Leah Gervais: Hi, visionaries. Welcome back to the show. This week is going to be a really fun episode, really behind the scenes, really raw and just conversational. I wanted to take you guys behind the scenes of my business rebrand. Some of you may know that a few months ago, I went from the business name, Urban 20 Something, which I’m going to share how I kind of came up with that and why that was it. And it was for four years and changed it to Leah Gervais. And I just want to talk to you guys about why I decided to do that. And, um, what really went into that. It was a big project, and I think that rebranding, honestly, just branding is a lot bigger of a lift than we often think, and it often gets ignored. So I think that this episode will be great for you if you’re thinking of rebranding, but it also would just be great for you if you’re looking to uplevel your branding. 

I’m a big believer that you don’t need a lot of professional branding to start and to start getting clients. Um, but eventually it’s something you want to pay attention to. So maybe this episode is the time for you. And I have asked, and I’m privileged to have the graphic designer on my team, Hailee here to talk with us and tell us she’s gonna kind of share her side of the rebrand cause her and I really, it was a, it was a labor of love between the two of us. And so I’m really honored and excited to have her perspective here too. So Hailee, would you like to introduce yourself? 

Hailee Pritchard: Yes. Um, hello, my name’s Hailee. I just graduated from Boulder with a degree in advertising and a minor in technology, arts and media. Um, and that was basically the closest I could get to graphic design at Boulder and just ever since I started doing creative things, I love the energy. I love the classes. I love being a part of such a cool community. And so that’s kind of how I got started with this. 

Leah Gervais: Great. Well, thanks for being here. 

Hailee Pritchard:  Yeah, thanks for having me. 

Leah Gervais: My pleasure. Alright. So the first thing I want to talk about is what, what it looked like to make the decision that we were going to, um, that we were going to do this and when Hailee kind of called me out and was like, you need to think about this. So moving back a little bit, I guess I just want to quickly tell the story of how I thought of the name Urban 20 Something and why I did stick with it for as long as they did. So, uh, some of you who have been following me may know that I started my business when I was in my early twenties, my mid twenties.

And it was really just a blog at the time. And it was about my life in New York city and my kind of quest for a big life in New York. And, um, really my dedication to figure out how I wanted to live my life. That was different than going to law school, going the finance route, going to get my PhD, like all these very kind of like conventional versions of success. So Urban 20 Something was about me. It was about a 20 something in New York who was trying to find her way and, uh, who was lost, but who was determined. And I actually really did love the name for a long time because even as my business grew and even as it evolved, and even as I was able to quit, quit my job to work on it full time and started coaching other people and teaching them how I grew it.

I loved how Urban 20 Something, what it stood for in terms of it was representative of the dream that I refuse to give up on. And the dream I had for my life since I was really little and how, even though in all ways it looked like that wasn’t really going to be my reality because I was going to go to law school and then I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do. It really was about being persistent and following up. And that is what we do with our clients is we help them kind of identify what they may have dismissed or they have thought is not in the cards for them. And they kind of have their own version of their Urban 20 Something vision. It’s obviously not usually the same as mine, but I did like that part of it.

And then there were parts of the name though, that didn’t make sense after time of course. First of all, I’m not going to be in my twenties forever. Then second of all, most of my clients, aren’t in their twenties. Most of them are in their thirties, some are in their twenties. Um, and you know, you’re in their forties and fifties, so it didn’t really speak to that demographic. And it also didn’t really speak to the fact that we are kind of powerhouse business coaches, to be honest. And it didn’t really allude to that. So these were all things I had been thinking about for a while, but never had really been enough to push me over the edge and say, okay, let’s redo our whole website. Let’s redo literally everything we have, you know, that’s a huge undertaking, like why fix what’s not broken? 

And it wasn’t until earlier this year, when I was really looking at my mastermind, which has been one of our most successful programs and the people who go through it and what they experience and how, how I’m able to get them set results. And I started kind of classifying this into what is basically my method of coaching, you know, my curriculum, my view. That was when we were like, okay, if we’re going to put this out in the world, I don’t want that under the Urban 20 Something umbrella. I want it to make sense. I want it to be more aligned. So that is kind of the background. And that’s when, um, Hailee started helping me think about what would it look like if we changed it? What would we change it to? Um, what else would need to be changed other than just the name, et cetera. 

