BrandWell Retreat Recap: Why I Took My Design Team to Nashville for 3 Days
Thank you to our sponsors!
Save 50% off your first year of Honeybook using this link!
Get $30 off your first month of Nuuly using this link!
Get up to $150 off your first box of Factor Meals using this link!
Links mentioned in today’s show:
View BrandWell’s Nashville IG Highlights!
Listen to the Retreat Prep Episode
Nashville's vibrant heartbeat set the stage for the third annual BrandWell designer retreat, where creativity and camaraderie fused into an unforgettable weekend. Victoria has returned from an immersive brand experience with her all-female design team, and she’s sharing the highlights with you! From paying homage to Taylor Swift with friendship bracelets and customized acknowledgements, to indulging in designer trivia, to experiencing the local brands of Nashville; this retreat balanced strategic play with heartfelt moments.
Wrapping up the weekend, Victoria brought in each of the girls for a mini podcast interview to reflect on the mix of leisure and creativity that defined the Nashville retreat. The little joys, like experiencing a unique taco restaurant together and mastering the art of line dancing, became milestones in their girls weekend. As they have now parted ways, the retreat's impact lingers—a strengthened community of women in design, ready to infuse their work with the inspiration drawn from their collective adventure. Join the girls behind BrandWell Designs as they recount the laughter, the learning, and the love for branding that binds them all at BrandWell.
Reason behind the retreat [02:40]
Victoria strongly believes that your company is only as good as your team. She has recognized that BrandWell has reached a potential that she didn’t even know existed, but because of the women who have been willing to share their creativity, their skill sets, their minds, and their time with her and her company, they all have made BrandWell what it is today. BrandWell is an all female design agency that is made up of the women who Victoria took to Nashville for a weekend to spoil them and show her appreciation for them, and in this episode, Victoria is bringing you along to recap the highlights of their girls trip.
P.S. If you want a full deep dive of why Victoria is doing this retreat and the logistics behind planning it, be sure to listen to Episode 125 where Victoria shares everything she’s done to prepare for this weekend!
Thursday night – the night before [04:09]
As you can imagine, the night before was a bit hectic between trying to coordinate with everyone and making sure their travel plans were good, but besides that Victoria also was feeling all the emotions that come when you leave your children for a few days. (Moms, you know what we’re talking about here!) In case that wasn’t enough, when Victoria really wanted to be packing and going over her list a million times, she was downstairs helping her husband with the basement renovation they’re doing because the inspection just so happened to be the morning that Victoria was leaving for the retreat. Although, the worst thing that happened that night was getting a text message from Victoria’s COO, Lauren, saying that she was unable to make the retreat due to sickness. Victoria was heartbroken by this news and honestly struggled with the discouragement she felt. Lauren is one of Victoria’s go-to girls that has been with BrandWell for four years, and is running the day-to-day at BrandWell, so for her to not be able to join, and for Victoria not being able to spoil her in the way she imagined, was extremely disappointing, for both Lauren and Victoria.
Friday –Traveling & Venue [07:03]
Friday morning, Victoria and Libby drove from Virginia to Nashville, Tennessee, stopping to pick up another designer, Bailey, along the way. They drove to their Airbnb which was actually about 5 to 10 miles outside of Nashville proper, in a town called Goodlettsville. Another designer was flying in from Texas, another designer driving in from Georgia, Victoria’s friend Suzy who was their photographer for the weekend was coming in from Knoxville, and Victoria’s mom was driving in from Georgia. Everyone made it, with no hiccups, to the Airbnb by around six o’clock in the evening. With having eight girls under one roof, Victoria had to get a little creative which is why she expanded outside Nashville, but it paid off because this venue was a hit! It had five bedrooms, seven beds, and it was a really unique spot! Unfortunately, this location is unavailable on Airbnb right now, but here’s a really cool video walking you through the home!
