Your brand should do more than look good. It should attract the right people, support your sales, and give you the confidence to show up like the expert you are. But what happens when it doesn’t? When something feels off, even if you can’t quite put your finger on it?
That’s exactly what today’s guest, Nikki Trailor, realised before stepping into her rebrand. Nikki is a funnel strategist and copywriter who helps feminist coaches and course creators add five to six figures in automated revenue to their current funnels or launches — without the burnout, sleazy sales tactics, or FOMO-fueled BS.
And fun fact: She and I first started working together when she won my World Design Day giveaway, leading to a full brand transformation!
Nikki had cobbled together her brand piece by piece. First, she DIY'd everything (we've all been there!). Then, when she decided to serve course creators & coaches specifically, she realised: none of this fits anymore.
She did a barter with someone from her old company who'd started doing graphic design. Not necessarily an expert at the time, but they traded services & got something set up, which worked for a while.
But then came that moment… That gradual realisation that she'd outgrown it.
"Every time I went onto my website, I just felt like this doesn't feel like me anymore. This doesn't feel like... it felt almost like the child version, like version 1.0 of my business."
She had these BIG GOALS, and she wanted to show up with total confidence when sending someone to her website or posting on social — confident that it was fully representing where she was NOW.
Sound familiar?
It's that nagging feeling that your brand is lagging behind where you actually are. You've learned so much. You've refined your offers. You've gotten really good at what you do. But your visuals are still stuck somewhere back in 2022.
Let me just say this outright: it's SUPER normal to DIY everything in the beginning.
Because essentially what you're doing is trying to future-proof your business. You have this idea, and before you make the big moves & big investments, you're just testing: Does this have legs? Can I run with this long-term?
So yeah, you get scrappy. You throw something together that allows you to get stuff out there & understand if there's actually a market for it.
That's not just normal — it's smart!
But here's what's also normal: things change quickly in those first years of business, when you go from "I have zero clients & don't even know what I'm selling" to "Actually, I prefer THIS type of service with THESE types of people."
And suddenly, all that stuff you did in the beginning doesn't match the rest of your business anymore.
The hesitation is REAL when you're about to hand your business over to a designer.
Here's what Nikki said about it:
"You spend so long building this business up. And because you do DIY a lot of the stuff in the first place, you have this vision of what you want, but you can't necessarily bring it to life. And you're putting your trust, this thing that you've spent so long and so much time building in someone else and expecting that they can pull your vision out of you and create what you want from it."
That's the part nobody talks about.
Hiring a brand designer isn't just a business decision but an act of trust. (I felt the exact same way when I hired someone to do my copy. So yeah, I get it.) What made Nikki trust me was my onboarding process:
"I just instantly had faith because you asked so many good questions. And it really felt like you were trying to unearth all of the right things. And all of the stuff that I just wasn't sure how to articulate, you asked really interesting questions to get that out of me."
THIS is why I put so much emphasis on the whole process being a collaboration. I'm not going to make business decisions for you — my place is just to point things out as I see them, then for us to come up with a plan together.
At this point, we somehow got into one of my favourite debates.
This whole chicken-and-egg question that's been floating around online: Are you selling the service provider or the services themselves?
Nikki's take: It depends on the business.
"If you have your specialty in your niche and you've got yourself to a point where you have frameworks that you follow and processes and systems... I feel like you're almost selling the offer and that framework more than you're selling the person, but there's an element of their personality that you are selling because at the end of the day, people buy from people that they like."
So yeah — both are important.
But we've seen way too many "personality hires" in the online space lately.
People becoming obsessed with being part of this clique or group of cool kids, buying offers they don't even need just because of FOMO. Then coming out on the other side thinking, "Wait, what did I actually learn from this?"
Your brand shouldn't rely only on your personality. It should showcase your personality AND the quality of your offers: the frameworks, the systems, and the actual results you can deliver.
As Nikki put it:
"I'm really hoping that it's coming to an end where people will just be able to charge a fortune for access to them."
Same, Nikki. SAME.
Ok back to Nikki’s rebrand!
When we recorded this, Nikki’s big brand reveal wasn't even out yet, but she was already feeling the shift.
The branding process forced her to think about: How many times do I wanna email my list? What platforms am I actually committing to? What can I cut back on because it's not serving my goals?
"I've always struggled to pinpoint my exact messaging around just my overall brand... But for my business as a whole, I found it really difficult to come across that kind of thread that ties it all together. And so having those conversations with you, that really helped."
This is what I mean when I say branding isn't just about making things look pretty.
It's about forcing yourself to articulate what you actually stand for, who you're really trying to serve, what makes you different, and where you're going next.
Because you can't design a brand without getting clear on those things first. The graphics are just the visual representation of all that strategic thinking.
I always end these spotlight conversations by asking: What's your definition of success now compared to when you started?
And Nikki's answer gave me CHILLS.
"My definition of success when I first started was getting paid like 60 pounds, just getting paid something for something that I enjoy doing. I was like, that is success."
But now?
"I see my version of success has really shifted to building something sustainable... what I want my life to look like and building around that versus the business itself. So that version of success is really thinking about what I want my life to look like and building around that versus, oh, what can I get paid to do?"
From "please just pay me something" to "I want to do a lot less, but I want to do it well."
THAT'S the shift.
In the beginning, we have to work around the business to make it work. But at some point, the business needs to work for us instead.
So here's the bottom line:
Your brand isn't just visuals. It's not just your personality. It's not just your offers.
It's the whole damn thing working together to show people who you are, what you stand for, and why they should choose you over literally anyone else in your industry.
And if your current brand doesn't reflect where you are now, it might be time to stop cobbling things together and start being intentional about what you're putting out there.
Because confidence isn't just a nice side effect of good branding.
It's the whole point!
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This episode was co-produced with Adrienne Cruz.
Funnel Strategist & Copywriter
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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