And so we started talking and what I think is cool about the way we did this, Hailee is it all did start with that methodology. And I think that that is such a, I mean, I felt so, just aligned with doing it that way, because it was not about, it was like, we, we figured out the inside and then we worked our way out and we’re like, okay, this is the core of what we want to do and what we teach and what we care about. How can we that differently online with colors, with fonts, with your name, with whatever. And so it wasn’t like what would look better? Or we didn’t just like start on the outside or like what aesthetic would be better. We really kind of got to the core. And so one day, and at first I totally freaked out. I was just like, I don’t know how to do this as much as I love branding. I’m really not. I don’t have that kind of creative vision. Not naturally. I think I do. Hailee called me out several times and was like, baby blue has to stop.

Like I love the baby blue color, but she’s totally right. It just, it didn’t go with what we wanted. So, um, we started talking and I think the first really powerful thing that we did once we decided we were going to redo it was when Hailee asked me, we kind of just had like a high level meeting. And she asked me to find what is called the lighthouse identity for my brand. So Hailee. Do you want to share a little bit about what, first of all, what that is, and then second of all, like why you thought that that is what we needed to start with. 

Hailee Pritchard:  Yeah, absolutely. So the lighthouse identity is basically what makes your brand unique from other brands and like what is making your business so successful? And I think you knew that already, and that was already shown throughout your success in sales and your success in your different programs. But we just needed one, like a kind of one phrase to show what you shine your light into the world. Like, what are you doing different from everyone else that is going to make people want to come and see your brand? And then how can we with that vision, how can we correlate the rest of your brand and the rest of the assets of your brand to fit that vision? So, yeah, I think it was really important for us to just define, um, we came up with “you are the voice to your vision”, which was really impressive and just like a very professional way to start rebranding the business. 

Leah Gervais: Totally. Yeah. And I, um, yeah, I mean, I think it was very like spot on because I do feel like, like you said, it’s like, it’s what we’ve been doing all along. We just didn’t have the words for it. And so we really decided that what we were going to start with was we see our jobs at when our clients come to us and they’re like, this is my dream. This is what I want to happen in my life. This is what I wanted to happen in my business. We almost, we give that a voice. We give it a personality, we bring it to life that desire so that when your family doesn’t believe in you, when society is telling you this is crazy, when you don’t believe in you, when your ego is coming in hot, all of those things that will like dim that light where, you know, we’re really, um, just firm in not letting that go out. So could you Hailee, just for people listening, are there any other brands, maybe big brands, people know that you could kind of give examples of lighthouse identities other than mine, and it’s okay if you don’t know it off the top of your head.

Hailee Pritchard:  Yeah. Let me try to think for a second. Yeah, go ahead. Um, yeah, so like for example, Nike, um, they differentiated themselves from Adidas and Champion and Puma and other athletic brands by, um, defining that they wanted their clothing and their shoes and their aesthetic to be for professional athletes and people who are really serious about training. So that was what made them so unique in the market. And then they use that to come up with their slogan of “Just Do It” and expanded their brand from there. 

Leah Gervais: So you don’t need to, you don’t need to tell your lighthouse identity to everyone. It’s like, it’s not the same thing as this slogan. 

Hailee Pritchard: No, it’s more just for the brand and the company it’s for you guys to understand, like, what is the main reason that you are different and you are doing this, it’s kind of like your, why, like your purpose for doing this.

Leah Gervais: Right, right. Awesome. Okay. And so after we did that, um, Hailee worked on a brand guide for us, which ended up being, it’s still one of my favorite things that I have. I look at it pretty much every day. And it’s just so helpful to kind of see that all together. And as someone who’s tried to do this on her own hire a graphic designer to do, I think as I could, I did not do it the way she did it. So how do you think about brand guides, Hailee? How do you, how did you start with mine? And, and if someone is just like, Oh, that does sound good, but I don’t even know where to begin. What would you say? 

Hailee Pritchard: Yeah. So I think after you define your lighthouse identity, the next component of that is just figuring out your colors. And I think we kind of had a hard time with that because there’s so much psychology behind colors and so much that goes into what people think when they see a color like blue is very trustworthy and dependable. So like a lot of, a lot of big brands use blue, but red on the other hand is super passionate and powerful. Purple, like higher end, more nostalgic. So I think just defining what you want your brand to look like. And then there are so many colors in the world. So just trying to hone in which colors you like, that still match what you’re trying to portray to the world. Um, and then finding other colors too, put that together and then I think that’s a really good start to creating a brand guideline. And then after that, it’s just picking fonts that work together and that are like- for you, it was trying to find fonts that were still fun, but still professional and really sophisticated and show that you are really serious about your job, but also that you’re living this really beautiful life in New York that so many people want. Yeah. So that was the beginning. And then after that, it’s just the images. What kind of images do you want for your brand? Um, yeah. 

