Shownotes

In this episode, Lesley Logan talks with branding expert Nadine Hanafi about confidence, personal branding, and overcoming fear to show up authentically. Nadine shares her journey of building her second business, Digital Brand Kit, and offers actionable tips to create a brand that represents your higher self.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co.

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In this episode you will learn about:

• Nadine’s journey from PowerPoint to becoming a brand expert.
• How to understand the full scope of branding beyond logos and colors.
• The importance of setting boundaries when building a business.
• The mindset shifts needed to overcome fear of visibility.
• How brand photography can elevate the look and feel of a business.
• Steps to confidently create a brand that reflects your higher self.

Episode References/Links:

• Nadine Hanafi’s Website – https://digitalbrandkit.com
• Nadine Hanafi’s Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/nadine.hanafi/
• Digital Brand Kit – https://digitalbrandkit.com
• Digital Brand Kit Website – https://www.instagram.com/digitalbrandkit/

Transcript

Nadine Hanafi 0:00
There’s a way for you to use branding to show up as the next version of yourself, or, as I like to say, brand your higher self, right? And we’ve seen this with our clients. We’ve seen it with me and my brand and my business. And when you brand yourself as the business that you want to build, as that seven-figure business, six-figure business, whatever it is, and you show up with that big brand energy, your confidence catches up to that, right?

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INTRODUCTION

Lesley Logan
Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I’m Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I’ve trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it’s the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It’s a practice, not a perfect. Let’s get started.

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Lesley Logan 1:09
All right, be it, babe. This is a fun conversation today. We’ve got confidence. We’ve got branding. When do you start a business? What are you expecting out of it? It’s just been, was a really fun conversation. Nadine Hanafi is our guest today. And you know, it’s so crazy. It’s like the world just make sure you meet the right people in your life. First of all, I would love to keep talking with us. I wish we lived closer. I would love to hang out with her, just one of those people in business. You’re like, yeah, I’m so glad I know this person. She is a mutual friend of Jessica Papineau’s and mine. But then also, when I was talking to her, I was like, Oh, my God, I’ve got to introduce you to my photographer, Monica Linda of Girl Squad Media. And she’s like, oh, I worked with Monica. And funny enough, Monica showed her my photo. So, like, it’s just full circle. It’s like we were destined to meet. We were destined for each other. And so I’m excited for you to this conversation, because there’s a lot of honesty about, like, you know, how we grow our businesses, and what do we need to do to keep growing them, and what does that look like? And if you’re not someone who has a business. There’s still a lot of fun things to listen to in this podcast that can give you a lot of things to think about. Just because it’s along business side doesn’t mean there’s not some personal growth stuff in here that’s going to change your life. I know it. So take a listen. And here is Nadine Hanafi.

Lesley Logan 2:15
All right, Be It babe. I am so excited because we are, we’re going to learn a lot from today’s guest. I’m and you’re going to love all of it. I was introduced by this woman, to this woman by Jessica Papineau, who you all loved. We had her on the pod. If you’re an OPC member, we had her in the community. And Nadine Hanafi is our guest today. She is an incredible branding person. Branding strategies for your business. And if you don’t have a business, I still, do not stop, you are a brand yourself and I’m so excited to dive into this. Nadine, can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at?

Nadine Hanafi 2:46
Oh, well, thank you, Lesley, thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here. So my name is Nadine Hanafi. I am a branding expert. I’m the CEO of a company called Digital Brand Kit, which is the world’s first full-stack branding company, where we basically provide you with all the brand assets that you need as a personal brand. And I’ve been in business for 10 years. This is not my first business. This is my second business. I started out as a presentation design expert with a company called We Are Visual and my jam was PowerPoint. I know, boring, but I used to make what I call these artistic, beautiful PowerPoints. And I’ve worked with TED speakers, I’ve worked with bestselling authors, I’ve worked with all these beautiful brands with their presentation. And eventually I decided to expand beyond just the presentation to really how you present yourself in the world, which is your branding. And so that’s what brought me to doing what I do now.

Lesley Logan 3:41
Oh, my God, that is so you know, I’ve gone this entire life without making a single, like.

Nadine Hanafi 3:47
Powerpoint?

Lesley Logan 3:47
Yeah, when I know how to use one.

Nadine Hanafi 3:51
Lucky you.

Lesley Logan 3:54
I know.

Nadine Hanafi 3:54
How did you do that?

Lesley Logan 3:55
I tell people to take notes. Here we go. I actually would love to change that for myself, and I’d love to be more prepared in advance for things so that will change in my future. I feel it, but also like I teach Pilates so there’s no PowerPoint.

