BFC #011 - The Power of Personal Branding with Rebecca Flint

You're listening to the Business for Creators podcast, where each week we uncover the secrets to balancing creativity and business all in the one place with your host, me, Dan Lenny.

G', day, folks, and welcome to this episode 10 of the Business of a Creative Podcast. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Rebecca Flint, who we'll get to in just one second. But let me just tell you a bit about Rebecca. Rebecca Flynn is an entrepreneur with business in the branding and fitness space. She's a Telstra Women's Business Award finalist with almost two decades of branding expertise under her belt. She's used her personal branding and corporate branding strategies to help grow their family business to seven figures, and now coaches business owners how to grow their businesses by utilizing her proven branding techniques. Bec, it's wonderful to have you here.

Thank you so much. It actually just froze there for a second, so I wasn't sure if I was still connected, but I think we're all good.

You were just looking in wonder and I had no idea that you've got a lot of accolades there.

Oh, thank you. Thanks.

Well, the reason I wanted to get you on the podcast was because I don't think I've ever met anyone in the branding space who has eloquently and compellingly convinced me of the power of personal branding. Before we get stuck in, tell me about a bit about you and how you got into branding.

Oh, sure. Oh, gosh. We're going back nearly two decades now, but when I was in high school, I was a very high level, elite brand competitive gymnast. And I spent 36 hours a week training, plus school. And that career came to an abrupt end because I needed to have my ankle reconstructed. And I had this massive hole in my life that I needed to fill. And at school I was quite creative, but I didn't really realize how creative I actually was until I had the time to be able to explore that area. And in years 11 and 12, I had visual arts and photography as my electives and I really immersed myself. I think I was replacing gymnastics with something else, but I really immersed myself into those subjects. And I found that when I was being creative, it was almost like time stood still was probably the first thing that I'd ever been able to just really sink my teeth into. So I knew there was something inside me that wanted to always be creative. So I spoke to my teachers at the time and asked what sort of career paths there were. And going back two decades now, of course we had computers then, but.

Really in the graphic design and print industries, Things were still very, very manual and really switching to the computer side of things. So there was the interesting creativity, but there was also the interest in computers and technology and where that was going. So they suggested that perhaps I have a career in graphic design.

Whilst I was in year 12, I went to KVB College in North Sydney to check that out and I actually applied for a scholarship, which I won, which was amazing. So prior to Even finishing year 12, I had the opportunity to go to college on a scholarship to learn graphic design and visual communication. So that's what I did and absolutely loved it. And a lot of my friends say to me, God, you're so lucky. You've known what you've wanted to do since school. And I have to say, being surrounded by the right teachers who believed in me, who pushed me in a certain direction, really helped carve my career out, I suppose. But perhaps they saw something in me that I didn't quite see myself yet. But that's how I got into it and then went from there. I left college, got a junior design job. I got fired because I had to make tea and coffee and answer phones and I hated that. I think I was that typical little 19 year old pain in the ass that nobody wants to hire. But looking back on it now, I think they made a huge mistake because there was this really eager little girl who wanted to learn and wanted to be part of the business and put all of my creative thoughts forward, but they just wanted me to answer phones and make tea and coffee and I hated that.

Well, I reckon that was their loss.

Absolutely. So I got fired and I went and started my own business. So that's how, you know, in a nutshell, how I got started, I suppose.

So there's many, there's many graphic designers who talk about branding.

Yes.

But we were at an event recently together and you were able to just beautifully articulate how important branding is for someone who runs a video business or someone who's running their own sort of personal brand of whatever description, maybe their coach.

If I can just get you to go over that again, because I thought it was really interesting and I think just to kind of jog your memory, we were talking about my cynicism around branding as a small business owner. Many times small business owners just don't have the resources to spend money on branding because they see it as a luxury rather than as a necessity. And you said some wonderful things about the power of attracting the right kind of clients, but also, you know, rejecting the kind of clients that aren't a Good fit. Can you tell us a bit more about your philosophy around that?