Hailee Pritchard: Yeah, we did images. We did fonts. We, you also, I love that you had kind of like five keywords that we could kind of refer back to, which we’ve also like since, you know, given to freelancers that have helped us with projects. So that was also really helpful. And I think you put like kind of a Pinterest board in there just to kind of get the vibe. Yeah. I just kinda, it’s kind of like creating a mood board so that you’re showing this brand guideline to someone who has no idea what your brand is. They have an idea of what they should expect from you and what, how you want to be shown to the world. 

Leah Gervais: Right. So after we did that, we then dove into my website, which was obese. Um, but I also just want to say Hailee and I did this completely on our own. Four years ago I had like, WordPress was like Chinese to me. It was a completely foreign thing. It was very, very confusing and intimidating to me, all website was in fact, and I’ve still never taken a course on it. Never really had any background. I’m not saying this to toot my own horn. I’m saying it like just, if it feels intimidating, you can figure it out. You can’t do it. Just know that, um, you don’t have to have a ton of background to do it. So, um, yeah. Then we dove into my website and that was so much really, there was so much to be done. I actually, once Hailee and I did this brand guideline thing, I couldn’t even look at my old website- I was like, Oh, this is making me cringe, which was so weird because like three weeks before I was like, I think it’s fine. Like, I don’t really see the problem. Are we sure we need to do this? But right away, I was just like, Oh my gosh, I’m so ready for something new and something fresh. So we worked on that together. And one of the things that we did in there that I love is we built a kind of like a portal is the way that we thought of it for people to explore their entrepreneurial vision on their own. And we love the word vision. Like that’s obviously what this podcast is about. And I like it better than dreams and goals. Cause I think dreams are kind of fuzzy, but goals are to soccer player. So I really liked the vision is kind of in the middle.

And by the way, I use both of those words, but that was what we really wanted was to kind of find that center. And so in this portal, we went off of this Leah Gervais methodology and you, we literally made us step for each of the eight steps of this methodology, where you could go into different podcasts, we’ve done different resources. We recommend books, we’ve read, um, you know, downloads, we’ve created things I’ve done in the past that support you in whatever step you’re in, in all eight of them. And I’ve never seen anything like this online because it’s as much information as you would need to kind of like do an eCourse or do something to learn on your own. Um, but it’s also very kind of it kind of, we wanted it to encourage you to dream because we didn’t want it to just be like content and information and just more stuff like that is found on YouTube or Google or whatever.

And then it’s free, which most of them, most things like this aren’t free. So that was what we thought was such a unique, um, part of this that like, yeah, like I said, I hadn’t really seen anyone do this and we really wanted to have that platform that allows people to dream basically. And that’s really been the goal of this whole, this whole rebrand is to bring it more to, um, that voice for people’s vision and really like, what does it actually look like to inaction own your lighthouse identity? Like if we say our job is to stand up for your vision, even when you can’t, and we can do that in our programs, all we want, but in general, how do we do that? Well, it’s by doing things like this, by giving people a place to, to dream and to vision and to do it all safely and everything like that. So that was kind of our process. And it was a really exciting time. It was very intense. Hailee was a trooper with all of my back and forth. Um, Hailee, what would you say to someone who is listening to this? And they sort of have this feeling of like, Ugh, gosh, I haven’t really paid attention to my website or branding that much. Like, what do you think is the first thing people can do to kind of Uplevel their branding that isn’t like having to do a whole rebrand like we did?

Hailee Pritchard:  I think it’s really important to have your lighthouse identity and to have a strong one, because that is just, what’s going to keep encouraging you to build your brand and make it have the potential that you want it to be. Um, and I think a lot of times people have really, really good ideas, but they don’t know how to put it into one specific niche market or one specific category. Um, and then that just helps you figure out your target, your target audience. And then you can start thinking about maybe mood boards and put together what you, how you would want your brand to feel. And then I think it really helps having someone with a design background or just even like a design eye. Just to say, like, I think these will go well together and this is going to be good and kind of put together a vision for you because it’s really hard to see on your own and see the potential that your brand could have.

