Interviews and news

How Brand Stylists are Aiding entrepreneurs to create outstanding brands

Sep 29, 2022

The path that led to Fiona Humberstone's creation of The Brand Stylist was not a straightforward one. The path to success she took in her business has been filled with many surprising twists and turnsand yet, it's this accumulation of experiences that make her an experienced professional in her field.

Fiona traces her blossoming passion in design all the way back to her early days as an unemployed student from London, UK. After having to follow a standard academic path for most of her career, Fiona describes design as the one thing that captured her imagination. When she fell in love with design, she completely came to terms with what she was doing as she climbed the career ladder at the corporate printing firm.

from www.thebrand-stylist.com

"What was the most important factor in helping me comprehend my passion for design was the fact that my boss believed that anyone could design. At that time I was incredibly interested -- I wanted to learn everything there was to know about the industry. I was reading books, and attending classes, I was simply fascinated," she says.

During her next five years at the company, Fiona started building her expertise in designing by taking everything she could from her various print clients. Fiona was elevated to a senior role quite in the beginning, however, at 24, she became unintentionally pregnant with her first baby.

"There was no way I could be separated from my daughter. However, it meant that my job was boring and not fulfilling. So I set up my own company, starting by establishing a print business, but I found selling prints really boring. What I truly loved was listening to the personal stories of successful entrepreneurs, and working on their brand, so that's what I chose to work on. ."

"I wasn't the greatest to begin with -- I only charged around PS100 for an identity. With every logo I created, I strived to exceed expectations by delivering my best work and not the price my customers paid for. Over time, I just improved and got better ."

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Identifying her distinctive point

Through setting up her first venture, Fiona was immediately able to see her own gap in the market through personal experiences.

"At the time, pretty much all design agencies were owned by men. All of their websites were dark black with a large, squarish font. My website was unique and have a distinctive identity, and I promoted it through my blog. Eventually, I started getting work from all around the globe."

"In 2010-11, that was almost unheard of in the industry of designthe people went to the local designer to stand on their shoulders and inform them precisely what they wanted. That's not the way I could offer. ."

The year 2012 was when Fiona made the decision to dispose of her first company after having her second child. Soon after, The Brand Stylist was born.

Achieving an organic and affluent audience

Since The Brand Stylist's very initial days, Fiona has been dedicated to helping her clients create remarkable brands. She provides workshops, online classes, individual consultation, as well as a myriad of complimentary tools to help inspire, motivate and aid in the development of brands that act as a solid backbone to the business.

Fiona's mission was always to push her branding expertise a step further -- she places great importance on educating her clients on how the branding process works to help them take better, smarter and lasting choices for their businesses.

"The Brand Stylist came as a result of meeting entrepreneurs constantly asking me to 'I hate my logo. I would have liked to meet you before. There were many instances where it wasn't blame on the designer, but more likely because they'd chosen the wrong designer. It was then that I realized that if I could help people learn more about the process of branding, everybody's going to be happy," she explains.

Fiona's previous industry experience has given her the experience that she required to build an audience that was organic. Her experience had earned her an impressive reputation prior to her arrival, which established the basis for The Brand Stylist's success in addition to her various audience-building techniques.

"In the interest of expanding my fan base, I participated in many workshops and public speaking, along with writing the first of my books How to Style Your Brand. There were a lot of freebie downloads on my websites , which helped build my mailing list. However, the main reason was"word of word of."

Prioritizing creativity over the metrics

When it comes to advertising on social media platforms, Fiona believes it's incredibly crucial to concentrate less on the metrics and more in educating, inspiring and providing information to her viewers.

"When I ran my first company I employed various direct marketing methods and focused more on the techniques that are hard to sell. I heard a lot of coach instructing their clients to begin aggressively sliding into everyone's DMs however, this did not convey any sense of innovation or quality. These methods didn't attract people who were the appropriate kind of customers as well as didn't make me feel like I was in the right position for a positive working relationship," she explains.

