Before & After: How the Alchemist Alchemized Her Own Brand

Running a business - let alone the brand behind it - is no small feat. I should know, because I’m living it. After a couple years of one-off projects helping friends and family brand and market their businesses, I decided it was about time to legitimize my operations and hired myself a side hustle coach to help get me there.

90 days with Lauren Widrick got me access to a group of like-minded entrepreneurs I never knew I needed and the necessary tools and resources to start setting up and socializing version 1.0 of my branding business. I pulled the trigger on the first name that made sense, secured my LLC, set up my very own business bank account, taught myself Quickbooks, and proudly put together a website and social media account that I thought nicely captured the essence of what I do. And at the time, it did.

It wasn’t that it wasn’t visually captivating or professional looking, if I do say so myself. It even hit on the core concept of the way I approach branding: by starting with why. I tied it all together with a back story rooted in spending time by the sea at the beach and in the water as a swimmer, and how learning to work with what you have and swim through the discomfort is how you find clarity. I even threw in a clever ‘sea’ pun every now and then just for good measure.

I had a beautiful logo designed by the very talented Madison Dixon, created a branded mood board with the same look and feel, developed a framework for my core messages and ran my Instagram account posting fresh content for weeks without a shortage of ideas or any disconnection from or confusion about who I had set out to be.

It wasn’t that any of that was bad or wrong. It was that this version of my brand was really only the tip of the iceberg of what I do and how I do it. It didn’t fully account for my full potential or the true magic that happens over the entire process of working with my clients.

It was a version of my business that operated from my comfort zone, and inevitably, it was a version that was keeping me small.

Once I came to this realization, the frustration and confusion that my clients so often feel set in - and I mean, set in deep.

On top of living through and launching a business during a global pandemic and civil rights movement, which is enough to challenge any person or entrepreneur all on its own, I began to struggle through what I later realized was my own self-guided alchemy process.

I froze up and went dark on social media. I began to second guess my offering altogether. I started to cling to the thought of templates, tightly-defined packages and canned scripts over just doing what I do with confidence.

In the panic and the fear, I turned to what I do best: writing down what I know. Literal streams of consciousness were flowing out of me, sometimes in spurts, sometimes in long form paragraphs. After pages and pages of disjointed ideas, a few key words started floating to the top of my head and the top of the page. Distiller. Mixologist. Magician. Alchemist.

Then, all of a sudden it just hit me.

That’s it. That’s the one. I’m a freaking Alchemist.

That’s when the real research began, starting with a clear definition. As it turns out, an alchemist is somewhat of a medieval scientist whose life’s work was attempting to turn base metals into gold. More universally, an alchemist is someone with the power or process to change or transform something in a mysterious or impressive way. When it comes to brands, I do just that.

I also remembered I had a copy of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist nicely displayed on my bookshelf, and in less than 24 hours I had re-read it cover to cover. I literally could not put it down. So much of the book’s plot - about finding and living out your dreams - and my research on alchemy only reaffirmed my gut feeling that this articulation of what I do was not only spot on, but totally and uniquely me.

Once that strategic direction became clear, I started to vet the concept visually using all of my usual free stock photo suspects. Scrolling through Unsplash, Designpiration and even Pinterest, I curated an entire mood board full of images that brought the compelling story in my brain to life on paper. Taking it all in, I felt that familiar gut feeling that solidifying Alchemist gave me. I was onto something.

From there, I went to work on a new website, already feeling inspired by the potential of my new brand identity. And like I’ve witnessed many of my clients experience after they’ve hit their breakthrough, the words just started to ooze of out me. The hero image, the tagline and every bit of copy I needed flowed from my fingers to the page with ease.

Just like that, everything magically fell into alignment for me.

More than that, it all felt undeniably like me.

As you’ll recall, I was already using blues and yellows in version 1.0, but to me, this image shows a more sophisticated, elevated interpretation of my original palette. The gold looks like it’s been melted down and smattered across the page in an organic, yet mysterious fashion, and the blues instill a sense of clarity and confidence that I had already come to love about my existing visual brand. Naturally, it become the hero.

Even the way I naturally described this new articulation of what I do felt re-aligned and more powerful than ever, and I knew exactly what needed to go where.

So, how did I do? Drop your reactions to my process and the before & after in the comments. I’m dying to know what you think.