Q&A: Starting a Business, Overcoming Imposter Syndrome, My Next Big Goal, and What I’m Struggling with Right Now
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Links mentioned in today’s show:
Episode 131: Is Work-life Balance Real? A Q&A on Motherhood, Business, Hiring and More
Episode 14: Hiring as a Young Entrepreneur with Jenny Lee Hines
As we near the holiday season, it’s time to wrap up Season 8 with a pretty little bow! Join Victoria with an exciting Q&A session for the season finale! She’s tackling your burning questions on business growth, team scaling, and personal hurdles. Incredible questions were asked including advice and strategies of starting your own design studio, how to overcome imposter syndrome, and how to know what to outsource to a virtual assistant.
On a personal note, you’ll even get an inside look into Victoria’s next big goal and what she’s currently struggling with in business, right now. This episode even offers insights into hiring strategies and advice for new graduates. Victoria also touches on design fundamentals, marketing strategies, and financial management tips. Whether you're contemplating a career switch, aiming to scale your business, or maybe you’re hoping to work for BrandWell someday, this episode provides a wealth of knowledge to support you, wherever you are on your entrepreneurial journey! Thank you for spending each week with us this season, enjoy the break and look forward to more insightful content in Season 9 of The Branding Business School Podcast!
The following questions have all been submitted by listeners on Instagram, so be sure to follow BrandWell Designs and The Branding Business School so you don’t miss out on getting your questions answered on the podcast!
Advice for switching industries & Starting own design studio [02:32]
This question was submitted by Carolina and it sounds like she’s going from an entirely different industry into design, which is amazing! The first thing Victoria would have to say is that no matter what industry you’re working in, there are always going to be transferable skills. Victoria had three jobs prior to starting her own company and she developed skills that have transferred into her design studio from each one of them. So, Carolina, ask yourself what skills have you been building in your current industry? Did you learn strong client relationship skills? Did you learn organizational skills? Look through and write down what skills you have gleaned from your current job that you can transfer into your design studio that you’re building.
The next piece of advice Victoria has to share is to try your hardest to define your niche. Everyone talks about niching down and it can feel almost impossible when you’re starting out, but your niche can continue to get smaller and smaller as you grow your design studio, so you still want to have some sort of target audience. Don’t try and market to the masses when you’re starting out. Define who you enjoy working with and who you feel like you could collaborate well with. Then ask yourself, who do you feel your skills are best set to serve? Every designer has their design style, so what’s your best work as a designer and who’s seeking out that work? In the early days it really matters that you’re wowing people with your work, and it’s hard to wow people with work that’s subpar. So if there are specific types of design that you know are not your strong suit, don’t go after clients that need that type of design.
The last piece of advice Victoria shares for this question is, build out your online presence. As simple as it might be, you need to show your prospective clients that you practice what you preach. Show them that you prioritize that skill enough to do it for yourself. By not practicing what you preach for the sake of spending that time on your clients, it is actually hurting you more than it’s helping you. You are not putting your skillset on display, and if people can’t see that you have that skill based on your online presence (where they’re probably going to start their search) then why would you expect them to trade money in exchange for your services? Build out your online presence and make sure that it shows the best of your work.
How do you find the confidence to start? How to overcome Imposter syndrome? [07:28]
This question was submitted by Skylie. In order to start, you do need to have a motivator strong enough to get you out of your comfort zone, because there is nothing comfortable about starting a business, and you’re why (your motivator) may change over time, but once it’s strong enough, you’ll start. Are you uncomfortable enough in your current situation to change it? You have to get uncomfortable enough in your current situation to want something more and to be willing to take the risks that come with that.
When it comes to overcoming imposter syndrome, Victoria says that there’s an element of imposter syndrome that’s actually really healthy when you’re starting a business. In the early days, imposter syndrome really forces you to learn, grow, and seek out information to improve your skills. These are all really necessary when you’re starting a business, because beware of the day that you become so confident you stop learning. When you do that, your business will stop thriving. If your competition is always learning and if other people that are starting out are fueled by their own imposter syndrome or their desire to grow their business and their learning, but you don’t, well you’re the one that will be left behind. Other than having that mindset, Victoria does share a few tips in regards to overcoming imposter syndrome that have worked for her.
