S2 Ep.29 – How to Brand Yourself Online with Diana Jakubcova: Personal Branding Tips for Course Creators
If there’s one thing we all want, it’s to stand out in our individuality online.
And I don’t know about you but, the online space can sometimes feel like there’s a million people out there who are already doing the exact. same. thing.
Sometimes it can feel like your message is drowning in a sea of sameness.
And what’s the point in showing up, if your message is not being felt deeply by those who need it the most?
The question I’ve been asking myself recently is this:
How can you make it so that every touch point with you not only feels cohesive but feels like you?
Whether that’s a blog (like this one), a Reel (like this one), or a website (like this one) … the idea is that your brand catapults through the screen and makes people FEEL.
That’s what we’re exploring in this week’s episode with my guest, Diana Jakubcova.
In this episode Diana shares:
✅ how to know if your branding is strong
✅ how to accurately express yourself online
✅ specific exercises to develop your personal brand
✅ the inner and outer energetics of a brand
✅ the mistakes online business owners (like you) are making in their brand photo shoots – hopefully you’re not making these mistakes!
✅ and so much more
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Sign up for The Ultimate Launch Bootcamp Waitlist (it’s free!)
- Check out Diana’s Instagram
- Check out Diana’s Website
- Check out Galen – Local Creative.Co
- Click here to stay in touch and get my FREE weekly email
Loved this and want more? Check out our other episodes here.
Spark a conversation! Leave a comment below or say hello @alexbeadon on Instagram.
Transcript Available Below
Alex Beadon 0:03
So you want to scale your online business while purposely prioritizing your most joyful, free and luxurious life. This Podcast is your weekly dose of connection and self reflection. As you set strategic intentions along the way, it’s time to prime your mind embrace your pace and take consistent action towards creating what you truly want from your online business without sacrificing the small moments all around you that are so worth treasuring. So, take a deep breath, relax, and let’s get you back to where you belong. On purpose.
You’re listening to season two episode 29. Of on purpose with Alex Beadon. After I finished recording this episode that you’re about to listen to, I was buzzing with excitement for you to listen to it too. In case you missed it, I recently did a complete revamp of the together relaunch sales page we worked with past together we launch member Galen Mooney of local creative but in the process of trying to find a designer, I stumbled upon the work of Diana Jakobcova. She is the owner and creator of deeply rooted studio, and it’s extremely rare that someone’s design aesthetic stopped me in my tracks on Instagram, but that’s exactly what her Instagram page did. And if you’re curious, you can go and find it at deeply rooted dot studio over on Instagram. I didn’t think much of it. But as I continued to follow her content and learn more about her story, I got more and more intrigued and realize that I needed to have her on the show. Diana studios specializes in building premium brands for service providers, educators and agencies who are deeply rooted in their mission. So why did I have her on the show? Firstly, she clearly has an excellent understanding of personal branding. She has been hired by various communities and global brands like Adobe to host guest expert trainings, and I’m super excited to have her on the show today. If you’ve ever felt lost amongst a ginormous sea of personal brands in the online space, you’re not alone. And this episode is going to give you a lot to think about. But most importantly, this episode will help you craft a brand identity that’s eye catching. And true to who you are. We talked about how to make your brand more magnetic, what the most common pitfalls of personal branding are, and how to master the art of digital charisma. If you’re an educator, a creator or a coach who’s eager to stand out in the online space. This episode is a goldmine of strategies and inspiration. Not only is she a branding expert, but she also has her own digital store where she sells social media templates, funnel kits and more. The way she has set up her online business is fascinating to me. And in this episode, we dive into not only how she follows her intuition to create all of these different products, but how she launches and sells them to get ready for an incredibly gutsy conversation that will help you bring even more self awareness and authenticity to your own personal brand. Keep listening and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. I’m Alex speed in your favorite launch strategist and your guide to the online business world. I’ve had an online business selling digital products since 2011. And I’ve been helping online businesses scale through launching since 2016. I’ve been featured in Forbes and entrepreneur, and I’ve worked with clients ranging from solopreneurs to multi million dollar small businesses. Here at Team bieden. We pride ourselves on being the industry leading destination for all things launch strategy, our 12 month program together we launch teachers our signature rinse and repeat launch strategy that has helped course creators and membership owners from all over the world have their best launches yet. Our goal is to give you the tools to create a wildly profitable online business while prioritizing your most joyful life so that you can truly experience time, freedom, location, freedom, and financial freedom. And without further ado, let’s jump into today’s episode. Diana, welcome to the show. I’m so happy to have you here.
Diana Jakubcova 4:02
Hello, I’m super excited about today’s episode. Thank you so much for having me.
Alex Beadon 4:06
Oh, it’s just I can already tell it’s gonna be so good. And you know, I’ve been doing my research. I’ve been like listening to other podcasts that you’ve been on. I’ve been stalking you on Instagram and Instagram is actually where I first found you. And like immediately was drawn to your brand and to just listening to everything that you had to say. So for anyone who’s listening, I’m gonna start this conversation off by saying go and check her out over on Instagram, you can find her deeply rooted dot studio. And I just think, you know, having that kind of brand that immediately causes someone to be so drawn to you is very rare in the online world and I think you’ve done a really good job of it. So I’d love for you to share with us you know, how do you define a good brand and how would someone know if they have a good brand?
Diana Jakubcova 4:56
Oh wow. How how How long can we be here? Basically, right? But I completely agree with you, when it comes to finding just something that’s different online these days, right? Because like, as much as a lot of people like to think that they are different, they’re not, I’ll be honest, they’re not. And they even invested in branding. But I feel like because it’s so easy to get influenced these days.
