BTS of Elizabeth McCravy’s Rebrand: Hiring Help, A Slow Rollout, and Tips for an Established Business Owner’s Rebrand
Ever wonder how a seasoned business owner tackles a rebrand? From dozens of client touchpoints to wondering should I do this myself since I’m a designer? Listen to Elizabeth’s rebranding journey and get some great insights!
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Hello friends, welcome back to the show. I have a very exciting episode for you today because I have Elizabeth McCravy here on the podcast. Elizabeth is an amazing business owner in the online space and designer and she's someone I really look up to as I've listened to her podcast for years. And so I'm so excited to have her on.
We're going to talk about all things rebranding and talking about how she went through the visual rebrand of her business this year. She has been in the online space for a while, but we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about motherhood. We're going to talk about just changes and evolutions in her business and how she's navigated them and all the things.
Elizabeth McCravey is a Showit website designer, online business educator and host of the Breakthrough Brand podcast.
She's the creator of the popular courses, Booked Out Designer and Podcast Success Blueprint. And she's the web designer behind Elizabeth McCravey Shop Templates. Elizabeth is a wife, mama to three littles and believer based in Franklin, Tennessee.
If people aren't familiar with you or your work. Let people know how you got started and the few evolutions your business has gone through up until this point.
Yeah, so I got started at the time this airs like nine years ago. I'm actually more like 10 years ago, but nine years of officially in business. But basically the way I got started, long story short, is that like I got a job out of college that was in my field of advertising and design and things like that, but I didn't like that job. And so I put in my notice planning to find another nine to five in the time span that I was giving them 30 days.
I was really excited about being a designer and really like committed to like working that nine to five life. And I thought I'd want to start a business someday, but I was like, that's for when I'm older. Cause at this point I was just about 22 years old. And that company was like, Hey, you can just leave today. You're done. And a really nice way they weren't like me, but it was like, yeah, if you're going to quit, like you can go ahead and leave. And so then I found myself like, okay, I'm looking for nine to fives and applying for new jobs immediately and I was already freelancing a little bit and I just picked up my freelancing to help support our family.
I was newly married then and my husband was working in ministry so it was like we really needed the money from my job. So I ended up picking up a lot more freelancing gigs and basically I kept applying for new jobs in graphic design and advertising and computer type work and no one wrote me back even for an interview until I'd already started my business, which is crazy because right out of college, that first job, I got it like immediately. It was a great job on paper, but just wasn't, I did not enjoy it and found it like pretty unfulfilling, a lot of like tied to your desk vibes.
So it really to me felt like such a God thing that like I did not hear back from any of those jobs. And then it ended up like being like forced to start my business basically. And then I did eventually get an interview request from a company I was super excited about, but I was like, wait, I don't want to work for you now. I actually have this thing going, it's working well. So that's how I started. And that was like really about nine and a half years ago. And then it took me a few months of freelancing before I said, okay, this is officially a business.
And you started out doing design work. Did you do branding as well or was it just websites?
Yeah, so I did at the very, very beginning, I did a lot of branding and websites and everything. I was very much doing the like Jane of all trades thing. So I actually early on had a lot of social media management clients and that was a really nice thing for me to have retainer work of like consistent. I think I had about 10 at the highest point. They were like paying me monthly to write their social content. And again, like 10 years ago, basically like social stuff is a lot different. There was no Instagram stories and like things like that. It was a lot more like Facebook focused content.
But I really enjoyed that. then ultimately I was like basically picking as I was like continuing. I had the plan of like niching down in my business more and I was like, okay, do I wanted to go social media route and do more marketing for people or would I rather do design? I really love design. So I feel like for me, my business like took off the most was when I was doing branding website design. And then now I just sell show at website templates and then also have online courses in my podcast.
When did you start doing courses and selling templates or was it a natural progression from doing brand and website design and then not having the capacity to help everyone then you evolved into your template shop?
Yeah, good question. well, okay. First thing I'll say is when it was hard dot choosing the nine to five job, right? Cause I did feel like more stability and I should add to when I think back on like my early business days, I sometimes forget to say this, but I was doing my business. was freelancing and I was a nanny and like babysitting.