The first piece of advice is that confidence doesn’t come from being perfectly prepared. Start before you’re ready. Confidence comes when you take action. So start small and the momentum of doing something is going to help build your self-belief. It’s going to build your confidence. If everything remains a ‘What if?’ then your imposter syndrome will only continue to grow. But if you take action, you start small and get a quick win, then you’re going to start to believe in yourself more and more. For Victoria, a lot of what’s helped her combat her own imposter syndrome is just seeing the results of taking action.
The next piece of advice is to focus on the value that you provide. Instead of thinking, ‘am I good enough to do this?’ think, ‘how can I help someone?’. Think about the transformation that your skills can bring to your clients or your audience. Amy Porterfield said that you only need to know 10% more than the people that you’re trying to help. If you know even 10% more than they do, you can help them, you can pass on that knowledge and it will be beneficial to them. So focus on that.
The last piece of advice for overcoming imposter syndrome is to surround yourself with people that will encourage you. Having people to bounce ideas off of and to encourage you and cheer you on when you’re feeling deflated is so incredibly important.
What’s a current big goal for BrandWell? What are you trying to 10x? [13:45]
This is a great question, thank you Nikki for submitting this. Victoria does have a big goal that she’s working towards and that is to turn BrandWell into a seven figure business in the next two to three years. While it’s very doable, it’s also not going to be easy. How she’s planning on getting to that goal is going to look really different than how she went about getting to where she is today with BrandWell being six years old. In Season 9, there will be an episode that dives more into the changes that will be taking place in the months to come, but Victoria shares a little preview into what that looks like.
In 2025, BrandWell will be changing their model quite a bit. Victoria realized that in order for her to hit her goal with the current pricing structure that they have, she would have to hire about 10 more people for her team, and considering that she already has 10 people on payroll, she didn’t want to have to double the size of her company. As you probably know, Victoria is in the season of having littles and she’s very mindful of the amount of time that she spends away from them and even the amount of stress that she puts on herself. While she loves having a team, it adds a lot of responsibility. Also, Victoria strives to be more than just a paycheck for her girls. She wants to provide an environment where they feel like they’re learning, they’re growing, they’re thriving, they’re being invested into, and if the team continues to grow at the rate it is right now, it’ll be very hard for Victoria to continue to create that ideal environment for them.So, a few things to expect from BrandWell is higher pricing, an even more niched target audience, and even more exceptional client experiences. Even though this high ticket design service may feel out of reach for some, Victoria does have a more attainable and accessible option which is The Branding Business School and Victoria also has a goal to scale that more next year too.
How did you decide between growing a team and focusing on building a profitable solo business? [17:43]
For Victoria, this was the better option and a pretty easy decision for her based on the season that she was in when starting BrandWell. The day she went full time with BrandWell she had a timeline of seven months before she would have a baby and become a new mom, which posed its own set of unknowns. Victoria realized early on that she needed to replicate herself or her business was going to stop when she did, and that was not the model that she wanted. Victoria also has always wanted to have the model of being a visionary, being a leader. She loves to lead and encourage others, and she saw that in the form of having a team.
Did you start with individual contractors or interns? How did you find them and compensate them? [19:57]
Victoria started out with independent contractors, which is in her opinion, the lowest risk, easiest way to build out a team. You can choose people and pay them per project or you can pay them hourly. It’s great if you are on a small budget and you can’t commit to a salary for somebody or can’t commit to even a paycheck every two weeks. Check out a previous episode about hiring here.
Due to the need to replicate herself, Victoria did hire contractors for designers right away instead of doing a common route of hiring a VA first for administrative tasks. She starts her contractors around 5 to 10 hours per week, for like a 90 day trial period. If it’s going well, and it’s a good fit for both parties, then she’ll start to give them more and more work and then she basically will give them as much work as they can handle. Since her contractors tell Victoria when they are capped, she does have to check with them before she can assign them a project, which can be a downside. Overall though, this has worked well and usually the designers are scaled up to about 20 to 30 hours, and if they get above that then that’s when Victoria can choose to offer them a full-time position. Right now, there are three salaried full-time employees, including Victoria, and then there are six independent contractors, and two paid interns.
