We’ve all promised ourselves “next week I’ll get my act together.” And today, we’ll talk about how to actually make that happen. I’m joined by business strategist, best-selling author, speaker, and host of the Starting The Conversation podcast Alice Benham to dig into the truth about rebranding when everyone tells you you “don’t need to”.
From learning to trust your business-owner gut, handling (unsolicited) feedback to juggling all the moving parts of this full rebrand — brand, website, marketing, wardrobe, and office — one thing’s for sure: what keeps things moving is implementation. We also get digress (as always) into picky girl-lunches, former monochrome palettes, running a business out of Post-it notes, and how to keep showing up in the messy middle of… well, everything.
You’ll hear us talking A LOT about taking messy action and how real success comes from consistent implementation. But it can be difficult to find the time, structure & support to stay accountable to your goals. So this is your invitation to join me inside of , and finally prioritise your own brand & business.
Before we begin, I make every guest audition for the podcast (even when I've already invited them). Since this is called The Freak Show, I ask for three things that qualify you as a freak:
Alice's approach challenges the productivity tool obsession. She keeps a really narrow focus, which forces her to be more streamlined. Sure, things would probably be simpler with everything in one place, but the maintenance of those systems never sticks for her.
It's that setup versus upkeep tension. You have your beautiful Notion setup, but then you have to actually go in and keep it updated. Alice has graveyards of CRM systems that never stuck. What sticks? The notes app and Post-It Notes.
Sometimes we get so distracted by planning, but Alice believes wholeheartedly that we can shake ourselves out of this: "You're not not growing because you don't have that tool or you don't have enough notes in a notebook. You're not growing because you're not taking the external action."
She's very anti going to a coffee shop in January and writing some goals in a notebook because it feels good and does absolutely nothing for your future self. If you want to do it to feel good and have fun, go for it: just don't lie to yourself.
Alice stepped into business about nine or 10 years ago at 17 years old, very naive, very optimistic, and a big believer in messy action. Her first logo was created by a friend who was a calligrapher. Alice scanned it into the printer at her parents' work.
In 2019, she had her first proper branding done: someone else created a logo, colour palette, the works. But she hasn't had her branding done since. Six years on, there's been a lot of evolution in the business. She's so much better at what she does now, the business is more established, but the visuals didn't grow with it.
She got to the point where she wasn't even using her old branding anymore. She was using a hodgepodge of different things — working with a couple of designers for the book or the program, but that strategy and cohesiveness wasn't there.
When she told people she wanted to rebrand, the general advice was, "You don't need to do that. Everything looks good." That's a compliment, but it's also that thing where people can't see your vision. You're the one who sees where it can go. People can just see what it is at the moment.
The rebrand became a way bigger project than she'd expected — not just the visuals, but the website, new photography, new videography, new free downloads, new wardrobe, new office space. Everything got a facelift.
But the interesting part is that there wasn't a light bulb moment. It was all these micro moments where Alice kept thinking, "If only I had better branding."
When her book was coming out and publishers asked what "on brand" meant, she didn't really know. Her branding was just a Canva template she'd made up.
Whenever she did public speaking, she'd feel embarrassed of her slides and wouldn't want to make them because she hated them so much. She'd look at other people's slides and feel jealous.
All of these moments came back to the same thing: if things just looked better and more confident, a lot of things in the business would be easier.
Getting feedback that contradicts your intuition can leave you feeling unsure of your decisions. Alice has had some very negative experiences with online trolling, which made her even more sensitive to external feedback.
She has an interesting relationship with her community. Because she started her business quite young, there's a subsection who still see her as that naive person who wants lots of feedback and input. She loves input in the right ways, but it's not where she's at now. Still, she often has quite vocal people in her community who like to tell her their opinions.
When people told her she didn't need to rebrand, it was meant as a compliment. But it forced her to get clearer on what she wanted and be stronger in that stance. When you come against something that disagrees with you — whether it's data or someone's opinion — it only ever forces you to question: Should I rebrand? Is what they're saying valid? Why do I think I should still invest all this time and money?
It made her even stronger in what she wanted and what was important to her.
Alice is a big believer that you know your business best. She doesn't like the feeling that some content online creates — making you feel like you're not equipped to run your own business, like someone needs to tell you the secrets or hacks. That's a scary place to be. Trusting yourself is the most important thing.
Your audience sees things differently because they're not feeling those tiny frictions within your business. They're not seeing the jealousy of other people's slides or how you're comparing yourself to people in your industry. They only see the big success, the shiny stuff. And that's not because your content only portrays that — it's because they're not inside the business as you are.
Alice still asks for feedback. She recently asked people to help choose her podcast cover. The key is working out where input is helpful and what you're looking for from that data. She's a huge believer in qualitative data — what people are saying, what's landing. She probably annoys clients by asking, "Have we got data? Where's the data that would help us make this decision?" Data turns an assumption into a confident choice.