The stage where you get inspired by something, or someone is crossing the line into copying almost right. But it’s not that we do it intentionally, or that someone is doing it intentionally. It just because we are so connected online and to the whole online world, and what is happening that we forget to connect or like reconnect with ourselves. So I like to think about branding as an extension of you, right. So this is what we do with our clients. So we don’t just build brands, because they want to look polished up. But you know, at the end of the day, they’re completely someone else. And we’ve had so many clients that came to us that they built a brand, basically, but they were not able to show up. So they didn’t want to share anything on their stories, they didn’t want to share anything from their life. Because it was completely different to you know, the person that they have built online, on social media, their brands, and this can look like. So let’s say I’ve had a one client, and she was all about these pink pipes. And you know, just like a really bubbly person, but an online, she really try to step up, let’s say step up. And she really wanted this corporate style brand without being corporate. I mean, everyone says, I want I want this corporate style brand without, you know, the corporate vibe. And I’m like, Alright, this is cool. But
let’s be honest, it’s corporate or not. Right? Yeah. Then it became really difficult for her to show up on Instagram stories, because the environment really influences you, right? So it’s almost you feel, it’s like you feel ashamed or embarrassed to show up. Because it’s not, there is no connection, right. And people can feel it. And people can also see it. And I know a lot of people, a lot of coaches, they say that it doesn’t matter. You know, you can do whatever you want, you can be whoever you want, your brand can be this, it doesn’t matter, just show up, just show up unprepared. But how many of us actually are able to do this? Where is the confidence then, right? Because I know that if you are confident, you will be able to sell your packages, your programs, your courses, whatever it is, however, if you are not confident, and you don’t really feel supported by your brand, that this is, you know, the best representation of yourself, and no matter who would find you today, it’s all good, you’re good to go, right. And it happens all the time. And people keep putting it off until it’s I don’t want to say too late because it’s never too late. However, if you sort of keep putting off, investing in your brand, and specifically, your brand experience, in general, it tends to blow up at the end of the day, right? Because what happens is that you keep putting it off, but then there is an opportunity that might come in, right, and then you start panicking, and you start looking for 20 designers, the last minute and you’re like, oh my gosh, what the hell am I doing here? And then, you know, all of these horror websites, stories, sales page stories, and I don’t know what other branding stories that people have, they usually tend to happen when you’ve made that decision from like an emotional place because you were really not in the best place to make that decision for your brand and for your business. Right. Because like let’s not forget, it is you and most most businesses, nowadays, our personal brands, so it’s you basically that people think about even if it’s an agency, right? Even for us exotic studio, they think about me, they think about me traveling, living in Bali and just having good times, right? That’s what I think about. So you always need to think about okay, this is the personal part, but then how can we also think about the business? So not to mix these two things together too much. That’s what we are always looking for because when it starts to get too personal No, thank you So this is a really tricky when it starts to get personal for you as a client, you can really make a decision, because it’s difficult for you to actually be in that space and see the bigger vision. See the vision that fits your business, your lifestyle even right. And it makes sense and it will bring you results. That’s important.
Alex Beadon 10:27
Okay, so let’s go even more elementary. How would you define a brand? Like when when we’re talking about your brand? What are the different elements that we’re talking about?
Diana Jakubcova 10:41
I like to think about a brand as an experience. Because ultimately, again, that’s what we do, we turn brands into premium experiences. And a brand is something that people can deeply experience, right? You land on someone’s profile, you either feel it or not. It’s that simple. It’s that simple. You don’t really have to overthink this, you don’t need to look up your logos, or, you know, your brand strategy, visuals. You have to think about this as an ecosystem of different brand touchpoints working seamlessly together.
Alex Beadon 11:31
I’m writing that down. I think that’s beautiful, different brand touchpoints working seamlessly together. So if someone is listening to this, and they’re like, Okay, I know that my brand isn’t where I want it to be. I know that when I show up in all of those different touchpoints, whether it’s, you know, maybe in my online course, or maybe on my Instagram page through my emails, like there’s so many different touchpoints How does someone go about the journey of learning how to accurately express themselves and their brand online?
Diana Jakubcova 12:06
Through putting yourself out there through situations that sometimes feel good at the beginning, but then you go through this whole learning experience, and you realize that this is not what you want. So again, don’t be afraid, don’t feel locked in by your brands. It’s not the end of the world, right? A lot of the people think that, oh, I now have this color palette, and she told me that I have to show up like this, you still can experiment there is more than at least should be enough space for you to be in your flow. That’s how I would put it right. A brand should allow you to be flexible and dynamic. It shouldn’t feel like it’s a box, and you’re trapped in a box.
Alex Beadon 13:01
I think a lot of people feel that way. Yeah, they think about Yeah, they’re like brand colors, brand fonts, etc. And they’re like, Well, I have to stick to this, this is what I have to use. So something that I love to do is I will look at my Instagram page, and just pretend like I’m a random person. And I will scroll through it and really try to hone in intuitively on like, what are the feelings that are coming up? For me? I love what you said about branding being an experience, I totally agree with you. It’s about how is someone feeling? You know, what are the memories that we’re creating for people through our brand? What is the experience there? And so I think, for anyone who’s listening, you know, going through their Instagram page and putting themselves in the shoes of the ideal client and asking, you know, what could be communicated better. And actually, I’ll give you a great example for me personally, that I just went through, I’ve been leaning more into reels, which is great, and kind of my aesthetic was to just kind of take a screenshot from the reel, and then just throw some pink text on top. And at first, I was like, Okay, I think this looks good. But the more that I did it, my feed just started to feel overwhelming. It was just like so much text in so many different images, and it just didn’t have that cohesive feel that I wanted it to have. So I’m now experimenting with something completely different that I’ve never tried before. And it kind of holds hands with what you were saying around. Don’t be afraid to experiment and try new things and, you know, move outside of your colors a little bit. Try different fonts if it’s not feeling right for you. How often do you look at your own brands and make changes for your own brand? Or do you feel like right now you’re in a really strong position with it and you’re just kind of like sticking to the box that you’ve created?
Diana Jakubcova 14:43
This will be an interesting answer. As a designer, this is very tricky. We tend to change a lot depending on trends depending on what we just find online I guess, but I Do you have to say I feel really strongly about the direction we are currently having with the Pilates studio, I’m not changing colors, I’m not changing the messaging, I’m not changing any of those things. But I might change my phones once in a while, because let’s be honest, as a designer, half of my day, sometimes it just spending and looking for fonts, and I just can’t help it. However, this is, I don’t want to say mistake, because I don’t like using a word mistake. But let’s say mistake I see is that a lot of online entrepreneurs that are not designers are trying to be designers. And that is not going to work out for you. Because you’re not a designer. It’s that simple. So yes, if you want to get inspired by something we create, that’s fine. Just knowing that if you are not that type of creative, if you don’t have that skill developed, it is not going to translate the same way. If let’s say I were to do it, or some other designers, some other creative. That is a huge point here because I see this time and time again. And then you beat yourself up for something. That’s not even your job. Yes, like me beating myself up for not learning how to run Facebook ads properly, and then be like, Oh, I’m really bad at this. I really suck at this. Right? No?
