The hidden cost of DIYing your brand that you can’t see
So, I asked permission….“can I be honest with you?”…..I was chatting in my DMs with a client I helped with a strategy session back in December.
A few months prior to this, she excitedly shared the new brand name following our December session. Immediately I had a vision of how to bring that concept to life – but we haven’t worked together on it. So, when she sent through her Canva rebrand and asked what I thought, I just had to be honest.
It wasn’t hitting the mark. She was looking for my buy-in — but I couldn’t pretend it works when it doesn’t.
What she had created didn’t embody anything she was trying to create; a makeup range focused on hydration. The fonts looked very corporate, the blue colour was too strong also the wrong tone and the brand extremely DIY.
Sure, she had changed the font from sans serif to serif (the wrong kind), but building a brand doesn’t work like that. I felt bad because I knew she had been working on this for months.
So, I quickly jumped into Canva and spent 15 minutes pulling together a mood board of what I would have done – fonts and imagery that worked together to attract her target market, elevate the value of the product, and actually tell the story. Something that made you want to buy what she was selling.
When I sent it through, she replied straight away: “YES, this is exactly what I want”, but the truth is she hasn’t created that. And that’s the part that gets me.
She’s worked with multiple designers. Spent wasted money, months of time trying to figure it out when she could have been growing the business, rather than fussing around choosing fonts and the worst part – the brand still wasn’t even close to what I knew would be effective in the market.
In 15 minutes, I showed her what she’d been trying to land for 6 months, and this happens to me all the time with clients dropping fonts into my DMs like that’s the solution. But a font isn’t a brand.
When I build a brand, I start by asking how you want the brand to feel, what you want people to think, knowing what would make someone want to buy and then I build from there, using your story to guide my choices and decisions.
Because everything, the fonts, the colours, the tone, the imagery should support how the brand makes your audience feel. So yes, I can pull something together quickly but that’s because I’ve spent 15 years building brands. I know what fonts to use, what colour palette will work, what tone and hue of colours will be effective, and what imagery will shape the right perception.
Because when a brand is done right, it makes people feel something. And when people feel something, they buy without making a logical decision on price.
And here’s what she’s really lost:
- Six months she could’ve had the product in the market.
- Six months building brand recognition and traction.
- Six months of potential sales gone.
- Future sales because this brand will be harder to convert into sales, that’s the real cost of DIYing your brand.
And now she’s about to pour more money into packaging, licensing, distribution and marketing strategies that won’t work because the brand still isn’t right.
A strategically designed, professional brand is not a nice-to-have in business, it is the #1 thing you need to ensure you have the success and traction your desire. So, if this story resonated with you, trust me when I tell you that you are losing money you can’t see. And if you’d like to chat about your brand, book a free brand launch call here.