Yeah, absolutely. I can't tell you how many business owners I've spoken to, like you said, who have thought, oh, gosh, developing my brand is just a luxury. I just need a logo and some business cards to get started. And I say to them, okay, but that logo and business card going to attract the right type of people who are going to pay you what your service or product is worth. And they're like, not sure. And I'm like, okay, so who's your target market? Do you know the behaviors and the activities and where they hang out and what they like and what they dislike? What do you know about your target customer? And they say, nothing, you know, and so I start to explain to them that branding isn't just a logo slapped on a business card. It is knowing your target market inside out. It's knowing how to and where to attract the right customer. It's knowing how to speak to them in a language and with messaging that they're clearly going to understand. And it's about having imagery and typography and messaging again that truly reflects the core values of either yourself or your business that are going to be projected out into the world and the right types of people that are attracted to that are going to come along. So if you just go and get a logo and slap it on a business card, chances are you're going to get people that say to you, oh, but can I have a discount? Or, you know, I just, I really can't afford it, so can you just do it anyway? But by really positioning yourself and showing that you put the time and effort into that visual brand and all of your branding and your marketing activities is really going to weed out all of the people who aren't really your ideal customer and only attract those who are. So branding isn't a logo. Branding is everything from your brand identity through to your messaging. It's how you market your business. It's the customers you attract. It also encompasses your customer journey. So what happens from that first point of contact through to the final sale and then how you promote and advocate that advocate that particular client. So when I start to explain that people see the value in getting that stuff right, because otherwise they go and slap a logo on a business card or their truck or some signage, and three years down the track, they're really disappointed with the customers that they have, or they aren't open anymore because they didn't get it right from the start. So, yeah, that's why I think branding is important and also it's on the visual side of things. It's something that represents you when you're not there to represent yourself. So it needs to be authentic. It needs to be in alignment with your values, vision, purpose and mission. It really needs to tell the story of who you are or who your business is when you're not there to physically tell that to the customer yourself. So you could actually lose customers by not having the right types of branding and imagery and messaging and using the right typography and colors and, you know, all that sort of stuff. If you don't put that time and effort in, you could be losing business. So what might cost you.

It is an investment. What you invest in up front is only going to bring in more customers down the track. So that's why it's important.

It's so interesting, the comment you make about, you know, it's there to represent you when you're not there because you generally, as a small business or as a creative business, it's a small team, generally, maybe one, maybe two or three people. You physically can't be everywhere at once. And I think in addition to that, it's within a global marketplace. The Internet is a global thing. So.

What would you say to someone who is considering, you know, setting up a small business or set or expanding their creative business.

Who looks at branding and goes, oh, but you know, it's just, I need to buy a new camera, I need to buy this or I need to buy that. I imagine you get a lot of objections from people saying, wow, it's just not a priority. Can you give any examples of where you've branded someone and they've seen an immediate return or a return investment? That. Because it's the question. I'm sure you get asked a lot. It's like, you know, how do I get a return on investment on branding? Is that something that comes up?

Look, because I target my clients correctly and my branding set up well, I typically attract people who want to work with me and really are happy to pay whatever my packages cost. So for me, I haven't really experienced that recently. When I was younger, I certainly did, however, definitely for my clients. So if I take one of my recent personal branding clients, Sean Soell, for example, he broke away from a former business. He was starting to go out on his own. He had no followers, no website, no brand identity, and he got the right team in place. So he had myself for branding, website.

Photo shoot, you know, everything to do with his personal brand. And then he had Mark Holterman, who was helping him with his marketing, and he has a va, and so he had the right team around him to help pull these elements together. Now, in the first six weeks of launching his visual brand, he increased his following by, I think it was 400 or 600% or something like that. And his leads went from nothing to, I'm not exactly sure how many per month, but he's getting leads where he wasn't before. And so he was able to launch a business positioning himself visually and authentically online as one of the authorities in his field. So simply by going through that process and really having a visual brand that represents the quality of his product. When people see him online or he comes up in posts or, you know, they might receive some marketing materials from him, automatically he looks like he is the best at what he does. And look, granted, he is very, very good at what he does. Excellent, actually.

So just having that brand or investing in that brand and brand identity and branding at the start helped position him immediately to show his market how good he truly is. So he definitely experienced an increase in followers and increase in sales. His group has grown since I've seen it about a year ago. It's more than doubled, which is amazing. You know, so, yeah, that's a. That's an example of a client that, you know, didn't have any branding whatsoever and was able to get a return on the investment, probably way bigger return on what he invested, which is amazing.

So that is incredible. And for anyone who's listening to this, we actually did a podcast with Sean, so episode nine. So go back and listen to that or watch that if you want to learn more about what Sean does. And it's so interesting, as I say, I in the past have been a massive cynic, and yet meeting you'd completely changed that because you were just able to articulate it. I think that's one of the challenges that many creatives have when they're selling any kind of service. And one of the things we're always looking to do on the podcast is just help creatives understand how to sell themselves better. You mentioned there that you're very fortunate. You tend to have a lot of referral business. Referral business is probably the best business there is. And generally it comes from the fact that you've done a great job for someone and they've got results. What other advice do you have for creatives? Either starting a business or setting up or been in business for a while, if they've hit a bit of a wall.