And so like I was very, and I also did teaching yoga. I would do dog sitting. I would literally sell stuff on Facebook from our house that we didn't need. Like I was literally just like, all of it was to me. I'm like, all these things are combining to the income I'm bringing in. And I look back at that like version of myself back then. like, she was really working hard and having fun with it. I think I was always so like, I'm ready for the next thing. I'm ready for like this to be settled. But I loved nanny. And I think now as a mom, I'm like, I learned so much then that I didn't realize because I did not grow up babysitting or anything like that. I grew up just like not not working or doing like I went first. I was at like a yogurt shop. I did not like babysit growing up. So I feel like I got that experience from my nanny days and that was really special. day is your other question of like the evolution there.
So basically I feel like I don't remember timelines of things but I to bring it to rebranding which I know such a topic you speak on but like I changed my business name twice in the nine ish years I've had my business. In the first two business names I had were just like fictitious names I made up that felt like they made sense. was really hesitant to use my own name because I felt like my last name was challenging for people, McCravy, which still I know like I've been doing this a while and I have McRae B is often a thing people do like it throws people off. McRae Z, my gosh, that'd be crazy that people, but I've seen that typed in. There's all kinds of things. So people spell wrong, with E in there. So I was trying to like avoid that and made fictitious names and then eventually settled into like, let's just use my name.
And again, I feel like that was like the right move for me. And around then was when I really settled in to Showit design. So before I was on WordPress and I think I became a better designer on Showit. I was doing branding website packages. I did that. I'm trying to think of to change. I felt like about, I think it's only been about four years that I've been selling templates or five, no, five years, been five years. So I did that for those early years of my business, a branding website design as a service. And I kept doing that as a service after I started my template shop, but I started my template shop to solve the need of being overbooked.
And it was like, looked at being overbooked and I was like, okay, I can either hire a team and be like an agency and take on more clients, which I think is a perfectly fine option. So I think that's like worth saying that sometimes it's like only digital products. That's like what you've got to do, but I don't think that's true. think going like an agency route is a great answer to that problem. Also just to sign and take less clients back and keep my business small. That's also a perfectly fine answer.
But for me, was like, really loved the idea of templates. I felt like I could be good at template design. So that's when my templates came into play. And I think that was like five years ago.
And then when did you start getting into courses?
I think about, so 2020 was when I first launched my first course. Wait, I keep mixing, yes 2020, at the beginning of that year. I'm like what year is it? Yeah that was when, and then, and that my first course was Booked Out Designer, which is for designers on how to build, as it says, like a booked out in-demand design business. And then just last year was when I came out with my second course, Podcast Success Blueprint, which is about building a successful podcast.
And I also started my podcast in 2019. So I basically actually, I launched my template shop the year before and then my podcast early in the next year. those two things happened really close together for me.
Because I'm sure product based businesses, I'm sure are not hands off, but they're more hands off than doing the design work and even the agency route. If you're in charge, you know, it's more hands off.
Yes. Yeah, it's very scalable is like the term I like to use to describe it because I think the term passive income feels irritating to me because that's not accurate. Like it's actually like I was literally editing a template this morning that I made like three years ago. Like I'm literally still updating it because you have to make updates. And so it's like, it's not actually something you never work on, but it's scalable because you make a template and you can sell it to as many people as you want to sell it to before you decide to quit selling it. and same thing with courses, there's that scalable aspect, which I really like and it's worked well for me as a mom because it's like all those, courses kind of came into play for me right around the time of becoming a mom and it's allowed me to a lot more like job flexibility.
I love your episodes on your podcast where you talk about like a day in the life of your motherhood in business. And we will get to motherhood, but I want to talk about how your business has evolved like on the visual side of things. You know, I am a rebrand designer so I love talking when people are going through a visual rebrand.
And it's just kind of the blessing and curse of being a designer. like, I'll just do this myself. And so when you started, I'm sure you did do everything yourself.
Yeah. So I, well, first of all, I want to say your design work is so amazing. It's like, as people will say, I'm like, I know they're your audience. I'm like, your work is so good. And yeah, I love that you focus on rebranding, but for me, let me think about how this happened. So I changed, I rebranded the name of my business tools with McCravy about six years ago. And I did all that myself. I made the new website. I made logos. I made a logo for my template shop that like matched all that. And I didn't have a podcast at the time. So all that came later and I read it, my website, all the things. And then over the years after that, I added new products, added a podcast, added the courses, and I kept the original logos the same, even after redesigning my website one time in that timeframe.