But yeah, just like honing down. What makes you unique and why do you want to do this? And then have fun with it? Like build a mood board, have some color ideas, look up the psychology of colors. Like there’s so much behind it that can be so fun. And like, if you’re passionate about what you’re doing, it should be a really fun experience. And then I think the best brands- that shines through there, the rest of their brand not sets like all of their social media, their websites, their podcasts, everything. 

Leah Gervais: Yeah, absolutely. It’s like, it becomes your voice or your story. You’re just like your common theme through it all. Like what people can expect from you. Um, and then this is kind of a curve ball question. And I know I said, I wouldn’t ask you any, but I am here we are. Um, you, I am like the first online business you’ve, you’ve kind of done any work for, um, what have you learned kind of from being behind the scenes and seeing it, and, and I know that that might be a big question, but is there anything about it that surprised you or that you feel like would be helpful for people who are maybe just getting started and, and are wondering if it’s right for them?

Hailee Pritchard: Um, yes. So I think there is so much to be learned from working with the small business, because there’s so much intimidation behind quitting your nine to five and pursuing your dreams. And I think just being around that type of culture and this entrepreneurial lifestyle has been really encouraging, just seeing so many different people start from zero and work their way up to like really successful businesses. I would say a challenge would be just communication. Um, like not having in person meetings, that’s just our world right now. Like that is what’s happening. But that would be the only challenge. I honestly, I had so much fun with it. It’s so fun helping people figure out what they love and why they love it and put it into a vision, and like put it into a design. 

Leah Gervais: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you did a great job with it. I know I miss, I definitely miss the in person ness of it all. It’s like when I hired Abby, we had like a workspace ready to go. We were going to work together four days a week. We have worked together in person two times in six months and we’re sisters. Yeah. Because like COVID hit right as it happened. So yeah. Anyway, I think that that’s great advice and I think it’s so cool that you’re seeing really up close and personal. How many people in our courses like literally do start at nothing and then move on to this, you know, really do get really high up there. So I guess to recap what we hope you got out of this episode and what we just hope that this was helpful and being clear about how I thought about this. And I wanted to be, I wanted to do this episode because I also want you guys to know that I, this I’ve been in business for four years now, before I did something as kind of big as this.

And I did have a good website before. And like I’ve had professional photos and everything. It’s not like I literally didn’t do any branding work for the past four years, but I do really think it’s important to know that like, you don’t have to have everything figured out before you can start, start making money and being successful and getting clients that said, I don’t think you need to wait four years. I think that if you want to Uplevel, I think that if you want to, you know, kind of go to that next level and also have fun with it, then this is a great way to do it. And I think that the most powerful takeaway from my experience with this whole thing was that whole piece about like starting from the inside out. And I know that sometimes it can be really daunting to start inside.

Like what, how do I, how do you, do you nail down a why? How do you nail down the lighthouse identity? Like those are big questions and they take time to really flush out. But that’s why it was so helpful having you Hailee. Cause you could kind of be like, okay, Leah, like you have left the train of thought, come back to what you actually want to say. And um, you know, helped me really fine tune what I was thinking. So start with that and then slowly work your way out. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself and I think you could see a lot of up levels in your brand. Thank you so much for joining us. Hailee, do you have any final impressions about the experience or final tips you’d want to give to someone? 

Hailee Pritchard:  Um, I would just say, yeah, like just start it don’t I think there’s so much stigma behind how hard this can be and how intimidating it is. And I think once you start something that you’re this passionate about and you have this much fun with, it can be something really incredible. And I’ve seen that firsthand with so many of your clients and so many people we work with and just your branding as well. Like it was so fun working with them and seeing the difference. Not that it would ever look bad ever, but just seeing the potential that it could come into is really cool. And it’s been really fun. So thank you for having me. 

Leah Gervais: You’re welcome. Thank you. Alright, visionaries. Well, I hope that this helps you no matter what you are on track to your vision, keep fighting for it. And when you’re ready to Uplevel some branding, this episode is here for you. But like Hailee said, there’s no time like the present to start. And when you’re in love with your brand and your branding, it really is just a fun part of business. So thanks again for being here Hailee, I appreciate your expertise. And let me know if you guys liked this episode, send me a DM if you want to chat about it. Alright visionaries, here is to your biggest vision!

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