What Kind of things would you recommend they do or try to get more clients and the right kind of clients?

Yeah, absolutely. I find other than referrals, the next best place for me to get businesses by networking. And granted, I am really. Well, I love networking. I love talking to people. I could stand and talk to somebody about their business all day, every day. And one of the things that energizes me the most is to give value to somebody to help them grow their business. And so networking for me has worked exceptionally well. Now I know when I say that to some of my clients, they just shudder because they're the person that likes to stand in the corner and hopes nobody talks to them.

Networking authentically and genuinely is one of the best ways to build relationships, long standing relationships with new clients. And what I found happens when I network is that eventually somebody might come and do business with me, but so will three or four of their colleagues or friends because I spent time developing that relationship. And instead of like, you know how sometimes someone will connect with you on LinkedIn and then they'll just hit you up straight away with a sales pitch. That's the wrong way to network. So the opposite with networking I find.

Is. Are you still there because it says it's unstable.

Yeah, yeah. You're still got your loud and clear, beautiful.

Yeah. So I find networking is definitely one of the best ways. Also putting regular content out through social media, valuable content is the next best way to get business in. Now, all of these things that I've talked about so far, they're not going to bring you six new clients overnight. Building relationships, building authentic, genuine relationships with people is how I've found my best long term clients that have spent the most money with me. So if you're a creative business and you're looking for a quick turnaround, these suggestions that I'm saying aren't necessarily going to bring you that, but if you invest your time and your energy building really good relationships and giving valuable content through social media and networking, both of those ways I found have worked really, really well. And they are a bit of a long slow burn, but the return you get is probably three or four times what you would get if you just got a quick logo job or a quick photography job or, you know, something like that. So developing. Sorry.

I certainly feel that certainly in the filmmaker space there's, that there's a tendency towards prioritizing investment in technology. You know, cameras, lenses, tripods, gadgets, computers and anything outside of that that involves building a business. There's, there's A degree of kind of quick fix. Itis, you know, like, you know, putting money into some branding is not a return you're going to see immediately, but it's the kind of thing where you say you no longer really have to search for new business, it finds you and generally they're pre qualified. So you're not, you're not answering the phone each day to 20 people saying, can you do me a logo?

Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, you're right.

And so.

In terms of, you know, let's go back in time a little bit. So let's go back 10 years, let's say. What would you be telling yourself given what you know now about branding and running a small, you know, it's not even a small business because the gym is doing very well. But, but the, the creative business is the newer part of the business. Is that, is that right? Is it the kind of, the one that you're really focusing on now in developing as a kind of ongoing.

Creative, recurring business? Is that a fair comment?

Yes. So 10, sorry, you said 10 years.

Ago, I'll go back 10 years. And what advice would you be giving yourself?

Okay, right.

Gosh, if I could go back 10 years, I would have been developing a piece of content every single day. Because those who put the time and effort in back then are absolutely killing it now. And I know there was either a post or a blog post from Ben Simkin who said he got a massive client from a blog post he put out something like five or ten years ago that's just floating around the Internet. But someone found it and it was relevant to them and then they wanted to work with him. So my advice would have been to myself back then, oh my gosh, do everything you can to get as much video, audio, written content out into the world. Because those who did it, like I look at Marie Foglio and Amy Porterfield, for example, Frank Kern, they have been putting content out for so long and they are absolutely killing it. But look, it's not too late to start either. Podcasting is relatively new or become more popular. But it's not too late. You can certainly jump in and start a podcast. You can start an Instagram account, you can do a YouTube channel, whatever suits the type of content that you have for the audience that you're serving. Just get started. So I've just written an ebook called Zero to Branded and it has over 120 points in how you can grow your personal brand. But I'm going to turn each of those points into a piece of Content that could be a video and then transcribed into a blog post and then the audio can be stripped out into a podcast. So I've spent the last two decades building other people's brands and now it's my turn and I'm taking everything I've taught them and putting it through my own business. And I too am really just getting started, putting myself out there as well. So, yeah, 10 years ago, I wish I'd have started doing this, but I'm doing it now.

It seems to me that you've built this really successful gym, really successful branding business, and certainly not by accident, but we had Brett brunch a few months ago and you said, oh, I said, but your branding kind of doesn't really exist. And you were like, I just don't have time to do my own branding. And you've now, over Christmas, completely turned that on its head and seen it as a challenge and now smashed it out there. And yeah, I guess that's a great testament to the fact you've been too busy working with clients. So is this kind of a turning point for you again in your career?

Yeah. Look, like many other creative businesses, you spend all your time and energy pleasing your customers and delivering the best quality product that you possibly can. Which, as you guys listening would know, that leaves very little time for you.

