Share Post

Filed in Branding

The natural evolution of a brand and how to support it at each stage

I looked in the mirror and saw some wrinkles starting to appear. Lines that never used to be there. Skin that isn’t as firm and smooth as it used to be. There’s nothing wrong with aging gracefully, but I also knew it was time to give myself a little help with the process.

Cue the Amazon order with a cart full of collagen, supplements, and face rollers. I will be 35 years old this year and even though I feel like I should still be 25 (where does time go, seriously?!), my body is starting to show me that I’m older than I might think.

Getting older is a natural thing that we all go through. As much as we’d like to slow it down, there’s just no stopping it. Even if we take all the collagen in the world, it’s still going to happen.

But instead of seeing gray hairs or wrinkles as a bad thing, we can look at them as an even better version of ourselves. Better than we were a year ago, 5 years ago, or even 10 years ago. If we take care of ourselves with a little maintenance in this aging process things might actually get better over time.

The same thing happens with your brand. It ages over time. Things become gray and wrinkled. But you can give it a boost of collagen with the right kind of maintenance along the way. Every brand will go through a natural evolution and there are certain things you can do at each step to help with the aging process so that you end up with a better brand over time.

The natural evolution of a brand and how to maintain it at each step

The beginning stages

You’re just starting out and you’re new to everything so there is a lot of incoming information, a little bit of overwhelm, and maybe a few mistakes made. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. EVERYONE starts here. It’s like a right of passage. This is when you will probably DIY your brand and likely redo it a few too many times too. You are doing the best you can and figuring it all out so it takes a little trial and error to get things going.

The growth.

Things are starting to move faster and you see results but there’s room for improvement too. Now that you’ve been doing things for a while you have more clarity on who you want to serve, how you want to serve them, and what your brand should look like so it’s time to make sense of everything. You’ve dabbled in the DIY enough to know you need help so this is when it’s best to get guidance in the form of courses, resources, and templates. Those are meant for people in this stage of the evolution of a brand. You can’t dive straight into the deep end if you’ve still got floaties on.

The aha moment.

This is when it all starts to pay off. You finally see it coming together and making sense. You are more confident about what you’re doing, you’ve narrowed and refined your offerings, you’ve got a solid foundation, and you’re ready to go big or go home. Everything is more aligned and this is when you’re ready to streamline and refine your brand.

Where you are now should dictate the next step in your brand growth

Everyone goes through this evolution at a different pace, but the steps are still the same. So you can’t beat yourself up if you’ve still got a DIY logo on your website or if your brand is a little scattered. It’s part of the process.

And here’s the kicker – it doesn’t really end here. You are always continuing to grow, refine, align, and streamline your brand. What started as one thing could look completely different after just a few years.

Take my brand for example. I started in 2012 as an online stationery boutique. Over the years it evolved into what it is now. And it’s still changing. The changes might be big one year and small the next.

Although we would all like to wake up one day with ultimate success, we also know the overnight success story doesn’t really exist. We can’t go from 0 to 100 overnight with our brand. It takes time to develop and grow a brand properly. If it is built too quickly it will lack the depth and intention it needs. You can’t expect to create a brand with meaning if you don’t even have time to think through the decisions being made.

Recap

When you’re thinking about building your brand you want to take into consideration where you are now so you know what to do to get to the next step and can follow the natural evolution of your brand. (If you aren’t sure what that means for you, take this quick quiz.)

Take Action

Now it’s time for your brand to look in the mirror and see if there are any fine lines and wrinkles that might need a little shot of collagen to support the aging process well.

More Resources

Save for later

Enjoy this article and find it helpful? Pin this image on Pinterest so you’ll always have this info on hand!

The natural evolution of a brand and how to support it at each stage
The natural evolution of a brand and how to support it at each stage
The natural evolution of a brand and how to support it at each stage