Alex Beadon 16:35
How can someone because most of the people listening are either solopreneurs, or they have a very small team, maybe like a virtual assistant or something like that? How can someone go about expressing themselves in the online space? Like what do you recommend for people in terms of building that brand online? And you know, making sure that they’re also expressing it well online without necessarily having to go to a designer all the time? Like, is it work with someone who’s really good, who can give you all of the tools that you can then like run creatively with it throughout the year? Or, you know, are there any I don’t know websites or resources or anything that you would recommend for someone who’s struggling with this.
Diana Jakubcova 17:16
So if you are currently in like this kind of position, where you’re just like, don’t know what to do with your brand. And even though you understand what that is, why it might feel difficult for you, it’s because you are doing it for yourself, I’ll be honest, it’s really difficult to do your own branding and look at your own business in general, from, you know, like a perspective of what is really happening here, but like really happening here, what do I really want, we do get attached into outcomes, and the things we see. So what I would recommend is that if you have a team member, maybe you can hop on a call and refine together. And it’s not even because they need to be experts in this, it can simply be a conversation around where do you want to see your brands, and not even five years, you can go in a year, right? Let’s make this really easy, because like people tend to jumpscare when you say like five years, or 10 years to let’s say in a year, what would you like to achieve in your business. And that which you want to achieve in your business, you now need to connect with your brand. So then let’s say if you have a goal of launching a new signature program, next year, in the next 12 months, there are things that you will have to consider. Right. So from there, you can sort of backtrack Oh, okay, so what have I done to get here where this is a signature program? It makes sense for me, it makes sense for my audience. What are those touch points, I need to you know, either invest in or start at least developing. Again, you don’t have to do it all at once. But what really helps is getting that new perspective of someone else is looking through your stuff and seeing it for what it is basically. Right? So that’s number one. However, if you are if you are alone, if you’re just like, Okay, I’m really overwhelmed. If this is just about your visuals, start with a Pinterest board, literally this easy. Sit down, create a new Pinterest board and pin things that you feel drawn to. Now don’t pin things that you See, because they are popular. No, no, no bean things that you can see around your house, things that you have in your closet. Things, I don’t know that you just bought your favorite mug, your favorite dress sofa. And you can even look at this through a lens of your future self, your highest self, let’s say, Where would she be living, what kind of apartment, this usually helps even our clients to like disconnect from where they currently are, and where they want to get. And just filter the noise of the industry in general, just make sure you create that Pinterest board. And when you look at it, there will be a pattern of something. So you will start seeing colors, you will start seeing some kind of style forming here. And again, this is exactly what we do with our clients. When we start developing their brand. We tell them to create Pinterest boards of the favorite things. Now one thing to note, don’t pin graphic design things into this board, because this will mesh mesh mesh with all of the other things that you’re trying to do if you want to create a design or like a graphic design related board. Separate is a separate board a separate style. So this
Alex Beadon 21:26
board that you’re talking about is more about the feeling that you want your brand to have. How like how you want people to associate with you when they interact with you at some point.
Diana Jakubcova 21:37
Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly. That’s why it needs to have your favorite things, your favorite style, your favorite sofa, you don’t have to you don’t need to have it in your living room right now. That’s not the point. It’s just how do you you perceive yourself? What kind of things you would buy basically, right? And that will tell you a lot, a lot about yourself.
Alex Beadon 22:00
Okay, so a few things I just want to highlight there. The first thing that you said that I thought was really interesting is don’t pin graphic design elements. This is not about the graphics, this is more about the feeling. So I love that. The second one is that you highlighted that you don’t you shouldn’t be posting or pinning things that are popular. And that’s just a great place for me to remind everyone listening that your brand should stand out. That is what is going to differentiate you you don’t want to blend in in the online space, you need to be standing out. And the best way to stand out is by knowing who you are knowing what makes you different, and really kind of accentuating those things. I love that you also brought up connecting with that next level version of yourself. I think that’s the best advice because that’s how we’re going to be able to like manifest and move into that next level version. I’d love for you to make this a little bit more clear for the listeners with some examples by using your brand as as your own example. So can you give us some examples of like, things that you would have posted on your own Pinterest board and how that kind of was brought to life within your brand, I’d love for you to just share even just one example would be great.
Diana Jakubcova 23:13
Definitely. So I love fashion. So I was pinning a lot of Vogue style images. Secondly, I love travel. And when I was rebranding, I was in Bali. So that was a huge, a huge part of my life. That’s why there are so many like coconuts and palm trees and beach. And then combined with a more elevated style which I wanted to sort of come through showcasing the community aspect. So that’s why I was also painting different shots of like a team shots or something like this, you can you can put these into a search bar, Team shots, photo shoots, or belly aesthetics, trendy fashion vibes, something like this. And then I started to see that obviously it was difficult for me because it was my own brand, but I got through it. I first of all love pink color. And I always had love pink color. Which means why should I get rid of my pink color, even though I want people to perceive me as I don’t know a high caliber enterpreneur. And all this is like people get really scared when they start hitting six or seven figures and they’re like, Oh, now I need to change my entire style. I used to love pink color but I outgrown my pink color. Even though you still have it everywhere in your house. What you can do just do small touches of the paint. It doesn’t have to be up Primary color can be a secondary color. But this is how you keep that personality in even if you want to elevate because I’m guessing a lot of you that are listening, just want to elevate but elevate without sacrificing your personality.
Alex Beadon 25:18
You said something at the beginning of this episode around, avoiding, you don’t want your brand to become too personal. But we’re also speaking a lot about your brand is a representation of you and you need to live with your brand, you need to feel fully expressed by your brand in order to have fun using it and showing up in the online space. How do you recommend someone goes through the process of figuring out like what is too personal, and how much of my personality should I be putting into this?
