🫶 Is It Time to Hire a Designer for Your Brand?

If you've ever found yourself spending too much time on DIY design for your growing business, struggling with inconsistent branding, or feeling that your visuals don't reflect the type of clients you're aiming to work with, then this episode is for you!

Today, I'll discuss a pivotal moment in your business journey–knowing when it's the right time to hire a designer regularly. Don't stress though, I don't necessarily mean a full-time graphic designer on staff, but how by investing in consistent graphic design services you can transform your brand.

Highlights:

• When to consider hiring a designer for your business
• Benefits of professional design services vs. DIY or VA solutions
• How consistent, strategic branding can drive engagement and growth

Also as mentioned in the episode if you're ready to take this next step and work with a designer in 2025, we have limited design packages available. Head over to our website or send an email to hello@thefearlessdesigner.com to get on the waitlist.

x Morgan
 
Connect with me:

• Follow The Fearless Designer on Instagram
  @the.fearless.designer
  
  
• Head to The Fearless Designer Website for more info
  www.thefearlessdesigner.com.au

Transcript

Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Fearless Designer podcast. I'm your host, Morgan. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm always so grateful and so thankful that you're here listening to me talk about all things branding and design. But I've had such a great last few weeks. I ran my very first how to Design a Fearless Brand workshop two weeks ago.

It's the first one since COVID and oh my gosh, I had such a great time. I had the perfect mix of business owners in the room. We got to chat about all through things, why, why we're in business, why we're doing it, and we got to sound off each other and understand how we're going to grow our businesses coming into the future and also how our brands are going to look. So I feel like I've just, I'm still riding the high from that and ah, yeah, it's just so fulfilling. So I'm really looking forward to chatting to you today about something that I have also been talking to with a number of my clients. And it is all around when is the right time to hire a designer to come in and work on a regular basis in your business. So just to get one thing straight, I'm not meaning that you need to hire a full time graphic designer in your business now or in the future. What I'm talking to is the idea of investing more regularly in graphic design services, whether that is a designer or a agency that comes in and does 10 hours a month in your business, or Maybe they do 15 hours a month.

Very similar to what a social media manager would do where you outsource that. The designer would be kind of in charge of creating your ongoing graphics and brand development and work with you ongoing to push your strategy and develop the things that you need to do to grow your business in the future. Hello and welcome to the Fearless Designer podcast. I'm your host, Morgan McDonald, aka the fearless designer, and I'm here to help you embrace your fears, level up your visual brand and take your business to fearless new heights. For two decades, I've worked with business owners just like you, designing brands that are bold, consistent and authentic. I've lived a profesh corporate life as a graphic designer and I've also spent the last 13 years running my own brand and graphic design business. So whether you're running a six or seven figure business, craving a brand refresh, or just ready to add a little more wow to your visuals, I got you. Each week we'll dive into fearless brand strategies, design tips you actually can use live brand audits and interviews with fellow business owners who have dared to do things differently.

So if you're ready to stop playing small, take control of your brand and lead with confidence, you're in the right place. Let's go. So I know this is a really huge step, massive leap to make, and it might be something that you have planned for the next 12 months, two years, three years. But I wanted just to have this conversation with you as your fearless mate, Morgan, giving you all the insider insights in into why bringing a designer into your team might be just the best step for your business, particularly if you're wanting to scale and grow significantly in the future. All right, let's take a moment to check in and see where your business is right now. Let's take a moment, let's take a breath. I'm going to ask you some questions and a few ponderings around where you could be actually at in your business. And if you find that you're nodding your head and thinking yes, I resonate.