In regards to compensation, the salaried employees are paid very competitively and the contractors get paid per project. BrandWell started their internship program in January 2024 and these positions are always paid because Victoria is a firm believer in that you’re going to get the best work when you pay for it. It’s nothing crazy for internships, around $15 an hour for college students, but it gives you people that are a little bit more excited to work for you and do a good job for you, if they get paid.
What tasks to delegate to a virtual assistant? [23:19]
This question was submitted by Skylar. First off, do an audit of all the things that you’re working on every day. Keep the ones that are your strong suits. Then, look at what is not getting done, and if it was getting done it would move the needle. Do you have an email list that you never email because you just don’t have the time or you don’t know what to say? That might be a good thing to get some help with. Is it social media marketing? This might be a good place to start. What is not getting done because you don’t have the time to do it, but if it were to get done, you believe that it would move the needle for your business. This is a good place to start when delegating tasks. At the end of the day, what tasks can you offload that will free you up to do the thing that’s going to drive the most revenue for your business? When you look at it this way, you can start to look at the investment as an investment and not as an expense.
What is something you’re struggling with right now, in your business? [26:02]
In all honesty, it’s time. Victoria has a four-year-old and a two-year-old, and she tries to honor her priority of being a present mom, but because of that, she always feels like she’s giving BrandWell less than what it needs of her. The biggest struggle for Victoria is that she knows how she wants to show up as a boss, but it’s a daily choice of prioritizing her children, her team, her clients. Obviously some days you have to shift your priorities a little bit based on the urgency and what is needed, but of course, Victoria wants to choose her kids and her family over anything, and because of that sometimes her team does get less of her than what she wants to give them. This is just a season of life right now, and Victoria is on the cusp of getting more freedom and time to pour into her team, but she’s honoring the season that she’s in right now. It can be a struggle to want to be a good steward of this business that Victoria believes God blessed her with, but also recognizing that her greatest role on this planet is being a mom to her kids and raising them to know and love Jesus.
What advice would you give to a new marketing graduate that would like to learn more about design and marketing strategies? [28:32]
This is a great question, thank you for submitting Brittany! Victoria reviews applications for BrandWell weekly and this is definitely a topic that should be talked about more. Here’s a checklist of things you could do before you would apply to either BrandWell or any other design company.
First of all, do you understand basic design principles, hierarchy, font choice, complementary colors, layout composition, etc. These are things that Victoria looks for even in your resume or in your portfolio. Are you using basic design principles in putting together your own work? Because if not, it’s easy to assume that you don’t know how to use that in client work either. So, study hierarchy, study complementary typography, study what colors go with each other. Even learning the psychology of colors and what colors represent different emotions or feelings for people and how that can be utilized in branding. Those are really, really, valuable skills that a lot of design companies do not want to have to teach their new hires.
Related to marketing, just read books. Audible is also a great way to do this. Donald Miller has a lot of great ones, including Story Brand. Check out the book Marketing Rebellion by Dan Sullivan or This Is Marketing by Seth Godin.
If you’re going to apply to a company, it’s also a good idea to see if that company has a podcast, blog, or YouTube channel that you can really verse yourself in. When someone mentions that they listened to this podcast on their application, they are immediately bummed up to the top of the list because in Victoria’s mind, they’ve essentially been getting trained by her on how she likes to do things, how she views branding, in every episode they listen to.
Another thing would be to include hands-on experience. A lot of portfolios that Victoria receives have nothing in them other than projects they’ve done in college. This doesn’t really share anything about your own design skills. So even if you have to make up your own client projects, you can give a brief on who the client is, create a made up brand for them, and then share why you designed the brand the way you did. This would be a designer’s dream when looking through applications.
Have you ever considered blogging for your business? Do you think it would be beneficial? [32:17]
Podcasting is Victoria’s way of blogging. She shows up weekly and talks about all the things that some people would choose to write about instead. However, each podcast episode is turned into a blog post so those that prefer to read their content are able to view the full episode show notes on her website. The reason the podcast episodes are turned into a blog is because yes, blogging is incredibly beneficial for business. Google still wants to provide its users with relevant content to what they’re searching for. So if you’re creating blogs that are answering the questions that people are Googling, naturally you’re going to increase your chances of showing up in those searches.