Diana Jakubcova 25:46
The when I’m saying to personal, what we do inside of our deeply rooted methods. The first part is branding. And that is divided into inner energetics and outer energetics. So the inner energetics that is about you, and those are the things that I shared with the Pinterest board, we share a couple of journaling prompts with our clients as well, like, as I said, like how your highest self would dress up, what kind of apartment she would live in. What are you good at? What are your natural gifts, what other people say about you your entire life, how your family describes you, those are the things that you want to note, the keywords that you might start searching on Pinterest or any other website or just Google or on Instagram, you want to do your research, right. So this is the inner energetics. That’s your like the core personality. So someone is more funny, someone is a bit more, I don’t know, upbeat, someone doesn’t really like that. Fresh Web of color. But you can tell us about the person, right? So that’s where it stays that is the personal your core personality. And then the outer energetics. This is where we start tapping into your audience. This is where we start looking at your business, your business goals, your brand journey and the things that you want to create with your brand. Now, if you find yourself taking these two personally, in the first phase, what I recommend, again, is looking at those future goals, because it’s probably too personal because you’re looking at now what is happening now in my life. This can be financially this can be in business, maybe business is hard currently, and you’re just like, I don’t know what to do. I don’t like this. I don’t like that. You start overthinking. Right? So you start pinning things that what if I like this? What if I don’t like this? Now come back to your journaling prompts. If you’re someone who is funny the entire life and tie, you know, like your family knows you’re funny, your friends, even your audience. It will show right? So how can you bring the funny aspects into your brand. Without this being too much. This is a second point where this can get too much. So let’s say someone is funny, right? So now you want your logo to be funny. You want your colors to be funny, you want your third icon to be funny, you want your sales page to be funny, everything is just becoming too much. So inside of the journaling prompts, what you can do is what you should have is basically different keywords, as I said, and then spread it out. Like spread it out into different brand touchpoints. Right. So let’s say you can have a more and more funny infused color palette, but your phones can tone this whole thing down basically into being more more relaxed, right? So we want to find that sweet spot the balance, because like yes, let’s say you have pink, our green color yellow color, which we do have actually for one of our clients, what we have done is that we have infused her personality into the color palette, which is like a pitch is really fun. You know, it’s just fun to be around her in general. But then what we have done with the other assets, we really try to minimize that aspect like the funny aspect because that will be too much so we didn’t look for fonts that let’s say were too bulky, or we didn’t look for rhymes that evoke that feeling of not funny but It’s like, was this talent, Boho style but like you’ve been to GE, sometimes you can go to vintage event, right? Because those funds are really like bulky. Now we looked for forms that feel refined, because this way, she can still be in her element, but her brand can support her.
Alex Beadon 30:20
Yeah, it’s interesting that you’re saying this because I feel like a lot of typical design advice is something like, choose three descriptive words that that describe the way that your brand is. And then we’re going to make the colors be those three descriptive words and the fonts and the photos and everything. But, in fact, what I think I’m hearing you say is like, no one understand your personality. But then you don’t have to infuse those things into absolutely everything, you can infuse them into different touchpoints so that it’s more of a bigger picture type of thing.
Diana Jakubcova 30:53
Yeah, exactly. And this way your brand becomes more dynamic. Yeah. Dimensional. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So all of our clients actually are using their brands for three years. And they might come back with little tweaks here and there. What usually changes is the layout that is trendy, or I don’t want to say trendy, because people are like, Oh, trendy, not good. Well, we use sometimes trends to stay relevant to the audience. Okay. So we don’t use trends to be trendy, but we use some kind of trends here and there to stay relevant for where the industry is,
Alex Beadon 31:37
could you do you have an example of a trend that you would use to stay relevant?
Diana Jakubcova 31:42
So let’s say I’ll say these with the phones, right? That’s easy to understand. A couple of years ago, let’s say some sort of font was really popular, in general, like in general in the whole world, not just in online industry. Because remember, this is not just online, industrial, we are still living in in the world, right? There are other things. Let’s say it was a sans serif font, let’s say, right? Three years ago, very popular. You can of course, have different style of that font family, right. But now, things happened. Pandemic happened. Lots of other things happen in the world, people want to see something different people want to feel different. People read differently sometimes online, you know. So what we do we find fonts that are a little bit more relevant to where the industry is heading. Currently, we do small tweaks, we don’t have to go all in and do a huge rebrand, which yes, you can do this.
Alex Beadon 32:55
My next question is like, so what you’re saying is that it’s okay to evolve little parts of your brand, bit by bit so that it’s kind of, you know, a living breathing thing, instead of just being like, Okay, we’re done with this. And we’re going to create this completely new thing.