This might be the telltale sign that you actually probably need to bring on a designer more permanently into your business. So first of all, are you spending time tweaking graphics and visuals more than focusing on strategic growth? Maybe just think about how much time do you actually spend creating your own artworks and graphics in canva? Like, are you making adjustments to things that you've outsourced to your va? Are you caught up in those details? Rather than focusing on your growth strategies or bringing in new clients or developing new products, is your current brand image consistent across all platforms? Just think of how your brand looks. Are they feeling cohesive or are they disjointed or mismatched? I often find that the website is the ugly system. Most people can't get their website looking really consistent with their social media. This is often because it is quite easy and quick to post on social media, where a website, if you've had it designed externally, maybe you can't access it, maybe you don't actually know how to do it yourself. Sometimes this disjointedness can actually confuse your audience, especially if they're clicking directly from social media onto a website and they're just not looking similar or cohesive. Are you regularly needing to launch new services or products or events that need professional branding? If you're constantly adding new offers or launching programs or hosting events or whatever, each one of these needs their own visual identity, but they all need to tie back to your core brand. We need them to still feel really fresh though, but really connected.

So Without a professional designer, sometimes it's really hard to be able to do this yourself or brief your VA to do it, and it often leads to really rushed, inconsistent designs. Have you outgrown DIY design solutions like Canva? Maybe they're not capturing your brand essence anymore. Sometimes they can be really fantastic for startups, but as your brand grows, you might feel like you no longer need the template. You want more sophistication, you want more uniqueness, you want stuff that's like quintessentially yours. And the DIY approach doesn't quite capture that professional vibe that you're aiming for. Do you need a visual presence that reflects the higher caliber of clients that you're trying to attract? If your business has evolved and you're now targeting higher end clients, maybe your visual branding isn't reflecting that shift. This is a big one for me too. Am I asking or are you asking a VA or team members to handle design tasks that might require a professional touch? Maybe you currently delegate design work to your VA and you're noticing that the results are a little bit hit or miss.

You feel like the final product doesn't quite match your vision, you end up having to jump in and make those tweaks and you just end up posting it anyway because it needed to get done. And finally, do I have a plan for long term brand consistency or am I flying by the seat of my pants on a need only basis? Maybe your designs are more reactive than strategic. If you are creating visuals as the need arises without a cohesive plan, you're likely missing opportunities to reinforce your brand message. So that's a hefty list. But if you've nodded along or gone, yep, that was me or that's me at the moment. As I've walked you through any of those questions, I'm here to tell you that you are probably most likely, most definitely ready to take the step towards working with a designer who gets to know your brand, your audience, and can bring a consistent and beautiful look to everything that you put out on a regular basis. So as a graphic designer that works with a number of fearless brands on a regular basis, there is quite a lot of artwork that needs to be created very regularly, like monthly for these businesses. They could be things like a slide deck for a particular presentation or keynote, pull up banners, flyers, matching social media to go with all of those things, podcast artworks that are coming out weekly.

There could be YouTube graphics, there could be just general baseline social media posts, updating websites. There could be, there's just so much that falls under the banner of design and graphics. And unfortunately, once we get to a certain level in our business, we don't actually have the time or capacity to be creating these ourselves. So I'm going to give you some of my top benefits as to how a designer will actually help you create a really great, strong, standout brand for your business. So, first of all, it's the most obvious one. It's consistency. If you have all your visuals aligned, they're all cohesive, the strategy's on point, we're talking, everything's the Same on Instagram, LinkedIn, website, emails, everything, then your brand is going to build trust and recognition and your audience will start to see you and feel you as a recognizable and memorable brand. They will connect the dots between your colors and when you use them on your social media and when you use them in your emails, they will understand that your brand vibe is this.

They will understand when they go to your events and they see you and they see your pitch deck that everything looks really beautiful and cohesive. Now that really ticks my box. As a designer, I love everything matching, but we can push the boundaries on things too. Different products may look a different way, but we have a strategy behind it. A VA can help with graphics in a pinch, but a designer really creates the visual language that reinforces your brand everywhere. You show up every time. And the next benefit, which I probably don't need to point out, is time and energy. When you are the standout expert leader of your business, you don't have time to create graphics in Canva.

You don't have time to be creating your podcast artworks. Every hour you spend trying to find the right shade of blue or tweaking a layout or picking a font is taking you away from something that you love and that earns you money. So having a designer in your corner, having someone regularly popping into your business and understanding how your brand is working and looking and feeling, that means you don't have to do that. So I just think that the time and headspace gained from outsourcing, this is, it's just so important. One of the biggest benefits for me is strategic branding, not just pretty graphics. So this is a big one. This is all about strategy. A designer working with you ongoing isn't just going to make things look good.