And in 2022, I was like, this is the year I'm going to rebrand. I'm going to do it myself. I'm going to like redo my website, but first I'm going to redo all the logos and the colors, the fonts, everything. And I went as far as colors and fonts and updating those on my current website. Cause with Showit, you can just change out the colors and fonts and then apply it everywhere. And so I did that far and that was it. And then I was like, I got stuck. I just could not do my own logos. And I even have, still have it somewhere like my Adobe illustrator file, where it was like the, the logos that could have been that I was like working on, but it was really hard for me to.
I mean, multiple things. One was to make time for it in my business. It never felt that important to me, even though I'm a designer. I know how important this is, but like it always felt like things like serving my customers with like coaching calls and even things like making another course ended up feeling more important to me. I'm making more templates felt more important to me doing minor updates to my current website would feel more important. And so I kept just letting it go to the back burner.
And then, last year, so right now we're talking at the end of 2024. So in 2023, I decided like I've got to hire someone else. And that was like a weirdly hard decision for me. But then when I decided I was like, yeah, like why didn't I think of this sooner? Basically I got on a consulting call with someone who's a business coach and I just worked with her for this one, like one-off call. And she was trying to help me delegate better. And that we actually never talked about my whole rebrand issues. We were talking about other issues in my business and me feeling like I was doing too much and like needed to do some new hires and like restructuring of team member stuff. And after talking with her was when I realized like, why, why do I think I have to do the whole thing myself? that doesn't make sense. I've told myself for over a year, I'm going to do it I never make time for it. And it's also that like, can't, I feel like I need an outside perspective.
And so I ended up like contacting, a brand designer and asking, like applying to work with her and I did my own website. So I think that was a fun thing for me of like, you're going do it all the branding side, which is something I, I again have done for lots and lots of clients, but it's not my favorite thing. Websites are my favorite thing. So that felt like a natural fit to be like, okay, someone else does all the branding for all these sub brands too. And I'll do the website, which is fun for me.
“I realized like, why, why do I think I have to do the whole thing myself? that doesn't make sense. I've told myself for over a year, I'm going to do it I never make time for it. And it's also that like, can't, I feel like I need an outside perspective.”
As a designer, hiring a designer, and I'm so curious how that was for you because you had your own process back when you were focused on brain and website designs, but how was going through that process with another designer who was taking the lead?
Yeah, it was it was great. Honestly, I when I talked to her, it was like she had never worked with another designer before, which makes sense. I like that's more rare. And she was on board with it. We knew each other already. I like that was a thing that was nice. Like she knew about my business, but wasn't like necessarily a student or customer. It's like familiar enough, but not like super, super familiar. And I the process was great. mean, I I've I would say as a business owner.
I'm good at outsourcing at this point. That's not always been true, but I was like, I did not have any issues like letting her take the lead on things. The only thing that we ended up, well, we were collaborative on a lot of things in terms of like feedback, but she would work and then give me like a full completed thing to give feedback on. And then we kept going versus me like in, in the files with her. But the time I was in the files with her was for my podcast art, because that felt more challenging. Cause you know, a podcaster, like there's the artwork itself as what people see if you were to click your lock screen right now and like look at this podcast, that's the artwork. And then there's also the podcast logo and like navigating the artwork, the logo with the photo on the artwork was like a lot. And so I ended up being like, let me just like, if you don't mind, can I get in there and just like edit, move some stuff around and like, and figure that out.
So that was the thing I mainly did, but it was a good experience and felt really nice because then I was actually pregnant most of the time we were doing the rebrand and also made a new course, my podcast course. I was able to focus on that while also that rebrand was like being done at the same time, which was really awesome and a really good business decision for me financially. Cause if I had been doing that all myself, it's like, I wouldn't have done the podcast course. I mean, I also don't think I could have done nearly as good of a job as she did hiring like a professional that was able to focus on this instead of me trying to like kind of focus on it with other priorities in my business.
“If I had been doing that all myself I wouldn't have done the podcast course. I also don't think I could have done nearly as good of a job as she did, hiring a professional that was able to focus on this instead of me trying to like kind of focus on it with other priorities in my business.”