Diana Jakubcova 33:09
Yeah, exactly. I am saying that. I know, it might come weird, from a brand director from a designer. But yes, sometimes this is what you need as a person as well. Because again, I think this goes back to you feeling trapped by your brand, because you literally feel like and I know why you feel like that. Because there is a lot of content out there, from designers telling you, you need to stick to this. And I have a solution to this. You understand now, personal brands, or like online brands, in general, maybe digital creators, educate educators, this is a completely different brand than let’s say, if you were to create an E commerce brand, this is where people get really confused. And there were no rules created for this because this online industry is new. Right? But we are taking rules from E commerce from product based businesses, which is if you are creating a product, please do a proper branding at the beginning and you need to stick to it. Right and you need to stick to it for obvious reasons. Like you’re not going to be changing your packaging every five months. Why would you do it? However, when we look at the personal brands, you evolve, like as an enterpreneur we are evolving every single freaking day sometimes, right? I’m like, yesterday, I was this person and today I’m like, what, what is happening? Right? So that’s why it is really, really different to brand yourself as a person as opposed to a product product. It’s really when you think about it, it’s a made up thing that at the end of the day you can brand it in a Any way that you want, right? And it needs to be relevant for the audience, where this gets a little mashed up is when someone says that, oh, but what if my brand won’t be relevant for my audience? Right? This is the number one question. Well, how can it not be relevant? If you make sure your brand is you and you have infused your personality, your values? Because that is essentially what people are buying? You. They’re buying you. You’re even lifestyle, right, because they resonate. So I do resonate with certain profiles, because of their overall lifestyle, the overall brand experience, like in general, who the person is the values hitting the day, with the product, it’s different product, it’s there, right? The audience, yes, if you are launching, let’s say, a matcha product, it will usually be something with the green color, because it needs to stay relevant. But for you, if you want to use green color, and you are afraid that your audience won’t resonate, it’s not it’s not relevant to look at this issue with the personal brands. Because then what happens is that you get scared, and you’re like, Oh, I’m not gonna use the base. The style in general, it doesn’t have to be a color can be style in general, I’ll be this person, because this is what I can see people resonate with, or I think they resonate with maybe, and do this. Well, no, that’s not you. Doesn’t make any
Alex Beadon 36:49
sense. So it’s so funny that you said that, because my next question was going to be what is one of the biggest mistakes that you see business owners making when it comes to branding their business, but I think you just nailed it. Like, when someone feels like, oh, the reflection of who I am, and my personality is not good enough. I don’t see anyone else showing up in this way. And therefore, it’s not safe for me to show up in this way. So I’m just going to piggyback off of what I’m seeing is working, which is the worst thing that you can do for your business, because you’re just going to blend in with the rest of the sheep.
Diana Jakubcova 37:19
Yeah, exactly. And it’s not gonna resonate for you. And then five months, and you’re like, well, let’s burn my whole business down, because this is not who I am.
Alex Beadon 37:32
Right? Yeah, it’s not going to work. Are there any other mistakes that you’d like to share with us that you see business owners making within their brand, in the online business space, personal branding space.
Diana Jakubcova 37:46
Listening to too much advice online, taking advice from people that that are not experts in what they are basically sharing. So this is, this is my thing. And I still don’t understand why coaches, let’s say business coaches, sell how to create your brand, online, it doesn’t really resonate with me, because there are just so many things that go into branding that not adjust those things that they learned, let’s say, right. And a lot of the times coaches don’t, in that, not all of them. Again, disclaimer, I’m not hurting anyone. However, it’s apparent online, right? They don’t really invest, let’s say in a proper brand strategy, they don’t really have that foundational branding done even to understand branding in the first place. And then selling it doesn’t really resonated with me, because me as someone who, you know, helped so many women build their brands that resonate with them, brands that they feel connected to, I know that there is a lot, a lot, a lot a lot, not just from a design point, which is a huge actually point because if you’re selling a brand, the visual part is a huge part. Right? Let’s not forget about that. And then secondly, there we have the brand strategy plus, for for me personally, we use our own method that I have developed, because it helps you to actually build a brand that will support you that will land you those opportunities that you want to land that again resonates with you and your audience and because of that, you are able to foster brand loyalty. That’s why your customers your clients will stay with you. That is the whole point here. Your brand should To help you retain your clients, because their goal is client experience. So again, there are just so many little things that go into branding. That, you know, when someone did not really put an effort into understanding the whole subject as a general, this is where it gets tricky. And I know a lot of online coaches, they are really good at marketing, let’s say, right? But then they start blending in things about branding. And I’m like, wait, this doesn’t make any sense. Because if someone asked what is first branding or marketing, well, actually, it’s both branding and marketing. Because how can you market yourself online without a proper brand presence?
Alex Beadon 40:54
For sure, in fact, it’s like the first thing, probably, you know, because like, you need to have whether you have a good brand or a bad brand, you have a brand that you have to be showing up in marketing with, whether you’re aware of it or not. The important part is like taking accountability and going through your touchpoints. And really making sure that they are a good reflection of your brand, which is something that’s so easy to stop doing, you know, it’s kind of and I myself have definitely become with like building a team, and, and so on. Like, it’s become easier for me to stop double checking all of these things and making sure that it’s still a good reflection of me, how often are you reviewing your brand and you know, spending time on your Instagram account as a new person and going to your website? How often are you revising those things?
Diana Jakubcova 41:42
So for me personally, if we are taking my example, as a designer, I do it very often. Yeah. Because I can see, let’s see, if I work with the clients, I can really see what I personally want to change or like tweak when it comes to the whole brand experience, just to be a bit more bespoke. But I will do it every quarter.
Alex Beadon 42:09
Okay, so you’re recommending every quarter to do a review. And like make any changes that you need to make? It depends.
Diana Jakubcova 42:15
It also depends on let’s say, you don’t have to revamp your website every quarter, obviously, however, because usually you do have those quarterly goals. Just make sure that whatever those goals are, your brand is cohesive with your goals, basically, right. So let’s say q1, I have a goal to launch. I don’t know a new webinar, because by the end of q2, I want to launch the signature program, which means you will need to make tweaks to your Instagram bio page or your website, you know, you will need to change those pages, you will need to tweak the copy and make sure that people are being properly funneled into your webinar and not 25 Other things that you have there, right. So just make sure that you follow one goal and align this with your brand.
Alex Beadon 43:08
So this brings me on to my next question, which I’m really excited to speak to you about. You sell digital products. So you’re not someone who just has an agency who sells services, you also sell digital products, the ones that I was checking out our Instagram templates for Canva. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That’s so cool. So I’d love for you to talk to us a little bit about what your offerings look like, what are the different offerings that you have?
