That is freedom right there guys. So making the decisions and just doing this hard work up front will hands down help you uh, outsource. It gives you freedom to where you don't have to physically do all the things. What? Yeah. Guys, we don't have to do everything for our business. Hi, podcast friends, it's Nicole today, and it's just you and me. And I am so excited to talk to you about what I have planned today. It's going to be just a little, a little chat, We're going to run through what you need in your brand guide. And this is stuff that I talk about with clients all day long in our brandstorming sessions. And we work through a lot of. the troubles that they're having in making these important choices of what should be in our brand guide. And, um, if you're just starting out with us, then maybe you don't even know what a brand guide is. So I'm going to go ahead and just start right at the beginning of what the heck is a brand guide. Why do you need one? And, um, ultimately why it's important for small businesses who are trying to look legit to stick with rules in They're branding in their business. So let's back up to just starting a business. We're starting a business. We get like what? I I'm let me just like screech back all the way to 2009 when we started our business. Frannie and Nicole, just a couple of young 20 somethings who are just trying to. Make a name for themselves, trying to actually pay the bills. The really, what we were trying to do was to make jobs because 2009, if you guys don't remember, it was a little tough out there for anyone who wanted to get hired. It was a recession and it was especially hard for graphic designers, um, which were not in high. High demand as a couple of design students who had just graduated from university, literally four plus years learning about this stuff, you would think that we would know all there is to know about why you need a brand guide. We would have had one right from the beginning, but you know what? It just doesn't work out that way because we had the new business blinders and any of you business owners that started your own business from the beginning, you probably know what this means. It's like you have those, it's almost just like survival. It is like looking out a windshield and only being able to see the windshields and not focusing on really the big picture of what you're building in a lot of cases. Okay. Not all of you. Some of you are super smart. It's weird. It's funny cause Some of the small businesses that I work with for brandstorming who book us for shoots, it's like a lot of you guys are doing it right from the beginning. But you know what, Frannie and I, we didn't do it that way. We were just, you know, what did they say? Like pulling it up by the bootstraps and just trying to figure out what the heck we were doing. Well. What happens when you get two creative people with way too much power at their fingertips for creating things? I mean, we both had Adobe Illustrator, we both had lots of ideas. You're going to ultimately end up with a little bit of flavor of the week. So every single time we would design something new, it was like. Honestly, we had the ability to create just anything and everything that was cute. Like, it's like, oh, well, I like this brand, I like this color. And even though we did have, you know, our logos and colors and everything, we still kind of would bend the rules a little bit. Okay, so. What, what we quickly found out was that we really needed to have a set upon set of rules that we both agreed upon, that we both followed. And it's multiple times in our business that We would go astray and it's like, okay, now all of a sudden, you know, Franny's using this script and sometimes I like this font all in caps and sometimes I like it spaced out and sometimes she likes this version of, you know, um, and so we, we have run into this problem multiple times in our business and these are people who know design, these are people that know branding and, um, I will proudly tell you that we are a lot better today than we were in the past, but I will let you know that you're not alone. You're not alone in seeing freaking cute things out there and wanting a piece of it. We still are guilty of, you know, kind of changing up the colors here and there, but there is a really good way to do it. Okay. So today we're going to talk about brand guides, why you need one and what should go in it. A brand guide is essentially a Guide. It can be a physically printed guide. It can be a digital guide. It can be whatever format you want. But it ultimately has the same key things in it that are agreed upon in by all of the leaders of the business like the owners of the business and then followed by all the people in the business. Okay. And anyone that you hire to do work on behalf of your business. The reason that we want to have a brand guide for our business is that so we don't fall into that flavor of the week situation. So Franny and I, we had the, um, fortunate slash unfortunate ability to create the flavor of the weeks ourselves. Now you've Friends, my friends, have Canva at your fingertips. Those of you who haven't discovered Canva, um, I highly encourage that you do, but do it right. When you open up Canva, Canva is a online digital platform in order for you to make your own graphic designs online. It is a fan... It's a free version that you're able to use. The issue I have with it is that it is way too easy to go off brand. It