Nadine Hanafi 4:11
I totally get that.

Lesley Logan 4:12
But you know, thank you for sharing that you, this is your second rodeo in your own business, and also like going into, so let’s talk about, just in case people have never heard of personal brand or branding itself, I think a lot of people think branding is like colors, my colors, my logo, my fonts. Can you have a little bit of personal brand and a little bit more on what is branding?

Nadine Hanafi 4:31
Oh my gosh, yes. Love this question. So first of all, your branding is definitely not just your colors and your fonts and your website. It is so much more than that. There’s a lot of debate about what branding is exactly, but to me, it’s your brand messaging, it’s your brand voice, it’s your visuals, it’s how you show up in the world, what you sound like, and the energy that you give off. And so we’re all about brand energetics, right, which might be something that resonates with your audience, because, you know, it’s like, it’s all about energy. Branding is energy. And so that’s one thing about branding. And then personal brand. What is a personal brand? Well, personal brand versus corporate brand, right? A corporate brand is just a company. It’s impersonal. There are lots of humans behind it, but there isn’t one human right behind it. A personal brand is you. So you might have a personal brand that then feeds leads leads to your business separately, but you are you. You’re your own personality. You show up with a completely different visual identity, a different brand voice, from the corporation that maybe you own or work for. So that’s the difference between a corporate brand and a personal brand. And then in terms of visuals, super different, right? Corporations, they have these logos and brand guidelines. It’s very much, very strict, whereas your personal brand is where you get to have a little bit more more fun, right? You can color outside the lines.

Lesley Logan 5:53
Yeah, that’s true. I love that. Color outside the lines. My perfectionist listening, hi, you can color outside the lines.

Nadine Hanafi 6:01
Yeah, way outside.

Lesley Logan 6:03
So okay, but how did you get into all of this stuff? Like, were you a creative kid? Are you artistic? You love computers? How did this all come about? Because you’re really great at what you do. I’ve seen it, and I know like, and we also have so many mutual friends who, like Monica Linda, and things like that. We always attract You’re so awesome at it. But what led you to do this? Because I feel there’s got to be like, were you born, is someone from your family a digital brander?

Nadine Hanafi 6:29
No, not at all. I totally fell into this by accident. That sounds cliche, but it’s true. I didn’t discover my, quote-unquote, creative side until much later in life. I think I was always a creative kid, but then I think school kind of has a tendency to beat that out of us. You know, it’s like, and especially parents are like, oh, you have to be good at math and you have to do business or be a lawyer or and so I had one of those parents that wanted me to be a lawyer or a businesswoman. And so I went to business school, and I really disconnected from my creativity very early on, and rediscovered it while I was in college, totally by accident, because we had a professor ask us to make a PowerPoint presentation for a class, for the marketing class. And I don’t know why, but I decided I was going to make the best damn, you know, PowerPoint presentation ever made. And I did, and it was beautiful, really, I spent like three weeks working on it. It was really awesome. And I enjoyed the process so much, and I enjoyed the feedback that I got so much that it was unique and different and original. And so I just kind of kept playing in that sandbox of making nice fun PowerPoints, just for fun in school. And then when I started my first job out of college, I was asked to make a lot of presentations again, and so I brought those skills to the corporate world, and it made a huge difference in the company I worked for. They really enjoyed the work that I did. It was shared across the company. They have me do PowerPoint presentations for other departments. Next thing I know, I’m creating all these templates for everyone. So it just kind of took on a life of its own. I was like, you know what? I’m kind of good at this thing. Why don’t I make a business out of it? Because I wasn’t really enjoying corporate life anyways. I don’t love being told what to do and when to do it. So corporate, you know, the corporate world wasn’t really good for me, and so I just started a business as a PowerPoint presentation expert, and that’s how I got into it. And I’m basically self-taught. I took classes online, I took certifications, got certified in digital psychology and all the things, and basically taught myself branding, taught myself design, and that’s how I landed here.