Diana Jakubcova 43:35
So this happened kind of like out of nowhere. I mean, every designer wants to sell just the products, I guess. But I first started with a notion template, which was like a notion sales page template and course portal. And this product is actually one of the most popular ones. Until this day. Yeah. You know, when it comes to digital products, I feel like it’s easy for me to develop them because I use so many systems and I use, I already use so many. So many platforms I would even say that I have access to so i can create those templates. We have kartra templates, show templates. I wanted to make sure that my audience when they come to our website, it’s not just a showy template, or just a Kajabi template. I want to serve different audiences because I do understand that not everyone is a fan of kartra or not everyone can afford to put their course in kartra. Maybe you just need to start with a notion. So I really love to explore different possible, like roadmaps of how you can navigate your clients or potential clients, your leads, whatever you want to call them throughout your brand. And finally, there are just so many things that you can do behind the scenes that will make your audience feel more seen, right. So that’s why I develop different kinds of templates, different kinds of digital products. And the latest one is the social media template pack, which I have worked on for at least like a year, because I have been seeing a long time on the idea. And again, I wanted, I wanted this to be different. Now, you know, when we say different, it’s really difficult to be different this in this role. There are just so many things, so many other templates. But I wanted this to be like an entire different experience. Again, I, you know, I just like experiences in general. So I’m making everything and experience if you purchase, this is your best experience, even the Canva templates. Yes, I guarantee. So this is the latest one. And when I design any template, I infuse it with our deeply rooted methods, which has the branding aspect, it has the client experience aspect, and the marketing aspect. So this is how you as a consumer, as someone who purchases the product, you can feel confident knowing that there isn’t anything else that you need. Just a copy, let’s say, right, there isn’t anything else you need to worry about if these sections are the sections you should be having. If this type of content is the type of content, you should be like posting, now, I have done the work for you. And you can just do your job, you can promote, you can sell because I want this to be easy for our buyers to use the template on a daily basis. A lot of the times you purchase a template, and then you’re like, I don’t even remember, you know, a year has passed and you’re like, huh, I don’t know, I don’t remember this
Alex Beadon 47:04
is very true. It’s very true. I bought templates before on creative markets. And that is pretty much what happens every time. I’m like, Oh, I’m so excited about it for like a few days, and then it’s gone. And I forgot about it. And yeah. That’s why not with yours. Yeah,
Diana Jakubcova 47:22
yeah. That is why also put the price tag on my templates, actually. Yeah, because I didn’t want this to be just another template, I want you to use this. And I have put a lot of work into creating that content for you already. So you don’t have to.
Alex Beadon 47:39
Yeah, and I want everyone who’s listening to really pay attention to what Diana just said, because when you have an offer, and you want people to cherish it, the price tag has to reflect that, if your presets or templates or whatever are the exact same price as all of the other ones out there. And people are just going through them really, really quickly and easily. You know, that’s not what you want. You want your stuff to be cherished and used. And a price points a great way to force someone to really not just let it gather dust on the digital shelf. I’d love for you to share with us what has worked best for you from a sales and marketing perspective to get those digital products sold. How are you selling them? Where are you selling them? And what advice do you have for someone who’s also selling similar digital products.
Diana Jakubcova 48:30
I always start with a waitlist. So I allow a long period for people to sign up for a waitlist for these social media templates. It was maybe even like five months, I guess that I started to like mention, right, you can start like slowly right. And then as you get closer to the deadline to launch day you can you can share more about the templates or a digital product that you’re creating. But waitlist is a great way because then you can really control what is happening behind the scenes. If you’re just promoting on Instagram, you can really control your Instagram. So one day 50 People will see your stories. And then the next day there are 10 people. And then the third day there are 200 people, right? So that’s why I love to do the waitlist strategy that has worked really well. And then I love to use an affiliate program. So again, they get 20% If they promote it, they use their link. So this this is the to two ways. Two ways. I prefer to sell digital products. I would love to run ads in the future. But I haven’t got there yet, which, you know, I feel like a lot of the times can be a budget thing. Because what you also want to do is to get that feedback first for you templates, you don’t just want to be, you know, like, Oh, this is a template, it’s going to be selling hotcakes. And then you pour 10,000 into your ads and like, Oh, what is happening? Is this a good product actually? So first test your products and see gather the feedback, and then see what kind of strategy works for you. But the weightless emails? I don’t think you can go wrong with that.
Alex Beadon 50:21
Yeah. And then when it actually comes to the day of the launch, getting closer, how do you go about building the excitement for the launch itself? Do you have a certain number of days that the cart is open? Or is it just like, Okay, now the curtains open forever? Is there any sense of urgency like, what are you doing to build sales as soon as you open the doors.
Diana Jakubcova 50:43
So with these templates, specifically, the social media template pack, what I’ve done is that I have created a free version that they could download first. And that’s something I have been promoting for two months, I think. And in that period, so it’s like a taste, you want to give them a taste of something, right? Can be something small, it was the one template for your feet and one template for your Instagram stories. But this way, again, they can see what it will look like if they actually purchase in the future, right. So just make sure that whatever you are giving them for free, it is good. And it is a pure reflection of what they will be receiving. And after that, because I was developing the templates I was sharing every single day on stories, what I’m working on, basically, when it comes to these templates, why I’m creating these templates, and what is different about the templates, because let’s not forget, yes, you can buy a template for $25 out there. So I really needed to make sure people understand what they will be getting if they purchase the template, right. So as we were approaching the deadline, the launch date. Now I’m trying to remember I actually did a giveaway as well. So interesting. Yeah, so I did a giveaway. So if you used the, the template, the free template, make sure to tag me. So again, I’m just doing a brand awareness. I tap into other audiences. So if there is a way for you to collaborate with someone to go live with someone to ask your clients to ask your network in general, that is the best way to build up that hype around a product. Because then what you don’t want to happen is that when you launch, and you hear crickets, and this usually happens, because you didn’t prep your audience enough for them to buy.
Alex Beadon 52:56
Yeah, right. Even when you said you know, you’ve you had a waitlist for five months. I’m over here as a launch strategist just clapping in the background, because people think it just matters what happens when I open the cart. But it’s like, no, it matters. Oh, even more what happens before you open the cart? So I’m really happy that you’re touching on this.
Diana Jakubcova 53:13
Yeah. And it’s a great way to build up the pie because I was receiving so many DMS, when are you launching this, I need this right now. And this is something you can then use to share on your stories to showcase that people, other people are interested, right, because people sometimes they just wait around to see if some someone else is interested. Because you don’t really want to be we as people in general, we don’t really want to be that first person to dip the toe. And you know, this was all packed up, right? So we tend to wait and see if other people are also interested in whatever someone else is, you know, selling. So I was really sharing those testimonials. Plus, I was really asking in the DMS whoever tagged me. So I was DMing them and just having that conversation, you know, building up that relationship with the person because then let’s say you are launching a digital product, you can DM them back and say, Hey, have you seen this, I launched it. I know you really enjoy it by free template. And this is you know, this, this is the date, this is the date, mark your calendars. It’s coming out.