I feel like that's the thing that the longer you're in business, the more you can like obviously see the things that make sense to outsource and then make sense to do it yourself. Cause I do think it's like, depends on the business owner of like, and the season of business in life you're in of like when the different things make sense.
Right, even though I love doing everything, I just can't. And so I think that is something to always consider is what do you have capacity for.
So when you had kids, did that shift a lot in your business in terms of how much you worked and focused on in the business and future of the business?
Yeah, so gosh, mean, when I first my oldest now is like three and a half years old. And when he was born, well, actually, when I was just back up and I got pregnant with him, my husband and I both knew that we did not want to do like full time daycare or even potentially outside of the home childcare for his first year. And we both like were on the same page about that and talked about it a lot.
And I actually didn't know that that would be like how I felt until becoming pregnant. So it's like one of those things where it's like, you can kind of be like, when I become a mom, maybe I'll do this. May I'll say, maybe I'll do that. You know, but like, didn't really know that I was pregnant. was like, wait, now I have a lot of thoughts on this that I didn't realize I had. so we got to planning of like, how can we make that work? And basically it's also interesting.
I feel like when you have children, everything is like the seasons of life gets shorter of like, like literally they're like, their baby years like to find a season and having another one defines a season. All the changes like nap schedules can even define seasons for you and your work. So I feel like I've just, I've seen so many like faster changes. I even think about my business like in the last four years since becoming pregnant and then becoming a mom, I've had more business change in those four years and life change than in the, the like five years prior in my business. It was like just a lot of changes start happening quick kind of thing.
But yeah, in terms of schedule changing and things like that in the early years of Collin’s life I was our sole breadwinner because my husband was in graduate school to become a counselor and it takes a few years and so he was actually more of like an expense in our life because we were paying you know the the his his school bills and he was working during that time which helped with some of that but it still was like how it we also had a real estate business which he runs but it was like that was like really important that I that I worked and so I did a lot of balancing when column was little between like days where I'm so like just taking care of him and a lot of nights where it's just me and him.
But then my husband was also around a lot because he was in graduate school. so that was kind of our, our method back then, but now he is a full-time, therapist and we have two kids and I'm, I feel like now I feel like I'm rambling at this point, but to answer your question, I feel like it changed my business a lot, but I was never working 40 plus hours a week regularly, which if you actually clock your time, I feel like more entrepreneurs than not are actually working less than you might think. And I've always been like someone who likes to track my time. And you know, before we come into mom, I had other things I was doing, like I was a Young Life leader, which is like a nonprofit ministry. So I was putting a lot of time into that. And you just do random stuff where you're like not working. So that was helpful to me that I wasn't used to like, I'm pulling 60 hour weeks and now I don't have time for that. So like that was not my experience.
But now in like this current season with two kids, I'm actually exploring working even less. And I've been in the past like, you know, six months or so, or actually, yeah, like eight, nine months working a lot less than I used to, which is not even probably noticeable to like an outside perspective of my business. But we're about to reduce childcare to just two days a week. And I'm going to be with the kids the other three days. So it's like figuring out how to run my business on fewer hours has been like a big emphasis to me since becoming a mom and it wasn't something I knew that I would want to prioritize and would be focusing on. It's just like, don't know until you're in it. But that has been something that's been like important to me.
Elizabeth and her sweet family in early 2025 - baby girl to come in summer of 2025!
Yes, I've had such a similar experience as well. I always knew I wanted to be home with the kids. I never wanted to like really put them in full time daycare. That was never like a desire of mine. And so when I was pregnant with my first, I just already knew like, I'm just going to stick with the plan, which is like keeping him home with me. And same with my other kids. I'm, you know, the main person at home and it's Thankfully, I was in the same boat too. I wasn't working. I never worked 40 hours a week. I don't think I ever got above 30. Like even like all of this time that I've had my business, I've never worked that much and not in a bad way. Just like, I just never needed to really because I'm efficient and that kind of thing. But yeah, now it's I'm scaling back more and more and more. It's like, how much can I scale back and like still, you know, make this work? But it's working so far, so that's good. So I work about 15 hours a week, sometimes it's less, sometimes it's more. It kind of depends. And I'm in that little, little kid season where I am working during naptimes. I'm doing the nap time hustle. I'm working at night sometimes. So it's definitely one of those fluctuating seasons for me. I'm just, my primary role is a mom and out of choice. I'm very happy to do it, but it makes the business, you know, I can't really do as much in the business. So I'm just trying to find alternative ways, like the agency route of like, how can I continue to grow, but also scale back on time a little bit. So yeah, I think it's definitely something every person needs to think about, like what their values are and like, what do you really want? And when it comes to how many hours you work, you know, you are in control. You can decide to scale back or, you know, grow your hours, whatever you want to do in that instance.