Lesley Logan 8:42
That is so cool, because I know for myself, I went to college, first I went to be in kinesiology, and then I switched to communications, and then I, like, got out of so it’s business, communications, interpersonal communication, and I got out of college, and I just really loved retail. I just thought it was the greatest thing. And I was like, I don’t know why I have this $80,000 degree that I’m not using, but I got these student loans to pay off. (inaudible) And so when I got into Pilates, I just want to be Pilates instructor, I was like, oh my God. Like, I already am not using, now I have to spend more money. And but it’s interesting how like your skill sets of what you love, they follow you wherever you’re going. And, yeah, so I think it’s cool that you’re self-taught slash you also kind of did some things that were in alignment with what you loved. So you’re taking your natural instincts with, you know, some of the information and combining those efforts. That’s really cool. Okay, so let’s talk a little about you, though, you, obviously, working for yourself and leaving corporate. There’s a lot of be it till you see it stories in there, because I know a lot of people listening are like, someday I want to leave corporate. One day they will do it. Were there any like be it till you see it, stories or actions you took to help yourself either get out of corporate or like, recently in your life that you can share with us?

Nadine Hanafi 9:55
Oh my gosh. First of all, I have to say that I’ve been in business for 10 years, but I feel like I’ve only started really breaking the surface of what I’m capable of in the last maybe two years, and I had a lot of stigma around that. I mean, I gave myself a hard time for that, that I was like, such a late bloomer, such a late learner. Why did it take me so long to finally get this right?

Lesley Logan 10:18
Oh my God. Let’s just, don’t forget what you’re gonna have to say. But can we just take a moment like, like I am so hard on myself about like I should be further, I’ve been doing all the things. Like, the pressure that we put on ourselves is not fun, and it’s not helping anyone get anywhere,

Nadine Hanafi 10:34
No, no, especially not ourselves. Then it’s, you know, I’m like, oh, you’re 37 look at all these young women who’s 30, 29, 30, they’ve already built their multi-server figure business like, what’s wrong with you? And so the minute that I stopped giving myself help for that, things kind of opened up for me. But it was mostly, it was mostly just accepting that that’s my journey, and I can choose my path, and I can just write my own story, and it doesn’t have to be a story of like early success. And I heard, I read a quote the other day, and I might mention a lot of quotes (inaudible).

Lesley Logan 11:10
We love quotes.

Nadine Hanafi 11:11
Love quotes, but it said, “Your first business is not where you make money, it’s where you learn.” And it’s so true for me in my first business, because I made all the mistakes in my first business. And I won’t come around to like answering your question, Lesley, I promise, but one of the one of the mistakes that I made was building a golden cage for myself and because, and I want to share the story, especially if a lot of your listeners are maybe in corporate, thinking about getting out of corporate like you said, my only model for what a business would look like was based on what I’ve seen in the corporate world. I didn’t know it was possible to build a business on my own terms, a business around my lifestyle, a business around what I want to do with my time. And so I built, I built another nine to five job for myself when I created my first business.

Lesley Logan 12:00
Or nine to nine, something like that.

Nadine Hanafi 12:02
Yeah, exactly. And I unwillingly traded one boss, who is a nasty boss, into like, 12 bosses, because every single one of my clients was my boss, and because I did not know how to set boundaries. You know, I was just being bossed around by my own clients. And so my first business was really a playground for me to make all the mistakes and learn from them. And so this second business that I’m building is me doing going back and taking all the things I did wrong the first time and doing them right this time around. But the be it examples, my gosh. I mean, the biggest thing that I did when I was starting my first business was give myself mentors to see examples of what my future success could look like. Because I didn’t have those good examples around me. I had to expand my horizons. And meeting people, other entrepreneurs who were further ahead than me and seeing how they run their business like, what does the behind the scenes of their business look like, that was me, my effort of trying to project what my future could look like and how I could design a business for myself on my terms.

Lesley Logan 13:15
I, that’s so, I love it all. Okay, let’s just talk about the like, create what we, it’s, in business and in relationships, we create date what we know.

Nadine Hanafi 13:27
Exactly.

Lesley Logan 13:27
You know, and it can be, which is, makes it hard to be it till you see it, because you’re, if you don’t look outward, which I love that you talk about mentors, like, if you don’t like the situation you’re in before you start something, one, be it till you see it can think, can actually just be like, seeking out examples of what you don’t, because otherwise, yeah. And then I, so funny that you mentioned boundaries. I just posted from my Profitable Pilates account today, like, if you have policies but you don’t enforce them, you don’t have policies, what you have is future resentment. Like, you know, like, I have clients who tell me, charge me if they’re late canceling because I told them I’m going to charge you. You late cancel, I’m charging you, and now they go, charge me. But like, people aren’t going to be like, hey, you didn’t charge me for that late cancel.

Nadine Hanafi 13:27
That’s right. They’re not going to enforce your boundaries for you.