is so simple to go on, find a template that looks cute, plug your info in it, and you know, download and hit publish. And as soon as you know it, you have a hot mess express Instagram that doesn't look cohesive, professional or trustworthy. So we, what we want to do and how we can use Canva for us and not against us is to decide what your brand attributes are in a brand guide and then plug all of these Things into your Canva so that way it has rules to follow and it's easy to find your fonts use them correctly Use your high high resolution versions of your logo your colors all of those things and you can plug those right into The paid version of Canva and it makes it so much easier to create on my on brand assets So I really recommend Um, just sticking with me, let's decide what we need in our brand guide, make some tough decisions and start creating cohesive looking assets for our business. So with branding, I mean, ultimately there's a lot of pieces that go into a brand. Your brand is made up of your voice and your visuals. Okay. And. Um, with both your voice and your visuals, there are three, we call them the, I mean, it's, this is kind of, this is branding one on one. There's the three C's of branding. Okay. You can remember this. We've got clarity, consistency, and constancy. So that means that we want to be very clear in what we're doing. We want to be very consistent in the way that we are showing up and we want to be constant in the way that we're doing it. So that way we are. Clients or potential clients, followers, people who just consume our content that they know what to expect when they. follow us, when they do work with us, when they interact with us, your brand is every interaction in all forms. So the way that we are able to have a trustworthy brand is by being clear, consistent, and showing up constant. Okay. So we want to create a recognizable, memorable, and cohesive brands. And in order to do that, you're going to have to have rules. You're going to have to have parameters. Um, Everything that someone would need to know to make on-brand content for your business should be all in one place and, and easy for them to, to find and to follow the rules. So, okay, our brand guide. That I actually just finished a revamp version of our internal brand guide for ampersand studios. And we ended up getting ours printed into booklets and we've distributed to all members of our team. So they all have a personal version of our brand guide. And that way they can see exactly what color codes our colors are. They know what types of fonts, how to use them, all of these things. Um, and it just makes it really super simple to make sure that. Everything that we produce is on brand. Okay. Let's break it down to what should be inside. Okay, our specific brand guide at Ampersand Studios, we divide it up into our voice and our visuals. Like I said at the beginning, your, your brand consists of the voice part and the visual part. It's not just your logo. It's not just your colors. The voice is a huge part of the way that you operate and the way that you present yourself and the way that you're perceived by other people. So in the brand guide, we have it starting off with your mission. Vision and values. Your mission is why you exist in the first place. So here at Ampersand studios, we believe even the smallest of businesses deserve big brand strategy. That is the whole reason that we exist is to make branding. easy, digestible, affordable and achievable for small businesses that are really, really good at what they do, but maybe don't have exactly the right tools or resources to market themselves effectively to reach their ideal customer. They don't have all of the same branding and marketing expertise that we have. So in fulfilling our own mission, we try to have something accessible for Businesses who are just barely starting out with no budget to businesses that have been in business for a long time and maybe have some more resources, there should be a Starting point to work with us from free all the way up to premium price tag. But we wanted to create a space for small businesses that maybe aren't quite to that big marketing agency quite yet. So your mission should be some, some sort of reason why you exist, why. You started your business in the first place. Okay. So, um, your mission, your vision would be, you know, where you're going, where are you headed? What are your goals? Uh, and your values. So what do you value? What kind, what kinds of words would you use to describe your business? The people that you work with, the people that work there, so your customers and your employees, um, how you want people to feel when they interact with you. Those are values. These are things that every, every interaction should have with your business. Um, so that should all be laid out in the voice part of your brand guide. Um, we, um, also have a culture section, um, that just gives a little bit more brand personality. Um, just says like what we want to emulate, what is important. This is also a place for you to put your brand story. So if you have an origin story of, you know, maybe how you started out, what is the story that you want told about you by, you know, your employees who ask, like, what is the go to? elevator pitch. If somebody wanted to know a little bit more about your business, then you've got tone. So this is your Like, how do you sound? How do you, how do you speak? How do you not speak? What do you