Alex Beadon 54:23
Interesting. So you’re also not afraid to like reach out to people and DM them and basically just promote your own thing, which I think so many people are afraid to do. It seems to me what’s so interesting about you is like you have all of these different offers you have a wide variety of types of offerings. I’m curious to know, what is the percentage of your revenue that is coming from something that you are currently promoting, whether it’s that you’re launching it, or maybe you mentioned it on your stories like I’ve seen you online and you seem to be someone who’s not afraid to talk about what it is that you’re currently offering and what it is that you’re focusing on. What percent of your revenue is coming from all of that versus coming from just passive evergreen income that you don’t even have to think about? It’s just coming in from, you know, maybe someone going to your website randomly, etc.
Diana Jakubcova 55:14
So currently, obviously, the services done for you, I would say around 70 to 80%. And the rest would be sales coming through those templates, whether this is through affiliates through referrals. Again, but just you
Alex Beadon 55:33
find, do you find that most of your sales are coming when you’re saying, Hey, I have this thing coming by it?
Diana Jakubcova 55:41
Yes, of course, you have to talk about your offers, otherwise, people won’t know it exists, it can still come through once in a while, which is amazing. Because I have built that, you know, trust with the audience. And like, in general, however, if you don’t talk about your offers, even if it’s multiple offers, I feel like people still assume that other people are stupid, and they don’t, you know, they’re afraid to share multiple offers in a row. Now, make it very clear, this is this kind of offer, this is for this person. And if you’re this kind of person, you can go here, you lead them, you navigate your audience, but please share your offers. I mean,
Alex Beadon 56:21
you also seem to be like very open to the fact that you are a creative and you’re creating different things. And you’re not afraid of having too many offers, which again, even for myself, like oftentimes, I’ll be like, Oh, I could create this. I’m like, no, like, it just what I’m doing already. I think I’m someone who like I need to focus. But for you, you seem to be kind of thriving in this, like, I created this thing. Here it is I created this thing. Here it is. Does that? Is that something that you’re doing intentionally? Are you just following your intuition? Like, what are your thoughts on having multiple offers?
Diana Jakubcova 56:54
Here, I would lean into who you are as a person? Yeah. Make sure because what can happen is that if you’re another type of person who can handle multiple offers things thoughts,
Alex Beadon 57:11
like customer service, and then making sure that everything’s updated. Yeah, it’s a lot. Yeah.
Diana Jakubcova 57:15
Yeah, exactly. So I love multiple things at once I am Gemini, and you know, one thing one morning, I can be happy. And then in the next next day, I’m a completely different person. It’s like this personality thing. I would say I can flow in between. I can flow in between situations that maybe someone would deem as hard or tricky, challenging. I don’t mind that, of course, yes. I’m not saying that I am immune to bullshit. However, I know that my personality is like flowing, right? So I can go with it, I can create one thing. And then the other thing, I can still, I can still thrive in chaos, if that makes sense. But not everyone can. So if you are not this type of person, you cannot like commit to different projects down the line. It doesn’t even have to be at the same time. Because, as you said, I have multiple projects, multiple services, but they were created one by one. I wasn’t creating these projects, you know, in the same month, basically right? That is, yes, that’s not that’s really overwhelming, even for me. But if you are someone who really thrives on getting your ideas out there, you want to share multiple or like different perspectives of your could be products can be courses can be master classes, right? So a lot of I can see a lot of coaches actually thrive on having a lot of masterclasses because they can dive into different topics that they really enjoy. Right? So that’s an amazing way, right? But again, you have to promote that you have to market your products, otherwise, nobody knows. And that is where everyone forgets that sales do not just happen.
Alex Beadon 59:17
Yeah. And that’s why I wanted to ask you that question. Because I think people have the incorrect vision that they’re just going to create something and people are gonna be buying it all the time, but you have to talk about it. And you’re so good at that. I see you promoting yourself all the time.
Diana Jakubcova 59:32
Oh, thank you, to me, because like, I’m like, I’m not promoting enough. I feel like I’m not promoting it. But then everyone, but I get these DMS like, you’re so good at promoting multiple things. And I’m like, Whoa, am I voting? I feel like I don’t see selling as like when you think of like a hard sell. You know, I view it as an invitation, right? So I try to look for ways that I can sell these to you without me being like, Oh, I just launched my social media templates and you come here and buy them. Now, throughout the day, there might be a situation that you’re working on and you’re like, oh, this could be nice to showcase my templates. And I can just showcase the behind the scenes, how your connects. And there you go. You don’t even need to be, you know, creating your graphics, like professional graphics all the time, right? Just hop on your stories share the behind the scenes share what they will receive, once they I don’t all get the login and get the template, how it looks like and share the link. Like, is it such a nice invitation into your offers? And it’s easy?
Alex Beadon 1:00:45
Yes. 100%. I agree. I wanted to ask you about photography, because I feel like that’s another thing that I’m loving about your brand is you seem to be someone who really invests in good photography, you know, your images are also different, funky, unique, and a good representation of your brand. Talk to us about the importance of photography, when it comes to communicating your brand online.
Diana Jakubcova 1:01:10
Oh, wow, we might need another hour. I love this, I love this topic, because your photos can make or break your brand. You or I even can create the most beautiful branding, elevated, like just dreamy. But once you drag in photos that do not connect with what we have created, it all falls apart. Now, what do we do for clients, we develop like a photo shoot guide. So that’s their creative direction based on what we are creating with their branding. And this way, because even if you hire a photograph, now this is a thing your photographer is not there to tell you what kind of photoshoot you need, they come in, they might have a checklist for you of like different shots that you want to take. You know, that’s all cute. But then the editing all comes in a warm tone colors, whereas our branding was created with the colors that match colder tones, let’s say right, and that is where it all falls apart. And the message is not getting through. And people can feel it. Even though we like to think that I don’t understand branding. I don’t understand fonts. You do. subconsciously you do because we have been exposed to fonts to different directions our entire life that you can tell when something is like hmm, I don’t know what is off, but I know something is off.