For me, three years ago, I fell pregnant with my now two and a bit year old, had a horrendous pregnancy, could hardly work, nearly lost my business.

Had the baby, and now I feel like there's been a light at the end of the tunnel because she's two and a bit and we've kind of figured out what we're doing now.

And during that time, it really gave me time to think about where I want my business to go. And I really have in the past gone above and beyond for my clients, delivering the most amazing work, and not only just work, but an exceptional service. So because I have all of that background in business building, so we've built, scaled and sold businesses. When somebody hires me, they're not just getting a visual designer or a branding expert, they're getting somebody who has years and years and years of experience building a business, developing staff training staff, building their personal brands to help the overall or overarching company brand.

And I thought, you know, it's about time that I package all of that up and start promoting my own personal brand to help other business owners grow. And so over the Christmas period, like you just mentioned, I really invested a lot of time and energy putting all of that stuff together to be able to help other business owners grow their brands. And look, my packages range anywhere from 2 grand to $25,000. So not everybody can afford me. But where I'm going with the content that I'm developing and the way I want to help other business owners grow is that I want to be able to have different levels of services where if you can't afford me, I still have a program or a service or a course that you'll be able to learn everything that I teach my private mentoring clients, but in your own time at home through an online learning system or something like that. So in order for me to get myself out there, I needed to do what I teach my clients and put myself out there. And I know we've spoken about this before, Den, but something that stopped me from wanting to do that was that I had no following. So how could I put myself out there as a personal branding expert when I actually don't have a following myself? And I just had to kick myself up the butt and go, well, you know what? Everybody has to start somewhere. And I have the experience, I have all of the tools, all of the processes. I can turn somebody into a brand overnight. So you know what? I'm going to share this journey, going from zero to fully branded with the rest of my community because hopefully it will give somebody else the passion or the excitement or the enthusiasm to get started themselves. And, and if I can do it at the same time as sharing my learnings and my journey, then I can pull other people along for the ride with me.

Well, it's as you say, not everyone can afford the full package, but this is access that. And I love you. I love your authenticity and your vulnerability about that. The fact that, you know, you hadn't done your own personal branding because you were too busy building other people's brands. And it's really, it's really exciting as well that, that you are so willing and open to be honest about that and actually start from zero. Because then people get to watch your journey, which I would imagine will be a great story in your own marketing. Because it's like, look, in 2019, I had zero branding for myself. And then, you know, the journey will grow because you know exactly what you're doing. But don't you think sometimes it's much harder? Especially as creators, we're very good at giving other people advice and guidance and not necessarily very good at taking our own advice.

Or you just completely overanalyze what you do. You know, I was designing my ebook cover the zero to branded ebook cover. And I changed it probably 85 times because I was literally thinking, oh, my goodness, you know, that triangle doesn't quite line up. And in my head I'm thinking, oh, gosh, other creatives are going to look at this and pick it to pieces. And I had to literally stop myself like I do with my clients, and just then say, just stop it, just stop it, just get it out. Like putting something into action, less perfect is so much better than not doing something at all, you know, so I'm going to be my biggest critic always, you know, But I think other creative business owners listening are probably nodding their heads going, yup.

So we stop ourselves from doing things because we're trying to be too perfect. And we're trying to.

We're sort of thinking, oh, gosh, who's going to judge me? And, you know, what's that person going to think about this? Or that person's so much better at me than this. So who am I to put myself out there? And you have to just kick yourself in the butt and say, stop it. Because if you don't share your gifts with the world, you are doing your community a huge disservice. You know, somebody might not start a business or somebody might not grow their business because you haven't put yourself out there and shared your knowledge and your journey with them. And so, yeah, it's. I don't know, you just, at some point you just have to kind of stuff yourself and just get over yourself and get out of your own way and just put yourself out there.

That's great. It's great advice. Which was really my next question. What one piece of advice would you give? And that's exactly it. So what are your three greatest life lessons that you could pass along to listeners?

Can I just say one more thing about that? Putting yourself out there. Sorry, before we move on.

When people, especially my clients, when they go to launch themselves online and they sort of have this, there's sort of a stigma attached to how many followers you should have or, you know, you're only as good as how many followers you have. And I really want to start to educate the market on the fact that there is a difference between being an influencer, so somebody that has tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of followers.