Yeah, I feel like I can relate so much to everything you just said. like, I think for women listening who are like are not moms yet, but maybe you know that's like on your radar that you want that, but you are building your business. It's helpful to like think about that version of your business now and like work towards it of like whatever you want motherhood to look like, which again, it's just, changes so much. And I would even say to like how I want motherhood to look for me has changed from one to two kids even.
Cause you can't realize how much faster it goes with a second child. And so I'm like, wait, I want to be like home more. I want to be here for this, for me, not even just for you. think it's helpful for you to, have like your mom around a lot, but also like, want this for me more than I want to be behind my desk working. so figuring out how to navigate that. And I think to like, you've probably heard me talk about this in my podcast, but like the 40 hour work week, it's such a like unnecessary made up myth that like that's how much time you need to work a nine to five or to work a business.
Like it's literally made up from the industrial revolution and we don't you can read about it on the internet if you want to like research that. But it is like there's no reason that it has to be 40 hours. And so I feel like early in my business I realized that and challenged that concept for myself of like wait do I actually need 40 hours to make this a full-time income or a part-time income? Like whatever the goal is like do you need to be 20 hours for a part-time income? Maybe not and just like not just assuming and not assuming that the work hours have to be from eight or nine to five. You just like letting yourself have more freedom in the schedule.
So I would love to circle back to rebranding and as a designer, I'm sure you knew all the things that went into going through a rebrand, but do you have any tips for someone who's going through a big rebrand in their business and they've had their business for a while, such as yourself, you have a lot going on in your business, you have templates and courses and a lot of different things.
What's some advice you would give to someone who has a really established business and they really wanna be smart about a rebrand to get the most out of it.
Yeah, it's a great question. mean, so, okay, some things that were particularly helpful to me. One is realizing that like the rebrand is like, yes, you've got the visual identities like the logos and you've got fonts and colors, right? And patterns and icons and things like that. And that's what we think of. But then there's so many places when you've had your business a while that all those things live.
And so I kept a rolling list of like, all the different places that you realize like, my old logos are there. Man, I even forgot that's a thing over there. I got to update that. I got to change that. And so just like starting a list of that. And then when it became like time to work towards implementing my rebrand, I did not do what would probably be like the smartest from a marketing perspective in quotes of like, like zero to 100 of like, okay, my old websites live. Everything's the old logos. Everything's the whole website. And now next day, boom, here's a completely new site with new branding.
Instead, as soon as the designer I worked with had logos done, and they were done in like phases even, like the podcast we did last, I started updating on my old website. So like the old logos on my old site got changed. I left the colors the same, because that would have felt really drastic to change out all the colors, because it was a very different palette. But I was at a point where like the logos I had for my business, again, I had made them like six years ago and I was over it. I'd actually quit using them most of the places.
Because it was like I I'd liked I actually liked the fonts and colors I had been using that I did is like my partial rebrand But I hated those old logos and they served me six years ago But this point I was like, I just when I saw it was like So like they were actually not even on my website that much but where they were I changed them out And so it was like I would have people back Elizabeth I see like new logos and I'm like, yep like new logos, but nothing else is new yet. Just those
So I think that was good for me. like, depending on like where your business is at, that kind of like process could actually make more sense just to like get to roll out some things, but not do it all at once. And then I had that list of like all the random places the logos were used. And I made like a priority list of like, when does it make sense to roll out different things? So for example, literally like right before my son was born and before I started a maternity leave.