say? What are some things that you would never say? Um, you know, do you use a curse word every now and then? Are you funny? Are you serious? Those would all be things that... go into your brand tone. And so your tone would be carried into your brand messaging, your brand personality. Um, then we have our favorite part. We call this your really cool thing. So a really cool thing would be, or also called an RCT. This would be the same thing as like your unique selling proposition, your purple cow, what sets you apart? What is that thing, that one thing that you do that no one else does or that you'd be remembered for? What are people saying about you when you're not in the room? Your really cool thing should be something that you can say over and over and over again that, um, that really set you apart. Will sometimes your really cool thing be the same as someone else's? You know what? We hope when you come up with it, that you can come up with something that's really individual and unique to you, but every now and then we have copycats, we have things that catch on, um, and it just happens and we just kind of have to find that thing again and constantly, you know, um, ourselves, we are reinventing ourselves all the time to figure out, you know, how do we stay on top? How do we stay one step, um, step ahead with our customers? How are we serving our customers the best? And what can we say that we do here at Ampersand Studios that no one else quite does? So that RCT or You're unique selling proposition, your really cool thing should be something that really sets you apart. Something that's memorable. Okay? So if you are a real estate agent, we have a lot of real estate agents, um, that I get, I get asked a lot, like how, what is my really cool thing? If I'm a personal brand, if I'm one person, how do I set myself apart from people who are literally selling the same? the same inventory that I have access to. And the answer to that is to share yourself. No one is exactly like you. And if you're a personal brand, find those things that you're comfortable talking about again and again, that are memorable, that, um, build personality that set you apart from your competition. Maybe you do something in business that's different than somebody else. Like maybe you. Maybe you show them, I don't know, maybe you show them real estate in a helicopter. Maybe you skydive. I don't know what all those air things are, but, but, but is there something that you do that's different from anyone else? Um, maybe you have a unique story. Maybe you have a past life that, you know, you had a completely different career that maybe led you to selling real estate. Like what are those memorable facts that you can pull from yourself to be remarkable to someone else? Okay, next after the really cool thing, RCT, we think that your brand guide should include the experience that you want to offer. So if there's something unique about the experience that you offer or what you want your customers to experience, that would go there. Those details of what it looks like to work with you, what, uh, what are, are those five senses things that you want to be. associated with your brand. Okay. Next we have, this is going to be, this is kind of a, uh, like mind blower for a lot of small businesses, especially a lot of the businesses that I get in brainstorming because they don't recognize how important this is for brand voice. And that is your dream customer that were, um, in marketing, we use, um, ideal customer avatar. So this would be an imaginary customer that Maybe it's based off of customers that you've worked with in the past. Maybe they're customers that you haven't yet worked with that you hope that you do. Maybe you are basing this, um, this imaginary person off of real people that you love or that you would really want to work with. Uh, you, the joy, the joyful thing about this is that you can create exactly who your dream customer is. And that is. The point of it. Okay. So, um, with the dream customer, you want to be thinking about location in my location specific, or can anyone who lives anywhere hire me? Um, what? You know, what age range are they? And actually we recommend choosing a very specific age. Um, if you want to, you can include a photo just so you can like visualize that person. Um, you can say, you know, if they're married, do they have pets? Is that important? Are these important details? What do they do for a living? Um, what, Um, Like what income bracket are they? I mean, there are so many things that we can create in the type of people that we want to work with, that will help us when we're creating content, when we're creating products, offers, services, that we could remember to, to think of when we're trying to serve that customer. So if I really want to serve, you know, Jonathan, who lives in it. Salt Lake City, Utah, and he, you know, has a dog and I sell dog stuff, you know, like maybe I want to, maybe he has, I don't know, I'm trying to be like really specific, but maybe he has a little dog and I specifically have a product that helps little dogs when they go on walks so they don't get tired. And So it's a contraption that you can put your dog in so they, you know, you get what I'm saying. It's like based on what you sell, you can create a dream customer that is the perfect customer who is hanging on every single one of your words that just eats up every piece of content that you have to put out and that is the person