Compared with someone who is a personal brand, who is serving their community with valuable information, who perhaps maybe only has 100, 200, 1000, it doesn't really matter followers, but out of those followers, you're getting tons of Business. I would rather have 200 followers that bring me 200k of business a year than 10,000 followers who download a free ebook but never buy anything from me. So if you are not putting yourself out there because you don't have any followers, like my Branded by Rebecca Flint Instagram account, I think has 104 followers right now. Like, I don't care because I'm building it from nothing. And if I didn't start, you know, this year, then in a year's time, I'd still have none. But if you just get started and you just start chipping away and you start being consistent, those followers will grow. But if you do it in an authentic way and you're promoting your own brand and you add 200 followers to your account, great, you've got 200 loyal followers who are likely to download your ebook, sign up for your course, perhaps buy some private client services from you, than having, you know, or doing a silly thing like going and buying 10,000 followers from a robot account. And nobody engages with your post and you don't have an audience that is following you because you're being genuine and authentic. So that's one thing I just want people to understand. There's a difference between being an influencer and being a personal brand that serves your community. And if you're not putting yourself out there because you're afraid that you have no followers, then again, get out of your own way. Just start doing it, you know, just get yourself out there. So I love that.

And we were chatting offline earlier today, and you said something to me, which I was really surprised that. And when I started to digest it over lunch, I was like, wow, that's really cool. And that was about your email database. Are you willing to share with us what you've decided to do because you had an existing list, which in the marketing world is like, the list is everything. So you had a list of clients and prospects, but you're doing something really quite crazy.

Yeah, I deleted them all.

I had this big list and I just decided that going forward, new year, new brand, putting myself out there, I only want to work with the people in my community who genuinely believe in the products and services that I have to offer. So I dumped everyone.

Beautiful. And I had just had a conversation with another friend about this very thing. And I'm not going to go quite as dramatic as that, but I'm going to do a massive list cleanup. And if no one's opened anything for 90 days, they're dead to me.

Yeah, well, that's true.

Because the thing is, why would you.

Sorry, go ahead. Why would you want people on your list who aren't interested in what you've got to say? I would rather have a list of 10 people that click and open my emails and perhaps even send me a response saying, thank you so much for helping me. That was super valuable. I'd rather have 10 than 10,000 and I get a 0.25 open rate. Like, what's the point?

So wise. And I think also the Internet has changed a lot in even the last 10 years. In the past, the bigger the list, the more money you'd make. Nowadays, I think with, with so much bombardment of information through mobile, through desktop, through digital signage, we are being so immersed in content that we literally can't cope. And so I think email is just not as effective as it used to be. But if you've got a smaller list of prospects who are genuinely interested in what you're offering, I think the opposite will happen. It's just my theory is that the smaller your list, the smaller your following. In many ways, the more qualified, the better it will be. As opposed to tens of thousands of followers because no one actually cares.

Exactly. No one does care. And everybody's so busy and the first thing that people do in the morning when they look at their email is go, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. Like, so what's the point? I want my emails to land in somebody's inbox and have somebody go, oh, what am I gonna learn today? And I do that with digital marketers emails. And there's a handful of other people's emails that I receive that I look forward to opening because they always give such valuable content. And then there's, you know, well, over Christmas, actually, I purged, I think it was 260 odd.

Unsubscribed from 260 odd emails I was getting because I either didn't see value in it or I just don't have the time to read it. I don't care, you know, I don't care what you have to sell me. So to get my attention, you really need to provide me with some super valuable content that's actually going to make a difference in my life. And so that's the type of content I want to deliver to my community around branding and how to grow your business and how to grow your brand.

So I love it. It's interesting. I operate a zero inbox policy, but from about the 19th of December until yesterday, I hadn't been in the office. And I looked at my inbox today and there were 764 emails. And I started deleting them and I was just like, oh, my God, this is like. It's like sticking needles in my eyes. I literally want to select all and just delete because I just. I just haven't figured out how to do it. But I will. Maybe you can show me after the.

Call, command a delete.

Okay. Because it just. It's freaking me out and I know there's nothing in there of any value.

Yeah, yeah. And if it's important, they'll write back to you.

Exactly.

Just before Christmas, I did the same thing. And look, my. My friend Sean Soell, who you mentioned before, you've interviewed as well. He's the one that told me about the zero inbox policy.

Me too.

I said, how do you do that? And he said, you select and you delete it. I was like, okay. And so I had like four and a half thousand emails because, you know, I've got multiple businesses, I've got multiple inboxes, and I selected all and I moved to a red folder, like, so. Although I didn't delete them, they're still there if I need to find them. Just having that empty inbox just provided me with so much calm and funnily enough, over the Christmas period as well. I don't know if you've heard of Marie Kondo, but I. Marie Kondo, my house. So it's.

