The thing is, you don’t have to spend hundreds per month in expenses for all of these fancy tools and platforms to run your business. In fact, there’s one secret weapon we believe every service-based business should keep in their back pocket. It’s an all-in-one software that will eliminate the need for racking up on 17 different subscriptions, and it goes by the name Dubsado.

When you think of “branding”, what comes to mind first? We’d venture to guess a popular logo popped up in your head, or a specific color palette. In all actuality, branding is much more than just the visuals that represent a company. It’s also the voice, personality, mission, and tone that make up a brand.

Even if the brand is run by multiple individuals, the brand as a whole should have its own personality that, well, personifies it! It should coax certain feelings from an audience and specifically target a certain group of people.

It all seems very confusing, but by following just a few steps, you’ll be able to intertwine your personality into elements of your branding and successfully convey that to your audience, whether you’re just starting out or in the midst of a rebrand!

As small businesses competing against larger or more well-known businesses, it isn’t as effective to just talk about what you do as a business. The key to standing out is the brand that you build. A recognizable and loved brand is one of the most valuable assets a business owns.

However, a brand is much more than just a name, tagline, logo, and other visuals. Even though these pieces do play a role in the bigger picture, there are other elements that bring it all together.

Your branded marketing collateral is like the sidekick to your business. They aid you in marketing and promoting your brand across different mediums, which means they play a huge part in your overall brand strategy.

Your branded marketing collateral is what makes the first impression on people, so it’s important to make sure that each asset is planned and designed to effectively let the market know about your brand story and what you offer.

OK, so it plays such an important role, but what actually is it? Keep reading as we dive into how brand marketing collateral can make your business turn heads, plus the different types of collateral!

Having a brand that’s authentic means being more in tune with who you are and where your passions lie, as well as the needs of your audience. Spoiler alert: It isn’t just about an amazing logo and a pretty color palette. When you pull together elements of yourself and your personality, the benefits you’ll reap are well worth the extra time and effort it takes to really dive in and build a powerful brand identity.

With all that said, here’s our 5-step guide to creating a powerful brand identity that stays closer to the things you love, the things that represent you and your business, and your personality!

Starting a product based business is stressful enough. You have to brainstorm ideas for a product to sell, figure out how to bring it to life, develop a marketing strategy, and basically leave the space left on your calendar wire thin.

More often than not, packaging is the last thing you’ll think about because, let’s face it, it’s simply just a way to deliver the product to the hands of your customers, right? Wrong.

In the world of online transactions, the packaging your product comes in may very well be the only physical interaction your customers have with your business, so it’s important to make it a great one.

The time may come as your business grows to invest in some branded packaging. We’re not talking about when you have your own warehouses across the country and are rolling out hundreds of orders per day. In this day and age, branded and unique packaging can be more affordable than you might think.

Keep reading as we dive into the effects of product packaging in today’s world and how to use it to communicate your brand messaging and impress your customers!

There’s no worse feeling than pouring your heart and soul into a graphic you’ve made in Canva that you’re so proud of, only to see that it ends up blurry and overall just crappy quality when you upload it to your website or social media channels.

You try again to no avail. Still blurry. Still suck-y.

So, why are your Canva images blurry, and what can you do to fix it?

We’re here to walk you through how to make sure your creations look clean and crisp every time (and don’t worry, we tried to limit the language to normal-person speak).

You know those images of desks with perfectly-placed items like a laptop, mug, a few pens, and maybe a pair of glasses? That, my friend, is a stock photograph, and that one simple image can make a world of difference for your brand.

Stock photography isn’t a new thing. You’ve probably seen tons of memes from popular older stock websites, such as the infamous Shutterstock, Alamy, and iStock, who are most recognizable by their watermark slapped across images. Any class presentation where you needed to Google image search for a photo representing something, you’ve run across some stock photography.

These days, though, that term has been recreated in a way. Photographers aren’t just shooting scenarios where the models are overly enthusiastic with their expressions anymore, they’re giving a new meaning to stock photography and, in turn, giving an amazing way for brands to add more flavor to their business.

But in what ways could you be using stock images to help your brand pop?

Today, we’ll be giving you some ideas for how you can use them in your business, and we show you some examples, too.

We even have 90 stock photos for you, so stay tuned for the end!

“Gaining clients” can be a foreign, uncomfortable phrase to most new service-based businesses.

It’s new territory– hell, a new world– trying to navigate how to gain clients. You almost feel like you’re missing out on something that everyone else knows except you.

The thing is, this isn’t like the krabby patty secret formula.

It doesn’t have to be difficult. If you’re finding that you aren’t getting any leads, what you could do is reevaluate what kind of first impression you’re giving, and it all starts with one thing:

Your client introduction packet.