Lesley Logan 13:37
No, they’re not. And you had mentioned your 12 clients, it’s true. Like, if you don’t tell them, here’s when I respond to you, here’s the appropriate way to communicate with me, here’s when you’re when your money is due. They’re going to just push you around because they can. It just makes everything unclear. So that is really, I just love that that happened on the same day that I literally said I’m like, if you don’t have like, policies or boundaries, to me, they’re this, they’re the exact same thing. They’re like, telling people how you can treat someone. I think the first business is where you learn, it’s, you know, it’s really hard because of social media. Like young kids on YouTube, young kids can make millions of dollars with their social media, and it’s hard to be, I’m 41 to look at that and go, oh my God, I didn’t even, like, that wasn’t even an opportunity for me. Also, like, good for them, because they are living in a, they don’t have bills, they’re living at their parent’s house, they can do whatever they want. Like the rest of us, do? We have to be kinder to ourselves because we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be if we learn the lessons we’re supposed to learn, and then also we get to do what we want with that. They might be stuck with whatever. They just created $7 million with of subscriber, you know what I mean?

Nadine Hanafi 15:21
That’s right. And if I may share one more thing on that topic, I guess the biggest lesson for me, and I was telling you how I’ve been in business for 10 years, but I’ve only started truly growing my business in the last two years. And that’s because two years ago, I had an epiphany, which is that my business growth plateaued at the level of my personal growth, and I, for years, would take all the courses, read all the books, learn from all the gurus about the tactics and strategies of what to do. And I had it all right, and I was doing all the right things. I thought I was. But what I was missing was belief in myself, confidence and my ability to actually create results with those strategies and tactics. It wasn’t until I prioritized my personal growth that I actually started seeing real growth in my business, financial growth in my business, and so that mindset shift unlocked a lot of things for me. So I just wanted to share that, because it just was one of my biggest aha moments.

Lesley Logan 16:29
Everyone, hit rewind and re-listen to that, because it’s like we’re on the same parallel universe right now. Earlier this week, I was telling, I’ve told my agency members this before, I told them this actually the last couple of times we’ve been in a group session together, and I just reminded them, I’m like, if you don’t believe in you, no strategy I give you is going to work. Like, this strategy I’m giving you might not be the right strategy for you, but you’re definitely going to think it’s crap if you don’t believe in you. And I said to them also, like, if you’re not protecting, because they’re Pilates instructors who are teaching, right, if you’re not protecting your Pilates practice, no strategy I give you is going to work, because you’re not prioritizing yourself, and you will run out of energy. When we run out of energy, what do we, we don’t actually have the ability to believe in ourselves more than we did, you know, you just, you’re out of energy. And so, like, it is so your personal growth, protecting your self-care, taking care of like, what do I need today? What is my, how’s my body doing today? Those things are going to affect tremendously at your growth of your business, for sure. For sure. Yeah, it’s so interesting because being in a business as long as we’ve been in and having this, some of the success we’ve had, I’ve been on some stages with some people who have even bigger success. And I was listening to things that they’re saying and and it was so funny, because some of my listeners have heard of the story already, but I was on stage with two guys who have businesses way bigger than mine. We’re like, we almost hit a million, this guy runs $100 million of ads across social media platforms. And this other guy worked for like (inaudible). They’re all huge, multi, like, right, huge. So it’s like, small, medium, large. And I was like, kind of intimidated, right? Like, why am I on the stage with these people? But then they were saying things that I was like, yeah, that works, and I don’t, that’s not also good. And so it’s really interesting. We can put these people on a pedestal who are farther along than us, and we forget we know things. And like, you know, our intuition knows things, and our values know things. And so if you aren’t taking care of your personal growth and you’re not spending time with yourself, can be so easy to fall into the trap of these other people. What they were saying, and I’ve like, was like, I really, I really disagree with that.

Nadine Hanafi 18:36
I love that. Yeah, straight up. Yeah, you have to be able to tune in to your own thoughts and your own intuition and operate from a place of like conviction, because you know what’s right, rather than just listen to what everyone else is telling you, because they’re telling you it’s good advice. You have to, you know, be able to have that discernment to recognize well what’s right for you at this stage for what you’re trying to do.

Lesley Logan 19:02
Yeah. Discernment is very different than, like, a negative self-talk or self-doubt or a lack of confidence. Like, discernment is, you know, you’re actually more firmly planted. Has it been easy? Like, do you find, was confidence easy for you?