that you can serve. The best. Okay, so we that's what we want to craft with that dream customer This is not a anybody who can buy my things. Okay, so if I'm selling weird Dog walking contraptions, you know, yeah sure anyone with a credit card to buy it Okay, do I want everyone with a credit card or do I want people that are raving fans? 100 percent raving fans all day long, right? What does that look like? Who is that person? Next, we've got, um, your visual part of your brand guide. Okay. So we just wrapped up your brand voice. So brand voice is, uh, to recap mission, vision, values, culture, story, tone, RCT, a really cool thing. Experience and dream customer. Okay, so those all encapsulate your brand voice. So those things will determine the way that you write emails, the way that you answer the phone, the way that you train your employees, the types of employees that you hire. Like these are things that are important to your brand and your experience and that you want to deliver again and again and again. And The cool thing is, is when you really dial that in, you can have anyone write for your brand. That's. Rad. That is freedom right there guys. So making the decisions and just doing this hard work up front will hands down help you uh, outsource. It gives you freedom to where you don't have to physically do all the things. What? Yeah. Guys, we don't have to do everything for our business. Oh my gosh. It's such a mind blowing idea. Um, it's also just so helpful when you hire, hire, uh, new people to your team. You know, if you're doing subcontractors or in house people, this is just an absolute must. Um, Okay. So next part two is the visual part of your brand. So, um, first off logos. Um, what are the different types of logos that you have? Do you have a, you know, stacked version? Do you have like a little, maybe like a little circle monogram? Do you have a long version? Do you have one with a mark? One without a mark? Like all of these versions, maybe you only have one version. That's okay. Um, but if there are multiple versions of your logo, they would go in here. Um, sometimes maybe you are drawn to one logo type and you have your main stacked logo with the mark at the top. And, um, when you hire on a team and maybe you are hiring a graphic designer, um, sometimes we forget the other versions exist and they might be a better use for the type of content that we're creating. So, um, having all of the logos laid out like a, Hey, here's every logo that's been created for my business. And, um, this is how to use them and more importantly, how not to use them. So a good example would be a ampersand studios. We use our logo in black and white only. So, um, that is all black or all white, like we don't make our logo rainbow, we don't make it pink, we don't, nothing. It is either, uh, black on a dark, or sorry, black on a light background or white on a dark background. Okay? So, the background can be a color, but, The logo itself is never a color and um, these are just, this is a brand, uh, decision that we made right from the beginning and I don't think we've ever done anything different. I mean, it's pretty much always the way it's been. So um, those are important things for you to say with how your logo is treated. Um, you don't want to stretch the logo. You don't want to change it to remove. You know, you use it in the wrong way or like, there's, there's so many wrong ways to make a logo and you don't know until you're violated by your own logo being, being, uh, stretched or, uh, lowly, lowly resoluted, lowly resoluted, you guys, um, low resolution on a Instagram post. So, um, yeah, you. Decide those rules for your logo. Um, next, we've got typography. So, beyond the logo, what other type forms are you using in your brand? So, um, we usually recommend having two to three, uh, different types, um, types of type. Uh, that could be its own podcast episode. There's so much that goes into fonts. And why we choose them, what goes together really well, why you pair certain fonts over others, which ones are the most readable, which ones are impossible to read, which ones you, you know, want to use sparingly, and ones that you could write a whole book in. And, um, there is a, there is an art to that. There is a lot that goes into it. But, uh, once you have your fonts decided on, they should be somewhere for people to find them. How are they used, uh, what kind of rules are you, Are you making for the way that they're used? Do you have a head? You should have like a headline font, um, and a sub subhead font if you want. I mean, I really, it's mainly headline and text fonts are, are the most important. Um, next we've got colors. So with the colors, the color codes, most people, I feel like. A hex code. So a hex would be, um, they're the easiest to use online. Like it would be like the way to find a web color. So often when you see with colors in Canva, you'll see this too. Um, there is like a hashtag or like a pound sign and then a number letter code. It's usually, I think it's like six characters long or so. And it identifies a certain exact point on a rainbow, uh, color. I don't know what you call that, like a rainbow color chart. And, um, and so it basically points to an exact spot on the chart. So that, that color will also be able to be translated into a CMYK and an RGB. So those are the things that I really recommend having. I think that you, everyone should have, um, should have the hex. And if you, or