Getting trolled online wasn't a net positive experience, but it taught her not to take everything people say as truth. Prior to that, if you told her she was bad at what she did, she would think, "Well, that's true." Now, if someone says they don't like something, it still hurts — she's still human — but she puts it through a filter. Are you a client? Are you someone who knows my business well? Are you the person I want to reach?
As Alice puts it: "Don't take criticism from people you wouldn't take advice from." And don't take feedback from people who aren't in the ring with you. If they're just watching from the sidelines, their opinion isn't always as relevant.
Alice’s rebrand content got the highest engagement. Her new brand photography announcement got more likes than any post she'd ever done before.
But Alice is on the other side now, and it doesn't always feel good. She was loving when all her posts got 100, maybe over 1,000 likes. Now she's posting her expertise — and it gets way lower engagement.
Logically, that's normal. Her engagement post got more likes than announcing her book deal. People love personal announcements, but Alice has had to reset her expectations. Announcing the rebrand is step one.
What really matters is what comes after — where you're using the rebrand and actually saying something.
A lot of clients expect rebrands to turn into forever shiny numbers — this magical formula that gets them everything they wish they had. Yes, there's hype when the thing comes out, but then it's back to business as usual.
Unless you changed something deeper than your visuals — your brand strategy, your marketing strategy, having that rollout lean into a deeper nurturing strategy — it's just going to be this isolated moment that doesn't translate into further results.
No one buys from a business because their branding's good. That might help someone connect with you, remember you, have an elevated sense of you. But it's a piece of the puzzle, not the whole puzzle.
So how do you create momentum and excitement around your rebrand launch?
For a typical rebrand where the website and new branding go up at once, bring people on the journey. People love a sneak peek, to give an opinion, to see it unfold. Then you have the big announcement moment. After that, share foundational content — almost a re-intro approach.
Alice did it differently — her rebrand rolled out step by step. New branding before the website was finished. New clothes at different points. Mini launches, mini announcements.
She looks back and thinks she could have done better, but part of that was lack of capacity. You don't just need time to roll it out — you need time to create the content to roll it out.
Initially she worried she should have done more. She didn't go into some intro campaign spending a month on content about her story. She did one of those, then went back to normal programming — because it's strategy that grows your business.
The longer you stay in rebrand mode, the harder it becomes to transition out. She was in "all my content is about the rebrand" mode for months until she realized: "I just need to talk about what I actually do."
Whether you launch everything at once or roll out components at a time, make a decision with intention and commit. Don't go back and forth — that's confusing for everyone.
Alice's tip to get back on track post-rebrand: do a launch. She headed into one straight off the back of the rebrand. There's nothing like a launch to get you consistent, saying the right things, and being more visible.
Then it feels like you turn the page and the rebrand is being used and implemented. You'll only know what to change as you get back to normal anyway.
That's the point that matters. Being in a rebrand is a temporary phase. In Alice's experience, you don't make loads of sales during a rebrand period. The sooner you get back to normal, the better for the business.\
To end with a mic drop, I asked Alice for a branding or business-related take she learned from this whole experience.
Her reminder: You are in control of your business.
If there are things in your business that you don't like, that don't feel good, if there are things about other people's businesses that you're jealous of, excited by, wish you could have — she's gonna bet that in some way, it's within your control or influence.
She'll always acknowledge there are other factors at play. There's luck, privilege, timing — a lot of things we don't have infinite control over. But the beauty of a business is we have a whole lot more autonomy than people in traditional jobs.
Listen to those cues, and remember that you're in control.
Ultimately, growth doesn't come from a new goal or a new brand or a new thing. It comes from the steady, boring, self-disciplined implementation of that.
And Alice can tell you that leads to the most insane growth, and it's worth it, even if in the moment it can feel a little bit boring at times!
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✦ ON IT: Cast vision, set goals, track progress & finally work ON your business (*affiliate link)
✦ THE COLOUR CIRCLE: Bring the Canva design you’ve been (over)fiddling with for hours
✦ Listen to “Forget Notion and Asana — Here’s My System for Staying on Track” on The Ordinary Business Podcast by Jess Freeman
✦ Listen to Alice’s “My experience of being bullied online” on Starting The Conversation
✦ Listen to how Alice suddenly lost 26K£ due to a software glitch on Starting The Conversation
✦ Branding: Hannah May, Maybe Design Studios
✦ Web Design: Danielle O’Reilly, Finding Design
✦ Photography: Chloe Maxwell, Stories by Chloe
✦ Personal Stylist: Sophia Bayly
✦ Hair & Makeup: Nicola Beddoes
✦ Office Interior Designer: Francesca Toman, Ches & Co
✦ Follow her Instagram
✦ Check out her Website
✦ Listen to the Starting The Conversation podcast
✦ Say hey on Instagram
✦ Get my Uncaged emails
Business Strategist
Over the last 5 years as a Brand & Marketing Designer, I’ve helped freaks like us design their unconventional brands so they can step onto the main stage & own their weird. Because if you wanted to be, look or sound like everyone else, you wouldn’t be where you are today. Now it’s your turn.
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