Nadine Hanafi 19:16
No, absolutely not. So as somebody who is heavily bullied as a child, confidence has been my life’s battle. I was born in Minnesota, but I grew up in Morocco. My parents are from Morocco, and I learned English at a very young age, but then they moved me back to Morocco and put me in school right away, before I had a chance to remember Arabic and French, because that’s what we speak in Morocco, right?

Lesley Logan 19:40
Arabic and French. You have to do two?

Nadine Hanafi 19:42
Yes, two. So I grew up trilingual.

Lesley Logan 19:46
That is so cool, by the way.

Nadine Hanafi 19:48
Thank you.

Lesley Logan 19:49
Yeah, I get, so, I learned enough Arabic to say hello, thank you, no, I cannot give you that discount.

Nadine Hanafi 19:55
All the martinis.

Lesley Logan 19:59
Yeah. And so my wives would shop, and then, like, the husband come in and ask for a discount, and I would say, all I know how to say is, shukran, okay, sorry, I cut you off. That’s so hard as a child to remember all three.

Nadine Hanafi 20:17
Yeah, so I learned Arabic and French. I’m like, three years old, and then four years old, and they moved me back to Minnesota. I learned English there, and they moved me back to Morocco and put me in school. And I’d forgotten English and Arabic, or, sorry, French and Arabic, and I only know how to speak English, but nobody else did. And so rather than (inaudible) school, I was the American kid. Don’t talk to her. She doesn’t speak our language. And that just followed me through elementary school, and I was just like the odd kid, and so I would just hang out by myself a lot, and my social skills obviously suffered from that as a child and then as a teenager, and I didn’t really grow into my own self until my 20s, and this, this fear, this sense of being inadequate, not belonging, kind of followed me. It’s just, and I’m sharing this with you, because I didn’t come to this realization until a couple of years ago where I was like, damn, this has actually been following me my entire life, and it’s been stunting my growth. This feeling of not being good enough, not being loved, you know? And so, yes, confidence has been like my biggest battle in life is having that confidence. So the name of your podcast speaks to me a lot, because I basically have had to fake it, you know, I’ve had to fake this confidence for so many years, until finally it just started feeling real. And basically it was my experience, the expertise that I built, the amount of clients that I served, the result that I was able to get for them. All of that is what started to fill the gap between who, how I was showing up, and that quote, unquote, fake confidence and the real me. And today I’m confident because I know the results I can deliver. I know my history, I know my expertise, I know my staff, and that’s where my confidence comes from. And I also know my worth. I know my worth now better than I ever have in my entire life, not just my worth as a business owner and as an expert in my field, but also just as a human being. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I am enough, even if I was crap at business, I would still be enough, and that’s huge.

Lesley Logan 22:29
I love, yeah, confidence really does come from doing the thing you said you were gonna do, you know. And so, like.

Nadine Hanafi 22:29
You keep promises to yourself.

Lesley Logan 22:29
Yeah, and then, and just keeping up, and doesn’t mean you do it perfectly, but just like you told the client you were going to deliver this amazing product, you did deliver an amazing product, and then you acknowledge you delivered an amazing product. And so often we do the first two things, and then we don’t give ourselves the credit for having done the thing. And so we don’t get the benefits of the confidence that it comes from being so consistent with what we know.

Nadine Hanafi 23:01
And the other aspect of confidence that I struggled with, I know so many people do, is visibility. And so visibility has been a huge thing for me. I was always really comfortable in the behind the scenes of my business, not being the face, you know, like, oh, I like putting my clients in the spotlight, in the limelight, like you go out there, you shine. I’ll just sit here and support you. That was comfortable for me. But again, I realized that my business growth was going to plateau at the level of my visibility too, because visibility is also exposure. It’s growth. It’s putting yourself out there and getting your message out there, so more eyes on what you do. And so that’s been the late, the latest monster that I’ve slain, is the fear of visibility for me. In fact, I just recorded my first podcast episode today because I’m launching a podcast.

Lesley Logan 23:52
That’s so cool. You guys heard it here first. That is so cool.

Nadine Hanafi 23:57
It’s called Grand Party and it’s been sitting in my head and in my heart for over a year, and I’ve been so scared of starting it, of doing it because I’ve been scared of the visibility that will come with it, also the commitment of, like, consistent content every week, but mostly the visibility. And so it’s a really huge deal for me that I was finally over, you know, able to overcome that fear and pull the trigger and do this.

Lesley Logan 24:24
Yeah, be surprised. Hire someone to do all the editing and all the stuff, and then whether you do it or not, you’re paying them, and that makes me get my -ish done.