ever plan on printing something, CMYK is always a good thing to have too. Just in case you do ever send something to press, uh, press CMYK. CMYK stands for cyan, yellow, magenta, black. K is black. So that is another way to make a color formula. If you are, uh, dealing with printing products, uh, that you would need a Pantone, um, this often happens for product development. So if you are creating like containers or ordering, uh, labels in that are being mass produced, oftentimes the printing press will ask for a Pantone color. So if you plan on, you know, scaling. Beyond measure, you might want to have a hex code CMYK and Pantone. So at Ampersand, I mean, really our hex and CMYK is basically what, what we use here, um, for our own brand guide, but you just kind of want to know. What you need, um, a hex is a non negotiable. You have to have a hex in this day and age. Um, and that will help you find the correct colors in Canva for when you make your brand kit in Canva. So, okay, next we've got icons. So are there any icons or marks beyond your logo mark that might be used on other things? So, um, if you have like a little like squiggle or like a little. little icons that maybe you use for like your Instagram story highlights like that. That's pretty common, or maybe on your website that, um, they're like, might be like little bullets that have little, you know, icons or something like that. You would include those in that area, patterns, um. Then photography. So, uh, if you have any current brand photography already, then you can go ahead and put that in there. Um, we also like to see photography styles. So like if you don't, maybe you don't have professional brand photos yet. If you were going to hire a brand photographer, maybe you might want to just include Uh, images from, you know, stock images or stock, or images from, that you found on Pinterest just for internal use that would identify the type of look that you're after for your brand. So when you're choosing this overall look, like if you want like a really crispy black on white, like, you know. touch of greens architectural vibe, then you might want to choose images that kind of portray that feeling. I like having a, um, what you call it, like a mood board or like a style board, um, for brand guides because I think that sometimes we can get a little bit off track in what we're going for, or we tend to adopt the style of whatever photographer we're working with instead of the photographer, um, working off of our mood board. If you are working with a professional brand photographer, specifically brand photographers that are used to working with lots of different types of brands, they should respect your editing style. Um, but Honestly, you should just be choosing a photographer that aligns with your style. Like when you go onto their Instagram account or their website, do you see this mood board that you created in this figurative world that you created this? Do you see that vibe in their work? If not, then maybe you move on. So it could be a really valuable tool for shopping for the type of photographer that you're after. Like, does this photographer, can this photographer make this work, right? Or this style or this, um, this editing, uh, technique or whatever you need. Um, we want to be creating the standard and then hiring according to the standard, not lowering the standard to meet. Does that make sense? It's okay to have maybe less than what you're after. Maybe in the beginning, like if you only can take your own photos, like that's okay. Like maybe your photos don't look so great in the beginning. That's okay. But what are we aspiring to be and are we taking steps in that direction? Um, so anyways, a mood board can help us just stay on track and stick to. What we're what we're after the big vision in the look of what we're going for and Yeah, if you already have brand photos that you're like freaking obsessed with then put those in your mood board like hey I want every shoot to feel like this and I love that. So next we've got social media Okay So if you have social media templates I which I recommend that everyone does you can buy a template pack off of creative market if you have no idea where to start and you can change the template pack to match your brand. You can change it, change the colors to match, you can change the fonts to match, you can add your logo, your website, all of those things and then save it out and use that template over and over and over again. Okay, that's, you can do that. That's okay. As long as it matches all these other aspects. But decide on something and decide on a template pack that feels cohesive. What we don't want to do is open up Canva every single time we need to make a template Or a, uh, a piece of a graphic for Instagram or a flyer or whatever. We don't want to start from scratch every single time and have to reinvent the wheel. So try to... Either put together a template pack and stick to it, or hire a designer to create a custom template pack for you. Um, or customize an existing template pack for you, um, and just make sure that it looks really, really good and that you can just follow the recipe every single time. Because consistency over anything else is going to build that brand trust, so just make it look like it's in the same family. That's what we're after. We want to be, you know, We want to look like we belong in the same room or the same business. Right? Okay. So, um, that pretty much wraps