Yes, yes. Documentary on Netflix. I watched it. I saw a post you made on Facebook about it. I was like, I'm gonna do that as well.

Yeah, yeah. And so even my husband says as well, because we've done that to our house and our inboxes, it's almost like this massive level of stress and overwhelm is just lifted from you. And as soon as I did that, the work I was producing for my own brand just flowed. It allowed me to be super creative. So whether it's your business drawer. Sorry, your desk drawer, or a cupboard in your office that drives you nuts, or your house or your car or whatever it is, completely eliminate all of the dirt, the clutter, the mess, you know, and it's incredible what it does for your creative mind. It just allows you to be so much more open and creative. So this is completely off topic, but it's really important.

I think it's completely on topic. I think, especially as creators, where we. We can become quite, quite messy in our creative spaces and go, I'm just being creative. But actually, when I Have clarity. In my personal space, I am more creative. And I'm looking at the back of your home there and it's beautifully spotless because you need that space, but you need that space, don't you, to actually feel creative?

Yeah. I mean, we have a two and a bit year old and when she gets all her toys out, I can't even tell you what that does to my mind. But we're teaching our two year old how to tidy up. You get something out, you play with it, you put it back. And I think that's a really important skill. Even going through to business. You start something, you finish it, you file it, it's done. Whereas if you read your email and you don't do something with it, or you open a client's job and you half do it and then pack it away, it's almost like it leaves this little residual layer in your brain that says, I've got to come back to that. And then the layers build and build and build and build. And then all of a sudden you have this massive overwhelm and you just need to completely wipe clear all of that. Overwhelmed. To be able to think the best way you can when you're trying to be creative, you just need that space. So I know for me, if I'm not being super creative and the flow is just not there, I meditate, I clear my desk, I drink a liter of water, and that just magically opens up my whole creative brain again. And I do really good work. So for me, having that clarity is super important. But not only that, the type of design work that I do also has space and clarity in it. If you look at any of my artwork, if you go to bellcreative.com and you look at my portfolio, you'll see the type of work I do has lots of white space. And it's super easy for the reader to navigate what's on the page, or to read information, or to flow through a keynote document. So just having that same space and that clarity and everything that you do is super important. Whether it's your home, your business, the way you talk to your partner, you know, it's really important.

Well, that leads nicely on to, you know, how do you balance creativity and business? Because that can often be a challenge for creative people, because creativity is the space they feel very comfortable in. But without the business, they don't have a space to feel comfortable in.

For sure. I've found myself and working with my clients. There's two ways to deal with this. One, if you're the type of person that works really well with structure, then strategic planning. Your year, your year, your quarter, your days, your weeks, your days.

That's one way to really stay on top of the work that you've got to do versus the business activity that you need to do to grow business. However, some people aren't built like that. Some people just get these creative bursts and they have to do something right then and there. You know, I'm the type of person that's super structured, very well planned out, highly organized, bit a type personality, very direct. However, when I've worked with some photographers and interior designers, they have to be creative when they feel it come on, you know, so they kind of drop everything that they're doing. They go have this sort of burst of creativity and then they come back to the business or the housework or whatever it is that they're doing. So.

My advice first of all is figure out what type of person you are. If you're more the planner and the highly organized a type person, then really invest time in doing a strategic plan for an entire year and then focus on a quarter at a time. What that will do is allow you to figure out the tasks that you need to do on a daily basis to grow the business. But you'll also be able to structure your day in a way that allows you to do, say, business building activity first and then client work and obviously leaving time for.

Meals, exercise and water and things like that. If you're the other type that is just creative whenever it comes, you just have to kind of work with that and just make sure that if you're having a really down, not down point, but a non creative point, get your housework or your business work or your email inbox sorted then. And then as soon as that creativity sparks, you'll have the clear desk, the clean home, whatever, to be able to have the space to do that creative work. So I mean, they're the two types of personalities I've worked with and I am myself. So yeah, maybe there's another type that I'm unaware of, but that's how I.

Do it because I'm a great advocate of the strategic planning. And I would probably say in the past I was more of a I've got to feel it kind of a person to execute it.

Yeah.

But I've learned to become more disciplined, more structured and I certainly believe that you can, you can, you can develop new habits around structure that actually I think make you more free. And I really believe structure and discipline do set you free. Is that something you also share?

Yeah, definitely. So some of my clients come to me wanting a logo. I want a logo and a business card. And after I have a good 30 minute, 45 minute chat with them, I find out there's no structure to their business. They're completely overwhelmed, their cash flow is terrible. I'm finding all these other areas that need to be fixed first before they go and launch this new brand. And so I actually spend entire days with some of my clients just doing strategic planning. So we do that first. We identify what the major goals are for the year, we break that down into quarters, we identify who in the business is going to take care of those particular goals. If they have departments, and sometimes they're not, they're just a person, like a personal brand versus an actual company.