Alex Beadon 1:02:52
Yeah. Okay, so for anyone who is listening, I was in the background just clapping away, because this is something that a lot of us don’t know. And it’s okay. Because you know, it’s a journey of being an online business owner, and you learn these things as you go. But that is definitely something I’ve learned is like, you can hire the best photographer. But if you don’t have that creative direction of exactly what it is that you’re trying to create, and the emotions that you’re trying to evoke, and what clothes are you wearing? What does your hair look like? And what does your make? Does it all align? It matters so, so so much. And, you know, when we’re in an online space, yes, we’re showing up on stories and we’re making videos and all those things. But the photography really makes such a difference. It’s it’s huge. Do you also use stock photo websites? Or are you really making sure that every single photo is something that you have created with your vision?
Diana Jakubcova 1:03:51
I make sure for the for the past two years, I make sure all clients have and you brand pictures when they work with us. And the past year, we have been implementing the photoshoot guides, which has been a game changer like a game changer. Because, again, as I said, your photographer is like she’s just or he’s just showing up right? Correct. Yeah, gave them some kind of direction. Oh, I need you brand photos. And I guess I’ll just wear the blazer right. The white blazer Yeah. I love it. Not not calling out anyone, right? Remember that? Don’t want to bleed again. This is what happens, right? Because you don’t really know what to do like you have no idea and as you said like people actually are not aware that their photoshoot connects with their brands, right? So this is where we get a photograph for so inside of the guide that is a brief for a photographer in what we are trying to achieve with this photo shoot. So let’s say for one client it can be we’re trying to We were trying to capture a community aspect for this new, I don’t know, business launch right for a client. But for other clients, it can be a really huge rebrand. So we need to make sure that we evoke these, like the wow effect, you know, some clients when the wow effect and their brand is like really about pops of colors and outfits are different. So we include outfits, I outfit ideas as well. We also include different shots. And then I also include different, like ideas on what I think would help me as a designer, to design their website and to design their marketing materials. So again, a lot of times we receive images that I can’t use, and I’ve seen so many times, one of our previous clients, she has given me access to like 800 images. And I could only use like 40. Now, what this shows is that you have wasted your time your money, because I can’t really use all these images, because either I don’t know the position of the light lighting is not the best for this brand. Or you are standing kind of weirdly, like why do we have these shots here? Right? So with this guy, we always make sure that if you have booked one hour photoshoot, you are in and out, and you know exactly what to do. Everyone is on the same team. And I’ve had clients tell me that previously they were having like four or five hour photoshoots. And I’m like, What are you doing five hours? Like I can’t imagine. But with the guy they guide, they were able to be in and out like one hour, two hours, Max.
Alex Beadon 1:06:48
That’s amazing. That’s very impressive. I’m cheering you on? And how often do you think someone should be doing a photo shoot? Like, how often do you need new photos?
Diana Jakubcova 1:07:00
Depends on your business, I would say for agencies or for someone who is like a done for you. It doesn’t have to be that often. Because there is not much of a change. However, if you are a coach, there are just so many things that you are changing. So many programs that you’re launching, it is advice to have at least two per year, just like a refresh, new location, something more exciting, because a lot of the times exciting things also happen in your business. And they will reflect in your brand photoshoot. Yeah, make sure of that.
Alex Beadon 1:07:38
Yeah. I think this is something that’s it’s just so easy to not do. You know, so even for everyone listening, myself included, I think even just booking it into the calendar and being like, Okay, I have two photoshoots booked for this year, at least. Because even for me thinking back, like when was my last photo shoot, I think it was actually it was this year. So okay, we’re doing okay, but still, you know, just making sure that it’s in the calendar and thinking about it, because I don’t even know what my next photo shoot is. And it you know, unless you’re really taking care of it and thinking about it, it might just slip your mind and then there you go, you’re not you’re not going to be showing up in the best way online. Diana I have to thank you so much for joining us. And before we wrap up, is there anything that you think is very important to share with our audience that I did not ask you that you feel is just too important to forget?
Diana Jakubcova 1:08:31
What is too important to forget is you first need to switch off from online space to actually reconnect to yourself. And that is important when it comes to your brand. Because if you can really see who you are inside your personality, then it’s going to be really hard for you to create the brand that you want to create, to connect with your brand for other people to connect with your brand. And ultimately, if you hire someone, I have questions for you. And you need to answer right this is something that a lot of people forget. If you even hire a designer, a brand professional, we have questions for you. You need to be prepared to tell me what is it that you want? Because this it doesn’t work the way that if you pay someone for branding, we just magically can read your mind. Unfortunately, I am not a mind reader. And I have a lot of questions if you work with me. So it is best if you let’s say decide to work with someone to get the best out of your investment specifically with the creatives. Know what you want come with a plan. You don’t need to have it all figured out. That’s not what I’m saying. But you do need to have Some sort of vision because then all I have to do is align that vision the plan your brand with your whole vision. That’s all I need.
Alex Beadon 1:10:11
Diana, thank you so much. You’re so I think you’re so great. I love like you just have this like spunky energy. And like you tell it, how you’re not afraid to tell it how it is. And like meeting you today, and then putting it side by side with like, what I’m seeing online is so much fun. So thank you so much for being here. I think everyone really enjoyed everything that you’ve shared with us. Can you let everyone know where they can find you online?
Diana Jakubcova 1:10:35
So you can find me on Instagram. Obviously, the best way is deeply rooted. That’s UDL but if you want to check out what we offer some freebies some fun things, check out our website deeply rooted studio.com
Alex Beadon 1:10:51
Thank you, Diana.
Diana Jakubcova 1:10:53
Thank you so much.
Alex Beadon 1:10:58
If you are someone who wants to launch your online course if you are an educator, and you’re ready to take what you’re already doing and scale it to the next level, if you want to bring in more students and make more impact with the work that you do in the world, then the ultimate launch bootcamp is for you. Don’t miss it. Make sure you’re on the waitlist. And I can’t wait to talk to you guys again next time. I’ll see you next week. Bye.