Kicking things off [09:30]
Everyone was excited to see each other and Victoria was excited to pass out the BrandWell gift bags that she’s been shopping for for months! Each designer got a custom branded tote bag that said “BrandWell” on the front, and was loaded with different gifts. There was a 40 ounce tumbler in a cute gingham print, a makeup bag with scrunchies and eye masks, Starbucks cards, necklaces with their initials on it, cowboy hats, and Nashville T-shirts! Pretty much every and anything that you would need to have a fun extended girls weekend in Nashville!
After everyone had time to go through their stuff, they had dinner at the house. Dolly, who is Victoria’s mom and the official mom of BrandWell, had a charcuterie board ready for when everyone arrived and a taco night for dinner. This gave everyone a chance to catch up, and for some, meet the rest of their team that up to this point, they’ve only seen virtually. After dinner, they went to make friendship bracelets. The average age of BrandWell designers is 25, so most of them are major Swifties, so making friendship bracelets was definitely a fun nod to Taylor and also gave them something to do while also being able to talk and catch up. Continuing on the Taylor Swift theme, Victoria created a unique way to acknowledge each designer on her team by taking an album by Taylor Swift, removing Taylor and replacing it with an image of her designer that related to this album. Feel free to check out these album mockups that Victoria created for the girls, here!
To close out the night, the team played Hue’s and Cue’s which is a fun game to play if you have four or more, even if you’re not designers. The point of this game is to guess the exact color out of 480 shades from only one word. Victoria was so impressed with the girls on the team and their ability to guess the exact color the first time, especially Aviana who is their color theory queen! Again, this was something to do with your hands while you could still talk and engage as a team. You might notice that this is a theme, but it was intentional by Victoria, because she wanted to utilize the time together by really getting to know each other. One last thing they all did on Friday was play a game of designer trivia. Victoria wanted to make sure everyone had some cash in their pockets so that they could experience the brands they were going to on Saturday. So between her and ChatGPT, she came up with some trivia questions related to popular brand logos and once someone would guess the brand correctly, they would win some cash. The only catch was that each designer would have to buy something with that cash, because the best way to experience brands is to buy something from them. To be a customer and get the full experience of their customer service, the packaging, the price point, all the things.
Saturday [16:50]
Saturday morning, Dolly had a beautiful breakfast spread and coffee ready for everyone to have. They took a bunch of team photos and then they were out the door, headed for Nashville’s 12 South area. They started the day at Frothy Monkey, a unique brand but popular coffee chain company. From there they went to Five Daughters Bakery to get donuts and then stopped at a bunch of cool boutiques where everyone found a little something to immerse themselves in the branding experience of these shops. For lunch they stopped at Lady Bird Taco, which actually was a plan B destination, but ended up being one of the favorite spots over the weekend. After lunch the team hopped in the car, headed for Broadway street, and the BrandWell team went line dancing! If you want to watch this for yourself, check out the BrandWell Instagram Highlight of Nashville! There’s a fun video of the girls dancing along with other behind the scenes from the weekend!
Once everyone was done shopping and their feet were hurting from wearing cowgirl boots all day, they headed back to Goodlettsville where Dolly had subs and sandwiches ready at the Airbnb. They had dinner there and stayed in for the rest of the night, playing board games, chatting about the brands they experienced that day, and hanging out as a team.
Retreat Reflections
From the perspective of Victoria [22:45]
Something that Victoria has found encouraging in the wake of the retreat has been witnessing how genuinely excited the girls are to get back to their job, and to get back to designing for their clients. Especially now that they’re so inspired from the brands that they’ve witnessed, and they’re just inspired by knowing who they’re working alongside and knowing the creative minds that they get to collaborate with on a daily basis. Their designer group chat is now more active than it’s ever been before. Girls are sharing their wins and everyone’s celebrating together. This just goes to show why it’s so important to build connections, build relationships beyond just work, because when you’re friends with someone, you want to share your wins, no matter how big or small. It’s not just a job anymore, it becomes a culture, a community, and that’s what Victoria wants to invest in with her company.