They're going to think about how each visual will impact your brand's growth. They know what resonates with your audience, what makes a scroll stopping moment on social media, and they will design with purpose. A designer just doesn't know how to make things look nice, but they know how to make it look effective and purposeful. So if you're really aiming for growth, that strategic approach can make all the difference. So essentially, once we start developing this really strong and bold and stand out design language in your graphics and your website and everything, you are going to see some outcomes like this. So you're going to see a recognizable brand that stands out. People are going to know who you are, they're going to see your colors, they're going to know and recognize your visuals instantly. You're going to build stronger engagement and more conversions because you're going to be showing up with professional, consistent visuals that people will notice.

And your designs are going to be really well thought out and cohesive. So that is going to lead to the more engagement and more conversions and people like you in business, just the peace of mind. Knowing that your brand is good in good hands is priceless. So just imagine knowing that every time you need a new social media graphic or a presentation or an event flyer, you don't have to stress, you don't have to wonder if it's going to look on brand or how you're going to make it work. You are going to outsource that to someone that is going to give you exactly what you need. Just on that though, I just want to add a little tidbit in. Graphic designers are people too. We interpret instructions differently sometimes to the way you think.

But the way I love to look with it with my clients is that communication is so important as well as honesty is so important as well as the ability to be yourself is so important. So as long as there's a two way street going on with the relationship with your designer and you can have front conversations where you can give feedback and they can give feedback, it is going to be a really beneficial relationship for the both of you. All right, I'm going to pop this one in here as well. Your VA isn't the right choice for long term design work. Don't get me wrong. VAs are absolutely amazing for so many things. They keep us organized, they handle the day to day. They can even update content for us.

All of that is so important. But they are not designers. VAs can help with small occasional graphics, but they don't have the background in design principles, branding or strategy to keep everything aligned. Relying on a VA for design is like using a bandaid. It might work in a pinch, but it is not a long term solution. A dedicated designer isn't just handling tasks, they're curating an experience, and that's what your brand deserves as it grows. So let's bring this thing full circle. If you're at the stage where you're ready to show up bigger, you're ready to be seen, and you're ready to stand out, hiring a designer is your next step.

You'll get consistency, more time and energy, and the peace of mind knowing that your brand is showing up strong. You'll also see the impact in your engagement, in how people connect with you, and ultimately, in business growth. Remember, it's just not about doing everything yourself. It's about bringing in people that can help you show up confidently, beautifully and authentically. Your brand deserves to be seen and remembered, and a designer is the one who can make that happen. So that's it for today's episode. I hope you're feeling really inspired and empowered to think about what's next in your brand's growth. Whether you're tired of spending time on DIY design or just feeling the need to up level, it might be the perfect time to work into your timeline.

When would be the right time to bring a designer into your team? And if you're feeling ready to take that next step, the fearless designer in 2025 is offering a very limited number of design packages per month to very select clients to work with them on an ongoing basis to create beautiful graphic and design solutions for their businesses. Ongoing. So if that's something that you might be interested in, please send an email to hellohefeelist designer.com or head to our website where you can register on the waitlist to be contacted and hopefully work together with us very, very soon. Thank you so much again for joining me. I have really loved bringing you this episode and I can't wait for you to join me again very soon. Thanks guys. And that's it for today's episode of the Fearless Designer podcast. I hope you're feeling really inspired, fired up and ready to go make some bold moves with your brand.

If you love today's episode, don't forget to hit the subscribe button button so that you never miss a dose of fearless branded goodness. And if you're feeling extra generous, drop us a review. It just helps more fearless legends like you find this podcast. If you've got any ideas or questions for future EPS, please slide into my DMs or send me an email. I would love to hear from you. And until next time, keep being bold, keep being fearless and remember your brand is your superpower. So go out there and dare to be different Bye.