "Yeah, but there's just something missing for me. And I want to solidify my process. I want to grow and make it better. And make it feel like that it aligns with me." And that's when they usually come to us. And we're like, "Yeah, it's because we just ditch the framework." Understand what we're trying to do with it. Understand what the framework is trying to help you with in the process, what you're supposed to uncover.

But I think the real need of it is learning how to be that strategic thinker. And what you said, it's a never ending process. This is a never ending process. And you're just going to keep collecting your tools. You're going to keep collecting your exercises and questions that you're going to ask and approaches, and methods, and all that. And like you said, it's a puzzle. And the beautiful thing is, we find the problem that we get to solve. And then we get to go look in our backpack, and choose what puzzle piece that we want to test out and try.

Melinda Livsey: And then we might want to ask our friends like, "Hey, have you ever run into this problem? How might you approach it?" And collect more and more of those pieces and tools and all that. And then that's when we hope to shepherd and guide our people into the space where they can trust their own thinking, that they don't have to rely on just some process that they bought or a framework that they've invested in, but they know why they're asking those questions, and they know that they can figure it out. I think that's what I really want to show people is that, "We'll give you all the tools and I'll show you the behind the scenes of what I do. But at the end of the day, I want to help you trust your own decisions and your own problem solving abilities because you have it, you just need to cultivate it and trust in it."

Ian Paget: I really do think this is like a mic drop moment, because when I started to try and understand what brand strategy was, I was looking at all these different frameworks. That's what it felt like brand strategy was like some kind of framework, like you said. But actually, it really does come down to, there's a problem. You need to solve it. How are you going to solve it? And having these useful tools and resource courses and approaches is the way you can come up with your own things, you can come up with your own techniques and stuff like that. And I think that's the most exciting part of it. And it's really cool that you've done this.

So, I think one last question and to wrap this up. So, you've got the 101 free mini course, 101 free mini course. I want to encourage people to go to that. So, is there a link to that off the top of your head? If not, I'll put it in the show notes for this episode.

Melinda Livsey: Yeah. If they go to melindalivsey.com, it's on the front page.

Ian Paget: Fantastic. Cool. So Melinda, it's been really great to speak to you again. And it's nice that the last time we spoke, it was more graphic design focused, and this time much more brand focused and more relevant to where you are today. So, it's really lovely to catch up. And hopefully, I'll have you on the share again, a little bit sooner than four years away.

Melinda Livsey: Well, hopefully. And if it is four years, then hopefully, I'll have a lot to report back on.

Ian Paget: Hopefully, fingers crossed. Cool. Thanks, Melinda.

Melinda Livsey: Thanks, Ian.