I went through all my carts and updated all the logos on like my carts for purchasing templates, which I have a lot of templates. This is like 30 or 40 products and the receipts for all of them as well to be the new logos. And that was something that's like so internal. I also have courses right there in Kajabi and there's a course that is for my template customers and courses that are sold individually, updated all that. And that like came way earlier than the website. And before I even like told me when I had done a rebrand,
I had so many places for a logo, like my email signature. Like there's so many random places. So I think for me, if I had rolled out all at once, I would have been like miserable and made it take way too long to happen because I would have had to do all the things. So like all at once, so to speak. So I like to do it that way. And then I made a big deal about the new website, but didn't make a big deal about anything prior to that. I also made a big deal about my podcast rebrand because that felt like really obvious. All of a sudden you're seeing something new in your like podcast app, but besides that, wait until the website to like really talk about it.
And I do feel like the website is where the brand gets to show off. So that makes a lot of sense that you wouldn't really say anything about it until you can see it happening in the website. I think that's such a great tip to like write down where your logo is and where all these touch points are. I think that's incredibly useful because then you can just kind of like check it off like a list and you can just make sure it's all seamless across the board.
And letting people in behind the curtain like, hey, like I'm going through a rebrand. Here's like phase one, you know, rolling out different things is a great way to build trust. I'm on your newsletter list so I did see that happen and I loved hearing why you made certain decisions - First of all, we love that stuff. Second of all, like it just shows your authority in the space. So I think, yeah, a really cool idea to do the rollout option.
Yeah. Well, and it's like, if you have, if you have a business that you create content for, it's a really great content opportunity and doing it slower. feel like you're more likely to make content around it. Yeah. You just said, when I forgot about it, like email newsletters, like you might have templates you're using for those. And that's another place your logo lives. And that was something I've changed out really early. Cause again, I was sick of my old stuff and I was like, I've got to change this. think all my like, didn't use any logos. And now like a lot of them have like the logo and the footer for like the podcast or whatever it is.
But yeah, think that's, it's a gift to you to roll it out slower if you do have a lot of things to roll out and it can be fun for your audience to see it slowly and allow you to make like more content around it. And you said it really well, like the website is where the brand really like is shining. So it's like, that's the moment where you're able to be like, woohoo. And I did not really share any previews of the website while I was working on it. I like said every now and like, I'm working on a new website. But the truth is I worked on it. I mean, I started on it in...
November of 2023. That's when my branding officially like finished being designed. And I started on the website and I was like, okay, I'm going to like get rolling on this. My baby was due at the end of February. So was like, let's go. I'm going to like get the website done or something like that, or at least get started on it.
And I got really hung up actually quickly. I was started with a homepage, which I think is a mistake, but then we could talk about if you want, but I like, I think for doing your own website, it's better to start with a less intimidating page when you're just DIY or even for your customers in template. Yeah, like the homepage is so intimidating. It's so important. Makes sense that's intimidating. But I was like, I'm going to start with the homepage, even though I tell template customers not to do that. But for some reason I was like, I'm, I'm the designer. I can start with the homepage. And I was also starting with things like the navigation and footer, which also are like a really thoughtful thing on the site. Like there's so many design decisions in just those two places on your website. You have the, for people who don't know, like the footers, that thing that is at the bottom of every page. There's usually like a navigation, maybe an Instagram feed and things like that. You know, the menus, like the navigation for the whole site. And so I was starting with all that basically and did not really make any progress and then decided to just pause on it.
And then when I came back from maternity leave and started working on it, I hated everything. was like, I hate all this, not the branding, but I hated, I hated what I had done of the homepage. I was like, I don't like it. So I actually ended up scrapping all of that and then starting fresh again. And I say scrapping all of it, I some of it wasn't that much, but I scrapped it and then I completely did my contact page first. That was the first page I did. And it helped me kind of set the framework for like how I'm gonna use the patterns, how I'm gonna use colors and font sizing and things like that.
And then I did my about page start to finish. And then I moved on other pages and I did the homepage completely last. Like I was actually editing it the week my website launched still, like trying to figure out that hero section. Cause it's like, and that was how it needed to be. Cause that page is really important and it was helpful to me to design it better after I had done some other pages first.
I think it's natural to want to design the homepage first because it's so exciting. It's the most fun, but it's also the most intimidating because it has, it carries a lot of weight because people normally go to your homepage first. So starting with smaller pages is a great idea.
And so I have one final question about the rebrand and then we will start wrapping it up. But I feel like we could chat for a long time because we have so much in common, but also like I just love hearing your experience like from a designer standpoint.