Nadine Hanafi 24:33
Well, you know, that’s actually so true, I’m so glad you said that, because I procrastinated for a year. And so I met this woman who owns a production company, and she’s like, oh, well, let’s do this. And she sent me the contracts. Th e contract sat in my inbox for three months, and she finally sent me an ultimatum, saying, all right, if you don’t sign this, I’m gonna have to, like, take down your contract from our system. And I, I said to myself, I didn’t write this term, but I said, thank you. Thank you for giving me, sending me that email, because I needed somebody to light a fire under my butt in that moment and just sign the damn thing. And the thing is, is when I signed it, I also had to pay. Now I have skin in the game, and yeah, like you said, the minute you have skin in the game, and you actually have to put out money for this, you better make that thing happen. So it is one way to hold yourself accountable.

Lesley Logan 25:22
And also, like, I am not someone who typically needs an accountability person, but especially if there’s a little bit of fear, especially putting something out there that is a part of you, yes, visibility, but also, like, the feedback that you didn’t ask for from the people you know, like, you can tell yourself a story of like, what it could be and it’s never, it’s never as bad or as good as you think it’s going to be. But there’s that fear, until you put it out there, like, when we started a YouTube channel, I resisted it big time. I’m not going to do a YouTube channel. This is back in like, 2014 my husband’s like, you should do a YouTube channel. I’m like, no, there’s other people who are better teachers than me. They should be doing it, they’ve been teaching longer. I was just downplaying myself. All the excuses. And really, what it came down to is I was so afraid of what people were gonna say about the videos. They’re gonna say I was teaching it wrong or doing it wrong, and so we did some, we put it out there. And you know what happened? Nothing. Because.

Nadine Hanafi 26:17
Plot twist.

Lesley Logan 26:18
Yeah, like, I mean, people watched it, but especially when you’re a new YouTube or a new podcast, like, now if you have a following and a platform to tell people about it, but back then, I had nothing. Instagram was anything. Guys like, I didn’t have anything to share what I was doing on, so I was just waiting for the random people to come across it. And the first thing someone said was, thank you, this is amazing. So, like, we tell ourselves a story that like, oh my God, what if people don’t like it. What if they say anything? And so that’s it. But I do, for the big things that scare me in my business, I do like there has to be some skin in the game, so that I can’t talk myself out of it or procrastinate or tell myself I should do it later, or whatever it is. So I’m excited for your podcast. I can’t wait to listen to it.

Nadine Hanafi 26:56
Oh, thank you.

Lesley Logan 26:57
This is so exciting. Okay, so obviously, your next thing, you’re being it till you see it as the podcast host. Is there anything else that you are working on as far as being it till you see it? Yeah, tell me more.

Nadine Hanafi 27:09
Okay, so with Digital Brand Kit, we are wanting to change the game when it comes to branding. Really, we are innovating in so many ways, and one of the platforms and one of the messages that we want to put out there is that branding can actually help you with your confidence, right? It can help you. We’re all about helping you grow your business from the outside in, which is counterintuitive, because I’ve been talking to you about growing your business from the inside out and like you have to embody the person you want to be, etc, yes. But also, when it comes to branding, there’s a way for you to use branding to show up as the next version of yourself, as I like to say, brand your higher self, right? And we’ve seen this with our clients. We’ve seen it with me and my brand and my business. And when you brand yourself as the business that you want to build, as that seven-figure business, six-figure business, whatever it is. And you show up with that big brand energy, you then, kind of your confidence catches up to that, right?

Lesley Logan 27:09
I mean, it’s a BBE, that’s what you need, guys.

Nadine Hanafi 28:04
That’s right. Your confidence kind of just catches up to that. Because, the way, I mean, there’s something to be said about how people see you, the love that you get, right, the how you are received and perceived, and how you are going to feel and act, right? And if somebody, if you walk into a room and you have a room full of people, who are you know, they know you, they like you, they want to hear from you, they’re eager to learn from you. You’re going to come into it with a completely different sense of confidence than if you walk into a room where nobody knows who you are or they don’t like you. And so branding is really how you’re able to create that perception, create that perception of who you want to be to these people before they even meet you. And make them want to work with you. Make them want to meet you and learn from you, and create like that attractive energy, right?

Lesley Logan 29:10
I think you got to coin BBE, babe. Big Brand Energy. I love it. I love it.

Nadine Hanafi 29:16
I will.

Lesley Logan 29:17
I completely, it’s so true. It’s kind of like it’s an and, right? It’s like you gotta work on yourself for your business to grow, but also you might need to put out into the world what you expect your business to be, so that you can kind of close the gap. And that’s a be it till you see it like, this is the thing I want, I’ll put that out there, and I’m going to get myself developed up to it.