"Since that time, I've been quite aware that the main aspect isn't using marketing to promote the sake of it, but to actually get the correct message out. I prefer the quality of my work and creative thinking over the quantity. This has enabled me to develop the right type of client relationships and gain traction. "

In the event that Covid arrived in 2020 Fiona started a series regular webinars to maintain a sense of community throughout lockdown, which opened a new level of potential in establishing her following.

"I really didn't conduct it as a way to make money It was an act of community. I put an ad in the public domain that reads, "Look, if you can pay me PS45 or more, then pay me and if you can't afford to do so, just come. The end result was that I donated around P95,000 worth of training in locking down. From a marketing perspective organic standpoint, it was quite amazing," she says.

Course creation is the basis for a solution-oriented format

Since brand education was the core of the Brand Stylist's offerings and services, it was only normal to Fiona to transform her service into an online course journey. In 2016, just two years after the launch of The Brand Stylist, Fiona introduced her first online course using .

"I am very proud of joy in developing courses that perform. I'm continually trying to think about the ideal method to teach this?' With my first color psychology course I was extremely thrilled that the students were able to fully comprehend my teaching, unlike in a workshop environment."

"I am a huge believer in video components because I want learners to be able to think, reflect and produce actionable work. I also made use of presentations with narration, because that helps me explain things in the best manner. In all of my courses, I use a combination of downloads, audio lessons and text-based lessons along with video-based presentations, just to keep it exciting. ."

All of The Brand Stylist Academy's classes are fully self-paced and Fiona keeps the ability to ask questions in place to make sure her students can get the answers they require at any time in their course travels.

"It's really good discipline for me because it requires me to ensure that all my courses are completely logical. I must ensure that I deliver on the promise I made because there's no wading in to fill in the holes after that," she says.

Mind mapping her online course structure

In establishing her core curriculum, Fiona has an intentional method of thinking that has proved to be successful time and time again. Prior to establishing any online course, Fiona creates a mindmap on paper. In the past she's filled a variety of sketchbooks that detail her innovative approach to maximize her student learning experience.

"When I sit down to make a mindmap I think of the following 'What kind of journey do I need to take my students on? How do I envision my learners to go by the end? What is the issue my online course helping to solve? I'm hearing students are having trouble with? ?'"

"I also have a mentor for the muse I'm writing my course on. So I'll think 'What does Emily require to know? Where do I need to bring her to so she can apply these techniques for her own business confidently What will be the basis for each of my online classes. ."

Fiona's innovative thinking is easily identified by her popular Naming Masterclass. Fiona created this brief, focused framework to enable her students to choose the perfect brand name or brand.

"I've always been most focused on the course doing what it's supposed to complete. The Naming Masterclass I teach doesn't contain an abundance of cases or videos It's set up to get my students from where they are to the point B. When they do the steps, they'll get a name for their business ."

Using personal experience as a foundation

The Academy's programs are based on Fiona's 20-plus years of experience in the field of design. She explains that her personal entrepreneurial journey directly ties into her course curriculum.

"My first online course specifically for designers of brands came from my experience of working with thousands of designers in my role as creative director and witnessing their struggle over and over to meet on all elements of the task. I've had designers say to me, 'I want this branding to be organic, elegant, and dynamic but they're having trouble achieving that last bit of edge. This is where my color psychology course comes in ."

Making use of  the design capabilities of HTML0.

Being an expert in branding identities, Fiona knew that she required an online platform for her courses which would provide her with the tools for design she required to help make The Brand Academy come to life. Fiona describes how she creates each of her courses into as drafts and fleshes out the concept using customized coding.

"I like to throw out the lessons just as a draft. I'll begin to get an idea of how things are flowing through my head, then work through the material in order beginning from top to bottom. I'm always adding in things or removing things out if they seem irrelevant or if I've done it elsewhere."

"When you think about design I feel that stunning photography is the key to making a distinction. Everything I shoot is custom-made, and not stock and that's a huge help. I have a gorgeous and well-known brand which, again, really makes a distinction ."

  " allows you to display everything seamlessly."  

If you're inspired by Fiona's story about building an online business that is thriving you should sign up the course today.