What was the thing that made you want to go through a rebrand? Like I really need to make this happen now. Was it just visual dissatisfaction? Was it, I wanna show up in a new way? What was the main thing that drove that decision?
Yeah, so I feel like it was a few main things. One would be that I feel like I hated my old branding and I was trying not to use. So I felt like I was at a point in my business like eight and a half ish years into it. I didn't have any logos is how it felt like my courses and my podcast had logos, but I did not have an Elizabeth McCravy logo that I was actually willing to use. And that's obviously a problem. And it felt like nothing was cohesive in my business.
Before going through a rebrand “it felt like nothing was cohesive in my business.”
Once you've had your business multiple years, you also talk about the website part. I mean, my site has over a hundred pages and that's because a lot of them are shop pages and a lot of them are opt-in pages, but everything kind of felt chaotic on the backend of show it, even though I'm quite organized as a designer and I had my pages grouped and things like that, but like it still felt really messy. And so I was like, I need to start up from scratch on that. And I had felt like that for a while that like I wanted to just like start fresh on my site and organize things better and use the design settings better and things like that.
But I feel like I wasn't, where my business was at that point didn't match the original stuff I was working with. And I also felt like too stuck in my own head on especially things like colors and fonts. Like I was actually having a little bit of a weird crisis moment of like my brand has always been very colorful and I was like, Well, when I rebrand, do I want to be like more mature and like not be like using pinks and like brighter colors? And I was like, I couldn't make this decision my own. I could ask a team member, ask a friend what they think, but I felt like I really needed like another person who's more of an expert on this than me to like help me work through that.
“And so that was where it was like, okay, I've got to hire someone. I've got to get help with this. And I want my business to have a brand now that like the other brands served me this many years, right? I need a brand now to serve me into like, the next season of my business.”
And I'm really glad I did. I feel like I've seen a lot of good results from it. And I feel more confident now sending people to my website than I did before, which is something we always talk about, right? As a designer, it's so funny because I always talk about that with my template shop and I'm like, but I was kind of becoming there. Like I wasn't like ashamed to send my website link, but like if anyone were to ask me, I'd be like, yeah, like I'm been meaning to redesign it honestly, but I made this template for you instead. So that's why it's still the same. So it felt really good to be like, okay, I finally did that. And that's like done.
I love that we have that disclaimer. I'm working on a redesign right now, so just, it's coming.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's so good. everything you said is like classic. When I work with my clients who are going through a rebrand, you know, they it feels chaotic. That's a word I hear a lot or like they feel so overwhelmed because there's so many touch points that they have with their clients. And then on the back end, they just feel such relief and more confident. So I just love it. Yes. Classic redesign, but I'm so glad it went so well.
And I love the designer you work with, by the way. I follow her and I just think she's so talented. So I just think, yeah, and I love your rebrand, too. It's beautiful and everyone should go check it out. And Elizabeth, tell everyone where they can find you. I hope everyone listens to your podcast because it's so good. And check out your templates as well. But share where everyone can find you.
Yeah, so if you want to see the rebrand brought to life, it's at ElizabethMcCravy.com. You can see that homepage that I worked way too long on and read it a hundred times and maybe we'll redo again. I need to just like not look at it anymore. But I also, yeah, like you said, I have a podcast and I'm on almost 300 episodes. talk about design, I talk about marketing, I talk a lot about motherhood and business and like personal life stuff too at this point.
I mean, I did two episodes on my podcast about the rebrand and that was 282 into 83, which I have all the episodes number two, you could find them that way. If that sounds interesting to you to like carry them more about it. The second one is six tips for redesigning your own website. When you have a giant website, it's basically the concept of like, you're doing this yourself and you have a huge website. So anyway, those are the, that would be the main places. My podcast is called the Breakthrough Brand Podcast. So can search that or search my name. Yeah, my template shop, if you are looking to DIY a show it website. That's what my templates work with. Those are on my website too. So yeah.
So good, I love this conversation so much. I hope all of our listeners just take so much away. If you are going through rebrand or if you have been in business for a while, you're making pivots in your business and just how to navigate those changes and when to get help when you feel like it's time and so many other things. So Elizabeth, thank you so much for your time. It was such a pleasure having you.
Yes, thank you so much. This was really fun.