Nadine Hanafi 29:36
Yeah, and what I want to say about that too, is we, maybe seven, eight years ago, we lived in a world, in the online business world, where people could afford to just show up and make, take a lot of massive action and put themselves out there, put their content out there in a very messy, unprofessional I just thought this together last night, way, right, but because they were teaching good stuff and there wasn’t a lot of people teaching this stuff. They would get attention, they would get business. There’s so many people in the online business world now, and there’s a lot of charlatans, and there’s a lot of people who don’t know what they’re talking about. And so if you are somebody who actually knows what you’re talking about, you owe it to yourself to brand yourself as the expert that you are, so that you don’t get mistaken for one of those charlatans who are out there teaching things stuff that they don’t know, just because maybe they have better branding than you, right? And so.

Lesley Logan 30:30
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you owe it to the people you’re here to help to, you know, like.

Nadine Hanafi 30:34
Most importantly.

Lesley Logan 30:35
Not to put pressure on my perfectionist overachievers listening. I see you, but like Daniel Pink said it in an interview I listened to him years ago, and I have never forgotten it. He said, “If what you do takes pain away from someone, solves a problem that they have, you have a moral obligation to make sure it gets to them.” You have moral obligation to sell it to them. It’s actually really freaking selfish of you to keep it to yourself.

Nadine Hanafi 31:01
1,000% oh, my God, I’m so glad you shared that, because I wrote a blog post about this a few weeks ago, about how I overcame my fear of selling, and it was that exact mindset shift. It was somebody who told me, like Nadine, just get over yourself already. This is not about you. This is about all the people that you can help, and the longer you keep, you stay in this fear of showing up and you’re not putting yourself out there, you’re not putting your products out there. You are depriving all these people from the solutions that you could share with them, that could change their businesses. So what are you doing? Get over yourself. And I was like, damn, that’s a good point. Yeah, that’s a mindset shift right there.

Lesley Logan 31:41
Yeah, it really is. Okay, we’re gonna take a brief break. Find out how people can find you, follow you, work with you.

Lesley Logan 31:47
All right, Nadine, if somebody is obsessed and ready to, like, step into their big brand energy, they want you to help them because, my goodness, branding ourselves, it’s not easy, and you’ve already figured it out. So where can people find you, follow you, work with you?

Nadine Hanafi 31:59
Well, if you’re interested in learning more, I’d love to see you over at our Instagram, @digitalbrandkit or my personal Instagram, which is @Nadine.Hanafi, H-A-N-A-F-I, and if you want to check out our full-stack branding system, that’s digitalbrandkit.com.

Lesley Logan 32:15
Awesome. You guys, we’ll have all the links in the notes below, so it’s super easy for you to find everything. And I’m so excited because part of the things we’ve been able to share with our agency members is your amazing kit. And you guys, I normally don’t say this, but I’m going to, we have spent a lot of money as a company on branding and then rebranding things and what you your company has done is figured out a way to make it easy for people to step into that without it being like $10,000. So you do things like, I mean, just amazing how you figure things out. So I just really, really love the work that you put out there. It’s very unique.

Nadine Hanafi 32:21
Thank you. Thank you.

Lesley Logan 32:54
Okay, be it action items, bold, executable, intrinsic target steps people can take to be it till they see it being that big brand energy. What do you got for us?

Nadine Hanafi 33:01
Yeah. So my first piece of advice if you want to brand your higher self is book a photo shoot. So we have beautiful templates. We have beautiful branding templates, yes, but our beautiful branding templates are not going to look nice if you put your old, crappy photos in them, right? You’re gonna need some really nice high-end brand photography. And brand photography isn’t regular photography, isn’t going to a studio and doing three poses and getting these professional headshots that look like passport photos, right? It’s actual branding photos where it’s like you in your natural environment working, assuming your natural environment is a Airbnb you rented for the weekend that’s super stylish and doesn’t look anything like your house. But that’s okay, right? But anyways, creating this library of brand images that are showcasing you in action, working with people, working with your clients, doing work on your laptop, on a whiteboard, whatever it is, is how you’re going to allow people to or create an immersive brand experience. So you know, you’re not your branding, you’re not your beautiful colors and fonts, but when you infuse this beautiful brand photography into it, then it comes to life, right? So I can’t stress enough how important it is to book a professional brand photo shoot and actually do it properly. So you need to get at least 50 solid shots, not three, because you need variety, right? Super important. But that’s one of the biggest things that you can do that is going to help you create that big brand energy very quickly.