it up for the visual part unless you want to. Grow a team like we are. Um, so in our, in our brand guide, we added dress code because we are growing a team and we all have different styles, you know, which is wonderful. Like we are all different personalities, all different styles. But overall we have, um, a constant standard of what's allowed and what's not allowed at work. And. And sadly, that just has to be the way it is. Even with some of our most trusted employees styles, every now and then there's just, you know, it's like, this is so cute, but not for work. And so us coming together, Branny and I, The business owners in your business, uh, leadership coming together and, and deciding on one thing and just saying like, okay, this isn't allowed. This is allowed. We like Holy Jeans. We don't like Holy Jeans. Like, what is your brand? Um, there is no cut and dry. There is no right answer. Every brand is different. And, um, what you're, what you allow can be totally different. Some brands aren't even client facing and some are everyday client facing. So the dress code is just totally dependent on your own brand. If you have a hard time getting dressed, maybe you make a dress code for you. Um, it's never a bad idea. So, uh, every now and then I need to remember what my own style is. So, because it's like. You know, you scroll on Instagram, you're like, Oh, that girl looks cute in that. And you're like, yeah, you don't have her body. You can't wear that. Um, so you know, you might just want to dress code for yourself. Okay. And then lastly, we have content buckets in our brand guide. Um, we've also added, um, some, some procedures and stuff like that. Some internal things like. Just client journey and and other things like that So the the cool thing about having a brand guide is it can be whatever you want it to be Okay back to content buckets. So this these are social media topics. So basically This is also something that we do in brainstorming. They are Uh, individual, we call them content buckets, they're basically different categories that subcategories would fit under. So if you stand for, you know, these five to seven different categories in your business, um, I want to think of a good example, but I don't want to give you guys like ideas that you can't like stray from. Usually there is a people aspect, like who works in the company and then you and then Under that bucket. So that would be the bucket. And then under the bucket, it would be everyone's individual names. Like, so and so, so and so, so and so. Tom, Jenny, Tabitha. I don't know where I got that name. Um, Tabitha, fun fact, actually, Tabitha is the name of my, um, my, hair extension halo. So yeah, it's just first first name to it. Does anybody else name their hair extensions? Okay, I'm the only one. All right. Yeah, I'm weird. Anyways, so back to content buckets. So usually there's a people category, there is an experience category, like what does it look like to work with you? Like, what you know, Housekeeping things like where, where are you located? What, um, what can you expect here? Give me a tour of your business. Um, what, you know, what can you expect with every client interaction? Um, what do we always want you to remember when you leave? These types of things, right? Um, and then we usually go into specific things to our industry. So if you are an industry expert in any thing, um, try to put them in a category and then list subtopics underneath that. That way be all of your content. Buckets and all your topics. This is really cool also because you can always go back to, um, when you are batching content or when you're creating content or maybe you're having a photo shoot and you can be like, okay, what buckets do I need more content for? What do I need to create for? Um, also when you are repurposing content, you, you, it can sometimes help jog ideas. So we like having content buckets in our. Brand guide, but you definitely don't have to if that's not not your flavor. But um, I think I think it's cool because it's like Um, if I ever need ideas for a podcast or a blog post or Instagram post, then we can always go back and be like, Oh yeah, Oh yeah, we came up with that idea. So that's great. Okay. Um, so like I said, we have added additional things for like internal resources in our specific brand guide. This can be whatever you need it to be. So let your brand guide be what you need it to be. Um, ours has like signage. Ours has. Uh, stationary packaging, uh, for client gifts, like things like that, um, just examples. So that way if we ever need to outsource to our designer and say like, hey, we need some custom Christmas gifts, uh, do you have any ideas on what we could create? These are some ideas we've done in the past and he, he can look in the brand guide and and see like, Oh, okay, cool. Like I see we've already done this before. Maybe I try this or, um, you know, it just gives an idea of what already exists. So if you have, um, maybe you have products that you'd like to include, like colorways of products. Um, but really you want to make sure that everything that goes in your brand guide is fairly evergreen, meaning that it is going to be continuously relevant. So we don't want to be having to update and change our brand guide like monthly, right? Like maybe I, I would say the goal would be that it's evergreen enough that you'd only have to update it once a year, but you could update it maybe like twice a year. I don't