And we spend the day taking all of the overwhelming stress out of their head and we put it into a strategic plan. So then what happens is quarterly I meet with them and we revisit the previous plan and we restructure the goals for that quarter and the following year and we just kind of check where they're at. The clients that have done that have experienced double, if not triple growth in their business purely from being highly organized and having strategic goals to focus on. The ones who don't, in 3, 6, 9, 12 months time, they are exactly where they were when I suggested it to them in the first place. And often 12 months later they'll come back and go, oh, what's that planning thing you were telling me about? Because I think I need to do it.

So whilst sometimes I'm developing visual brands for people, a lot of the time I'm actually working on their business and mentoring them through some current issues or some staffing issues, or helping them identify a strategy that's going to allow their business to grow. So I think strategic planning is the foundation of a business that if you do it, you're going to have amazing success. If you don't do it, then you kind of don't grow, or you might grow a bit accidentally, but you could have grown so much faster and in a more succinct way, I suppose, 100%.

What's the best advice you've ever received?

Oh, my goodness. On my first day of school in year seven, my dad said to me, rebecca, be friends with everybody. And at that time I was like, okay, weird, what are you talking about? And to this day, I have to say, my ability to network and connect with almost any type of human being comes way back to that piece of advice. That my dad gave me because, you know, when you go into high school and you've got those groups of people and then you sit with one group, you can't sit with another group. By being friends with or being kind to everybody has served me so far into my adulthood in a way that, say, for example, with our gym, people chose our gym because I was nice to them at high school, you know, or people have decided to work with me because I'm a nice person and I've got a good reputation, you know. So although that's not a piece of business advice, it has served me so well in my entire career. And, yeah, I mean, my dad was. My dad is always an incredible. He's not dead, he's alive, he's just retired. He was an incredible businessman. He grew. I'm not sure if you're familiar with, but he had a massive surfing company, which was Gorilla Grip and Fin Control Systems. And he started that in a garage in Avalon. And it grew to be an international business that owned, I think it was 87% market share worldwide of surfing accessories. And so, you know, anything my dad, any advice, advice my dad gives me, I really listen to because he was one of three directors in this company and turned up to work every day wearing a T shirt, board shorts and skatey shoes and grew this huge company, but did it in a way where every single employee to this day says, your dad was so kind to me, it didn't matter if I was sweeping the factory floor or if I was the person doing the photocopying. He treated us all exactly the same. And so, you know, I just think it doesn't matter who you run into in business. You never know what sort of relationships you could have. So just be kind and nice and, you know, don't judge people for where they are right now or how many followers they have or, you know, how much money they have or what car they drive. Like, just be kind and be open to the types of business and personal relationships that you could possibly develop, because you never know what sort of JV partnerships you could be doing down the line or podcasts you could be doing with people, you know.

So, yeah, that's great advice. I love that. What about personal habits? What do you think is a personal habit that you think strongly contributes or has contributed to your success?

Planning? 100% planning. Look, I have to be honest. I think if you ask my mum, she would tell you that at the age of four, I was organizing my entire family. You know, I developed this probably manipulative behavior. I was. You know, I knew that if I went to dad and said, dad, if Mum says, yes, can we do this? And he'd go, all right. And then I'd go to Mum and say, mum, dad said that we could do this, okay? And she'd be like, gary, why did you say they could do that? You know? But I planned what I wanted our family to do, whether it was go to the zoo or go to the dinosaur museum or whatever it was.

And so she thinks I've been organising people since birth and she finds it super frustrating. But I think planning, organisation and having the ability to almost, in your head, foresee how things are going to turn out and also to see so far in advance and be able to reverse engineer whatever goal or vision that is that you have.

I think that that's a really good trait to have personally. Even though I might annoy the hell out of other people.

No, I love it. I mean, when you and I first met, you were saying, right, I'm planning to have another child next year, so I need to get these business things happening. When I become pregnant, I'm shutting down.

Well, hopefully I won't. But that first pregnancy I had was horrendous. So taking that as a lesson, I know that I needed to put some ducks in a row, and hopefully I've done that. We've started trying now, so who knows, you know, we'll see what happens. Thought if I can start putting my brand out there and start putting some content out there, even if it goes on hold temporarily, at least I'll be serving some of my community with a little bit of information. So we'll see.

Now, what about books? Are you a big reader? Is there a book that you think has really had a massive impact on you?