Lesley Logan 34:38
I couldn’t agree more. I think, like our business changed when, and I also was able to step into that version of myself when I actually worked with Monica Linda of Girl Squad, you guys know her, but we didn’t use my space. I used her beautiful space. And I was like, oh, my God, people are gonna think this is my living room. No one cared. No one’s like, that’s not your living room. Like, no. I didn’t have a living room, guys, at the time, we didn’t have a living room. Like, people now, all of the stuff we use as my, as my space, but like, it really does make a big difference. And you do want those photos to be the thing that you’re wishing you’re showing up as, and that you would be showing up at someday, because you’ll actually share them. You’ll actually use them. Your website will be the thing that you’re excited to share and send people to, like if you’re embarrassed of the photos you won’t, you won’t use them.

Nadine Hanafi 35:26
And you know, let me share something with you, Lesley, that I did not share with you when we first talked because I didn’t realize it after, until after we talked, Monica, before I worked with her, she shared with me some portfolio images, and one of the images that she shared with me were your photos, and I remember your photos were fabulous. And I remember seeing your photos, and I think I asked her even I said, is she a model? Because your photos were just so good. You’re so poised, and they’re so fun and original. And I just remember, because that was before I worked with here, I was like, oh, I can’t wait to have, like, nice, professional images like this, too, and that stayed with me, like, you looked amazing, and you gave off that big brand energy, big time in your photos.

Lesley Logan 35:26
Yeah, and you know, thank you, and also like.

Nadine Hanafi 35:29
You’re welcome.

Lesley Logan 35:30
Here is, here’s a little tip, guys, laugh out loud, actually, like, make yourself laugh. It, it makes the smile have energy to it, versus, like, right?

Nadine Hanafi 36:23
So true.

Lesley Logan 36:24
Like, there’s a whole different energy that comes out of it. And so that is my big tip on a fun photo. Like a fun energetic photo is like, laugh out loud.

Nadine Hanafi 36:33
Authentic.

Lesley Logan 36:34
Yes. And I also like to go back, Monica is a branding photographer. I want to highlight you said that a branding photographer is very different than your family photo shoot, than, like, you know, because they do get, but nowadays, you guys, there are these crazy places where people have staged photo rooms, like, here in Vegas, I used one the other day just to get five pictures for our flashcard deck redone. And I walked in, there was like a floral wall. There was a little room that looked like an office, like it was $100 an hour, and you had like, eight different stages that were already set up. And I was like, oh, I can be in a phone booth right now.

Nadine Hanafi 37:08
That’s right, that’s right. No, it’s super important. And I can’t stress that enough, because I’m explaining this to people all the time. Look, what is the difference between brand photography and regular photography? You want brand photography and you want to see what that looks like, we have a blog post at digitalbrandkit.com which is about like how to plan your photo shoot, exactly our most opened email newsletter that we sent, how to plan your photoshoot like a pro. And in it, we have these examples of how to organize your shot lists, which is a very, very handy tool that most photographers will do for you, but not all of them do. So it’s good if you can be proactive and create your own shot list. So go find that blog post on our website to learn more about how to plan your shots.

Lesley Logan 37:52
Oh my God, yes. And if you’ll send me that link, we’ll also put it in the show notes, because that is an essential thing. I can get way more photos than what they said was in the contract because I’m organized.

Nadine Hanafi 38:03
That’s right, that’s exactly what I did. I basically 10x how many photos I was able to get out of my last photo shoot because I was so organized, and my photographer loved me. She’s like, I’m literally just checking boxes.

Lesley Logan 38:14
Yep, yep. That’s exactly what you need to do. We could go on and on for hours. You are so amazing. I’m so grateful for you, and I’m grateful that we got to meet, and thank you for sharing so generously your stories about your life and growing your business and what branding is. You guys, how are you going to use these tips in your life? Let Nadine know, let the Be It Pod know, share this with a friend who’s struggling with their business and just kind of like trying to figure things out, this might be the thing they need to get out of their own way and maybe show up with that big brand energy. All right, love, until next time. Be It Till You See It.

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Lesley Logan
That’s all I’ve got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate this show and leave a review. And, follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over on IG at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!

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Lesley Logan
‘Be It Till You See It’ is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @be_it_pod.

Brad Crowell
It’s written, filmed and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan
It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell
Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music and our branding by designer and artist Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan
Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell
Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.