From the perspective of Chief Design Officer, Libby [25:11]
This was Libby’s third BrandWell retreat and this year she felt like Victoria did such a great job at curating everything, from the gifts, to the experience, to the venue, she really made everyone feel so special. Libby’s favorite experience was playing Hue’s and Cue’s and that’s probably because she’s a big community girl and relationship girl. It was so special being able to see everyone and spend time with everyone because she got to know them more on a personal level.
From the perspective of designer, Bailey [27:39]
This was Bailey’s first BrandWell retreat and she felt that Nashville couldn’t have been better. For her, it was so nice getting to meet the other girls that she talks to virtually, but now was able to hang out in person and build friendships. Bailey enjoyed the fun girls weekend but she also felt so inspired to go back and design, especially after getting to look at all the brands they did. Visiting Nashville’s local brands was Bailey’s favorite part of having Nashville as the setting for this retreat. Bailey comes from a small town, so it was nice to see all the different restaurants and coffee shops, and them all being so different from each other. Bailey’s favorite brand to visit was the Elixir coffee shop because of their style. She ordered something she probably wouldn’t have gotten normally, but she ended up really enjoying. Victoria and Bailey do a little brand strategy breakdown and discuss why the coffee shop’s branding made Bailey want to order the Strawberry Oat Milk Latte. Bailey’s favorite part of the retreat was line dancing!
From the perspective of designer, Lauren [30:30]
This was Lauren’s first BrandWell retreat and she came 32 weeks pregnant! Lauren shared that this retreat exceeded all expectations and she felt so blessed to be on a retreat with women who love the Lord, who love to create and use the gifts that God’s given them, and also to encourage and enjoy each other. Even though this was the first time Lauren has met anyone on the BrandWell team in person, she felt that she already knew everyone after working together virtually. Going back to working virtually now will be even sweeter after getting to spend the time together in person. After getting to experience the brands with everyone in Nashville, she’s feeling open minded and able to think outside of the box, but mostly just excited to jump back into designing and producing unique brands. Lauren’s favorite part was also line dancing and it’s a memory of this retreat that will stick with her.
From the perspective of designer, Aviana [32:53]
This was Aviana’s second retreat with BrandWell and she actually preferred this one over the one in Georgia, but only because she’s more comfortable with the rest of the team now. She enjoyed being able to go experience the brands and organically talk about them rather than try to sit down and get your work brain on. Aviana found it enjoyable to do what she loves with the people that she enjoys to work with. After experiencing these physical brands, Aviana wants to push herself and clients to use their branding in a more tactile way, even if they are a digital business. Aviana’s favorite brand they experienced was Lady Bird Taco, which had a cute vibe and high quality food which reflected their high quality branding. A favorite part of the whole retreat for Aviana was getting in and seeing everyone that first night.
From the perspective of the official mom of BrandWell, Dolly [35:54]
This was Dolly’s second retreat with BrandWell and the team has unanimously decided that there cannot be another retreat without her! Dolly shares her role as an event coordinator for the retreat. She worked with Victoria behind the scenes, made sure everything was how Victoria envisioned it, taking photos for the girls, and encouraging them all. Having Dolly at the retreat gave Victoria the opportunity to experience the retreat alongside the girls on her team, which was so special. From an outsider looking into the group of girls that make up BrandWell, Dolly says they are quality. Their passion, enthusiasm, and the way they all work together is quality and an amazing thing to watch. Dolly’s favorite thing to observe from the retreat was watching everyone come in, because they were so excited! Dolly loved getting to see the enthusiasm of everyone wanting to be together and experience the weekend and share ideas together.
Key Quotes
“It's not just a job anymore, it becomes kind of a culture, a community, and that's what I want to invest in with my company.”
Victoria Marcouillier
Stay connected!
Follow The Branding Business School on Instagram and Facebook.
Follow BrandWell Designs on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest
LEAVE A REVIEW + and SHARE this episode with someone who wants to build a go to brand in this online era. You can listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
