101: Karen Bagley – What Matters Most When Creating A Brand & How To Up Your Marketing Game

Oh, my goodness. So this again, is another topic that I could literally talk about for hours. So I think we’re creatives get lost with the brand is that they do not understand what a brand is. They truly don’t mean you hear that word being thrown around a lot. Brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, brand. I’m this brand. I’m that brand. I’m a brand. I’m a I’m a brand entrepreneur. You know, we hear all of these things, but when you really get down to it, nobody actually knows what a brand is. So regardless of whether it’s something like Walmart or Target or Versace, all of these things are brands. So where the disconnect is, especially with creatives when it comes to having a brand, is you have to understand you yourself actually represent your brand. So of course it’s not that you want to take away from the artwork that you’re creating, right? But in the beginning and you know, there’s all different tiers of creatives, whether they’re just starting out or whether they’ve been in business for 10 or 15 years, if they are out there photographing every single thing, trying to chase the money, what type of brand are they? They have no way of knowing what type of brand they are because they’re so busy just trying to pull in any sort of funds.

Now, I know we all need funds. I understand that probably better than a lot of people would realize because again, they see us now. They don’t know our story. In that case, let me just say, we didn’t have two pennies to rub together. So in the beginning I was like everybody else photographing everything. And then I started to find where my creative heart was happiest. And at that point in time, once I started to focus on that, it was slowly okay. Her images are unique. Then it was okay. I started to think from the business side, How do I make my experience unique? Because I don’t want to just photograph them and send them pictures and send them on their way. That seems so disconnected now. This is coming from somebody who didn’t grow up understanding again what brands were. All of my clothes were hand-me-downs. I didn’t know anything. Like even commercials on TV. I don’t ever remember seeing a commercial on TV for like a Mercedes Benz. The only thing that I remember is like a BMW was a high end brand because my friend was talking about how they wanted the BMW for that clout.

And I was like, It didn’t it didn’t resonate with me. Well, once I started my business and as I was growing, not only did it start with my images, it was using off camera flash how I styled my clients. And again, this was kind of after that testing period, I photographed weddings, pets. I did everything. And I figured out that I was so passionate about women. And that’s where the maternity part came in because I wasn’t doing what everybody else did at the time, you know, putting the baby shoes on the belly. And I did that, too. That’s not to call anybody out. I’ll call myself out. We’ve all been guilty of it. Having the hands in the heart on, you know, the shape of the heart on the belly. I was out here putting my moms in fitted, very sexy gowns because just because you’re a mom, I’m a mom. I have two children. Just because you’re pregnant, just because you are a mom doesn’t mean that you don’t have a right to feel beautiful.

So I applied that and I stopped using the same location as everybody else. I actually took the first two years of my business and I, my husband and I, we drove all over Georgia and we would just pin places that were different. So those few things right in itself started to make my business brand recognizable. Okay? They noticed, okay, the lighting is different. Her colors are very bold. Off camera flash, she has, you know, these the clients are coming to her to look at these images. And they were doing these like reveals every time they came in opening their album in front of her. So the experience was starting to stand out to people, right? So then we start seeing and as I’m growing, my clientele level is growing, right? They’re spending more per session. And it wasn’t actually until I was speaking at a conference that I kind of felt like I didn’t fit in at this conference. And it’s the first time because I’m a pretty big people person. I love chatting with people, but I kind of felt like I was getting the cold shoulder a little bit and my husband was like, You know what? You need to go get you some designer shoes.

And I was like, Absolutely not. I refused to spend that money. I could feed four families with that money. And he ended up going out and buying me the pair of shoes. And I taught my class and my first pair of Christian Louboutin shoes. For those of you who do know me, you guys know I have like, that’s my one downfall is my collection of Christian Louboutin shoes. But I think everybody after that class said, Oh, I know you were a serious business. This woman because of your shoes, which is kind of sad, you know, from a human perspective, like, should you really, you know, does what I wear really make that much of a difference? But after teaching that class and seeing how many my Instagram messages were blowing up from images people had taken and tagging Christian Louboutin saying, Oh, she’s a bad B because she has these shoes on like it was unreal. So the the human part of me was like, That’s actually sad. It should be my work.

It should be how I teach that stands out. But the reality is that’s not how the world works. The world is very judgmental. They take one look at you and they automatically assume whatever it is that they’re assuming. So that’s why, as I started to grow, I decided, you know what, I’m going to go into a designer store. So my favorite store is Tiffany and Co. I love the color. It reminds me even their branding, like the color of their boxes, remind me of Bahama Water, which is my favorite underwater place to go. And I just my eyes were totally opened because from the moment I walked into that store, the staff was so kind and I wasn’t dressed special. Like, you know, I was kind of dressed as typical. I had like jeans and a shirt on, but they were so kind to me. They treated me like royalty and for no reason, I was in there celebrating that I had hit a quarter goal in my business and I was like, You know what? I’m going to buy myself a pair of sunglasses.

And now, mind you, it wasn’t that big of a deal. You know, people drop, you know, 20, $30,000 in ten minutes and they don’t think twice about it. But for me, spending $350 on a pair of sunglasses, that was a big deal. But I learned more from the experience inside Tiffany and Co that I started to implement into my own business, that not only do I now have the images that are having a brand that are okay, you could pick my image out of 1500, you know, if you laid them all out. So not only was it my photographing style, but then it was actually getting to understand what a brand actually was and start to implement that into my business. So packaging your logo, your colors, simplistic is always going to be better. And remember that you yourself are in fact a representation of your brand. So a lot of people, you know, I recently was speaking at another conference and I just asked the class because we were talking about branding and I said, how do you how do you show up when you meet with your clients? And they’re like, well, like this? And they have, you know, a baggy t shirt on and jeans and some comfortable tennis shoes.

And I said, What would happen if you and I were at a show together? Let’s say it was a baby expo and we were, you know, one photographer next to another photographer’s booth and it was you and I. I said, Who do you think the person that is actually serious about documentation and they’re ready to invest? Who do you think they’re going to book, me or you based off of only how we’re dressed and how our booths look? And they said, Well, it would probably be you because you, you look put together. I said, It’s no different than a doctor. What would you think about a doctor who drove up in this nice Mercedes G-wagon or let’s say a McLaren vehicle versus somebody who drove up in a Toyota? How you know, if you’re meeting with a doctor, how much more likely are you going to be like, okay, this doctor is clearly knows what they’re doing. They have the money to back up what they say they’re doing. This one over here in the Toyota, while there’s nothing wrong with Toyota’s, you can’t help but make that snap judgment that, okay, I don’t know if I want this doctor working on me.

I want the professional who has the money that has the ability to afford the the finer things in life. So a lot of people really don’t understand that when it comes to building a brand, you actually have to look at yourself and what you are projecting. So if you are projecting and I use the term mom talk for I hate that term because when it’s used, it’s normally used in more of a like a derogatory way, like kind of like a homely looking way. And I’m like, I’m a mom. I would would I don’t ever get labeled as a mom together. And you know why? Because I dress well. And that’s honestly the bottom line. And again, the the human part of my heart, it does make me a little sad. It really does. Because as humans, we really shouldn’t be so judgmental of other people. We just shouldn’t. But the reality and again, the truth is. People do. So building a certain style, whether it’s your lighting, your wardrobe, your experience, and then making sure that you yourself understand the brand.

So to anybody who gets to hear this, just do some research on how Gucci got started. Just some little homework for you guys. Have everybody look that up and see. See, it’ll kind of open their eyes a little bit on on brand awareness. But do you understand? Yeah, do understand for sure that your representation of yourself is a reflection of your company for sure.