Yes, actually, I'm listening to right now. Is it the Big Weight?

Hang on a second. I think so.

I actually have a form of dyslexia, so reading for me is really difficult. I think that's also why I became a graphic designer. But I listen to a lot of audiobooks and a lot of podcasts, so I'm just. I just. I can't remember the exact name of it, but at the moment, that. That particular audio book is really serving me well. It's. It teaches you how when you get so close to something, you generally, as a human being, do something to sabotage yourself.

And you stop yourself breaking through that glass ceiling. And for me, especially with that really tough pregnancy that I had, I kept asking myself, why did I manifest that for what Good reason do I have to have to completely shut down and not earn any money and not grow my business? And it really started me on this journey to figure out why do I self sabotage? For what reason do I do that? And I don't know what it is, but this book's really helping me realize that as a human being, you want to keep yourself safe, you want to remain part of the herd. So in order to not be seen as being different, for whatever reason, whether it's success or.

Starting something new, you tend to put things into place that are going to sabotage your success. So this book's been really, really good. Yeah, it's called the Big Leap and it's by Gay Hendricks. Yeah. So this book has really allowed me to start to identify when those self sabotaging behaviors start to kick in. So for example, over the Christmas break when I was working on my rebeccaflink.com and my zero to branded ebook, I started to get a cold and I was like, oh my gosh, are you serious? Like, my husband's taken my little girl away for five days to let me work on this and I'm getting a cold. And I thought, nope, nope, this is one of these self sabotaging things. So I went and pumped myself full of vitamins. I got out of the sun and the cold went away. But I think just recognizing that something's starting to happen which is actually going to try and bring you down a few notches and saying, actually no, I'm not putting up with that. I'm gonna break through it and keep going. And I did. So it's a fairly new set of habits that I'm trying to instill, but nevertheless, I'm trying. So, yeah, not the best reader. So I prefer to listen to audio books. I go to sleep listening to them actually, because I think subconsciously I'll retain it as well.

Plus, for fast paced learners and fast paced impatient people like us, you can listen to audiobooks at one and a half and two times speed.

Exactly.

I'm like, I've got to really listen to that. But then half your brain saying, no, I need to go to sleep.

I like listening to it when I drive. And you know, well, one of the.

Things that I love about living in Australia is this vast distances. So you can have hours and hours of listening time.

Yeah. Unless you work from home. And in that case I don't really go very far. But you know, when I'm at the gym, I don't do any cardio without either watching a tutorial on something or listening to a podcast or audio book. I just think if you can combine exercise with learning. First of all, I know on a.

Physiology level, I'm not even sure if that's the right word. My husband would know, he's the trainer. But somehow you learn and absorb information far better when you're exercising or post exercise. So if you can, when people say to me, I don't have time to learn, I don't have time to go to the gym. I'm sorry, but if you can watch Netflix or go on Facebook, then you've got at least 20 minutes to go to the gym. So I combine workout with learning. And even if I do 20 minutes a day over a week, that's 140 minutes. That's 140 minutes of learning and exercise that I got done that if I didn't bother doing, I wouldn't have learned or have worked on myself. So as part of my planning process, I schedule in exercise and learning as well. I think you know the seven habits. Sharpening your saw is a really important habit to instill.

I love it. That is a great point to end this on, that you can exercise and learn at the same time. Combining those two things. Fabulous. Beck, this has been really amazing. Thank you so much. Where can people find out more about you?

Oh sure, just Google Rebecca Flint or Branded by Rebecca Flint. You could go to rebeccaflint.com and my creative agency is Belle Creative, which is B E l l e. So billcreative.com.

Au well we will be sure to link all of that information below and hopefully also a link to your ebook where they can download that. And Beck, it's been an absolute delight to finally do this with you. Thank you so much for your time. I've learned a load. I'm sure everyone watching and listening has as well. And any final comments?

No, but okay, yes, go out and put a piece of valuable content out today. So whether you shoot a quick video while you're driving your car or not driving pulled over, or whether you write a quick blog post or you do a tweet, do something to start growing your brand today. So if you're consistent every day, in 365 days time you will have a bigger following and probably more clients. So just get started.

I love it. Bec, thank you very much indeed.

Welcome. Thank you for having me.

You've been listening to the Business for Creatives podcast with your host, me Dan Lanney. If you're a creative business owner who is struggling to get your business performing at the level you want. Then head on over to businessforcreatorspodcast.com to take a free business evaluation survey and discover where you can plug the holes in your business. You can also access a range of free training to help you build your business faster. Also, don't forget to rate the show over on itunes so we can get the message out there to more creators who need to hear it. Thanks for listening.