know. It's especially if you're printing hard copies of it. It's not really something that you're going to want to be updating. And really, if you don't have any of these updates. Transcribed Like procedure things like things. So that's what's going to change mostly like our our like Logo hasn't changed in 14 years, so it's not like you're going to be going in and updating your logo. But, um, if there's, if something, if you had something about procedure in there or, um, customer experience, or maybe you added an additional step or something that's important, um, it really just depends on what, the way that your operations works and what needs to be updated. So, that is pretty much the most of it, is, Um, all of those different things. So I'm going to run through them one more time. Um, so the voice part one, we've got mission, vision, values, culture, story, tone, RCT, experience, dream customer. And then in the visual part two, logos, typography, colors, icons, patterns, photography, social media. dress code and content buckets. So that's what we have, um, as the base standard of how we believe you should make your brand guide for internal reasons. Some people also add like, you know, legal things or contracts, contact information, brand compliance stuff, like consequences for not obeying the brand guide, you know, like there's other things that you can add. It really just depends on Your use, your company, and um, yeah, basically, that's, that's the gist, guys. That's pretty much what we've got. But really when it comes down to those three C's of branding, clarity, consistency, and constancy, how are we going to expect ourselves to show up in those ways? If we don't have clarity around our brand, consistency around our brand, and the ability to create the same thing over and over and over again. And I mean that in a, in a good marketing repetition way. How are we going to remind people how to buy from us again and again? How are we going to earn that brand trust? How are we going to deliver? How are we going to make sure that From the very first piece of free content that they experienced from us, matches them driving by our storefront, matches them coming into our store, matches their experience with one of our employees, a phone call with us, a, uh, a service performed, all of those things all the way down to the thank you card, down to the client gift down to them hiring us again. How do we want to be perceived? How do we want them to speak about us? And it all comes down to those three C's, which is only possible when we're all on the same page. And. You know what guys, as business owners, like I said in the beginning, we are guilty of doing flavor of the week of not making up our minds for changing things because we're like, you know what, guess what? I'm the boss. I can do what I want. But the only thing that that does is it hurts your brand and it hurts your reputation. And it really makes people, it makes it hard to do business with you. And we want it to be easy for people to give us their money. And they want to, they want to when we have the best right option for them. They want to give you their money. It's true. Um, because all the way back to that dream customer, we, if we are providing the best, right, only choice for somebody. I mean, I'll pay for that all day long. You guys? You with me? Okay. Well, that's all I've got for you today. And with that, I would love to announce a new product that we have available for purchase, which is our new voice and visual brand guide template. So this is a template that is a multi page template that is created on Canva specifically for the content that I just listed. It has placeholders. It has everything all laid out for you in a beautiful A beautiful package that you can go in and fill in all of your proprietary branding content in it. And, um, and we have it available at ampersand studios. com slash brand guide. That is ampersand studios. com slash guide. Brand dash guide and you can check out a direct link in the show notes and go check it out If you are having a difficult time coming up with the content to put in the brand guide then I would love to Invite you to our unbreakable brand two day and contensive course. So it is a direct Just full throttle over a haul. We get dive in deep into your business. We help you come up with all of these answers to fill in your brand guide. Effortlessly. We have so many amazing ways, just easy. Um, exercises to, um, to just really pull all of this yummy content out of you, uh, to create a really unforgettable brand. Uh, and that is available at, on our website, uh, ampersandstudios. com and the dash unbreakable dash brand. And it's also available, um, just as a direct link in our website. So, uh, I hope that you guys are feeling really excited to create brand guides of your own. Uh, if you want to go on and you can create something from scratch, you can find a template. I really love our voice and visual brand template. We created it because we couldn't find anything like it. And, um, we also provide you with a sample brand. It's not a real brand. So you guys are welcome to just dive on into it and look at it. But you can see some sample text of maybe some ways that you could format your own brand guide and maybe ways that you might be able to write your, your own content, um, to match your own brand. So um, enjoy that guys. I, that's all I've got for you today and I'm signing off and we'll catch you next time.