Have you sold or do you plan to sell templates? If so, do you think it weakens the value of the one-on-one package? [33:38]
In 2020, BrandWell opened a template shop and Victoria was really excited about it! Her desire was to create a more affordable option for the people that wanted to work with BrandWell, but it was out of their budget. Unfortunately, it ended up being a total flop. While there were sales made from it, Victoria realized that it was a totally different audience than the audience she was serving with custom design. The people buying the templates are not spending thousands of dollars in custom design, which will ultimately result in two very different outcomes. Victoria felt that the template shop was hurting her brand because if she was constantly preaching the power of a custom designed website and how that can impact how people perceive your brand and allow you to charge higher prices, but she’s also selling templates through that same brand, well those people are not getting the results that she’s preaching about. Another point as to why the template shop no longer exists is that about half of the people who bought them, never ended up taking the website live. When you have low ticket offers, you have low commitment, and that low commitment would drive Victoria nuts because she wanted everyone to create a beautiful website, take it live, and then reap the rewards. But that was not the case. So, after a year of having the template shop, Victoria took it down and never opened it again. She has zero plans of opening it again, but the only way she ever would, would require her to create an entirely new sister brand to BrandWell where the template shop could live and market to its own audience and its own messaging.
Do you have any advice on managing taxes? [36:25]
This question was submitted by Armory Creative, who has a 9-5 job and also a design business. Victoria has had very complicated taxes for as long as she has been married, so the best piece of advice she has is to hire a CPA. They will always save you more money than they will cost you if you don’t know what you’re doing. About two and a half years ago, she also hired a bookkeeper. She uses Profit Priority and loves them! They are another female owned and operated company and because of them, Victoria doesn’t have the financial stress of knowing what’s going on or coming in anymore.
If hiring bookkeepers or CPA’s isn’t in your budget right now, here’s some other advice: separate your finances. Any income that you have coming in through your design business you need to keep separate from your personal finances. Open an account just for your business and start building it like a business. If you can, don’t spend that money unless it’s back into the business. Use your 9-5 income to pay for your living expenses, etc. If you need to pay yourself through your business account, then set it up so that you’re paying yourself. But try to avoid swiping your business card willy nilly and mixing up your personal and business expenses.
How and Why did you decide to switch from enrollment periods to evergreen open enrollment for The Branding Business School? [38:27]
This question was submitted by Amy. This may be an entire future episode, but in short, live launches are just not Victoria’s thing. There’s a lot of pro’s to live launches. You create the scarcity feeling, where people know that if they don’t get it now, it’s going to be gone. There’s more urgency and people are more likely to buy. The main reason to start with the live launches though was because of BrandWell. BrandWell is Victoria’s full-time job, she’s also a mom and leads a team, so she’s busy. The creation of The Branding Business School wasn’t to start another business, but it was a need that she saw and she wanted to be the one to meet it. Victoria thought that by only offering it three times a year, it would allow her to focus on it those three times and then not again the rest of the year. If you know anything about live launches, then you know that was a joke. They are a lot of work and require a lot of energy, preparation, and time. So, it was a huge learning curve for Victoria. After doing four live launches, she decided that she really just wants to be able to direct people to The Branding Business School when they actually need it, and not just because it’s open for enrollment. Now, she can share about the course whenever and you can go and register now and be done in two weeks, instead of having to wait months till the next enrollment period. Ultimately, Victoria realized that she’s really good at selling organically and an evergreen model just fits best for her.
If you are interested in taking The Branding Business School, you no longer have to wait. You can enroll whenever you’re ready using this link.
Final Remarks [42:33]
Thank you for listening to this podcast! For those of you who send emails and DM’s saying that you listen and find it encouraging, it means the world to Victoria. This wraps up Season 8 of The Branding Business School, we’ll be back with Season 9 to help you grow your business in 2025! Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!
Key Quotes
“Beware of the day that you become so confident that you stop learning, because when you do, I believe your business will stop thriving."
Victoria Marcouillier
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