Episode 10: Nicole of Rising Tide Design Co.
After spending a decade in Boston-based advertising agencies leading brand and growth strategies for regional and national companies, Nicole Hart founded Rising Tide Co. Design Studio. Raised by entrepreneurs herself, Nicole decided to translate her experience to benefit local, female-led creative businesses. Today, Nicole's team is hand-crafting brands and websites that are equal parts strategy and soul to help local businesses create connection and profit.
HER BACKGROUND
Nicole talks of her experience working for branding agencies focused on creating brand strategy and design as well as creating tactical strategic growth upgrade retention programs. She would describe her career in advertising as having to play on the left and right side brains of marketing the strategic and beautiful and tactical aspects of marketing. She explained that it challenged and evolved many ideas for her but that she ultimately wanted to start focusing these strategies and her skills to entrepreneurs.
SHIFTING INTO ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Nicole talks about a lesson that she learned that helped her transition to her role as a freelancer. She speaks to finding the next lily pad and that entrepreneurship is very similar in that you need to find the next lily pad to jump to where you can arrive safely, look around where you need to go next and that for her, the next step was to start doing freelance work on the side developing websites and creating brands and doing that enough that it could sustain her life for herself and her family. Finding her first clients was very much reaching out to friends and family and beginning to understand the processes that she needed to put in place to get started. She also speaks to the pressure of having to validate the choice that you’ve made but giving yourself grace in the process.
ON WORKING FOR YOURSELF
Nicole talks about knowing that the only limitation to her success is herself. She had reached a point in her advertising career where she knew there was limited opportunity for her to grow and she loves that the only thing that can stop her is her. She finds it extremely motivating and freeing that she can pursue a life that she wants to create and live. We also discuss her least favorite part of entrepreneurship which she says is self doubt but she continually goes back to the why.
ON GROWTH
We discuss how Liz started to grow her business and add members to her team. She spoke to simply being so tired that she knew she needed to outsource. She talks to having that moment in your business where you know you can’t go on in the same way and speaks to the importance of still being able to have fun in your business and if you start to lose that it is time to seek help. She focused on hiring out in the parts of her business in the areas that she personally least enjoyed. Liz talks about how podcasting and business mentorship are some of her favorite aspects of her business. We also discuss her least favorite part which is spending time on email.
ON BRANDING
Nicole and I nerd out talking about branding. Nicole stresses that branding done successfully creates love. She discusses that if you love your branding, you know. You’re excited to look at it and excited to hand out your business cards but if it has a cohesive look across all channels your customers will love it too because it starts to feel familiar and feel like home. We talk about how personal branding is and that as a business owner you should be a part of your brand and that doing a deep dive into why you started and what you hope your customers will achieve and what the value is that you bring to them can reveal so much. By distilling that all down into your brand and messaging brings it all to life.
WHY A BRAND IS MORE THAN JUST A LOGO
Nicole uses the analogy that if Starbucks was just a logo you wouldn’t be spending $4 on a latte every day. The brand comes through in the design of their stores, the materials you receive, in the app and digital experiences. She explains that a brand is built on touch points and that if you aren’t paying attention to every interaction that your customer has with your brand then you are leaving opportunity on the table. We discuss that sometimes you need a minimum viable product so you can get started somewhere and that if you can’t invest initially don’t hesitate to reach out and barter or swap services.
OPT-INS AND LEAD GEN
Nicole talks about viewing opt-ins as a first date for your business. You’re giving your business the opportunity to show off it’s best self. She asks her own clients what they could go on talking about and how they can add value to someone fairly easily to make them want to continue the conversation. We also discuss having hesitancy to give away value for free. Nicole talks about the metric that a consumer’s email is worth $10 and in understanding that value she thinks about lead gen is what value you are providing in exchange for that email that is worth at least $10. As a consumer there has to be an inherent value to drive that behavior. Nicole decided to offer free website audits because it allows her to focus on changes that are really valuable for potential clients.
CREATING BRANDING OR COLLATERAL WITHOUT A DESIGNER
We discuss the need for clients to be able to take their brand materials and run with them. Nicole suggests canva as a wonderful resource that is extremely user friendly and gives you access to a lot of design tools and templates. We discuss being able to take existing templates and brand them accordingly. We also discuss Etsy as a great resource in looking for templates or branding collateral as well as Creative Market.
ON GETTING TO KNOW SOMEONE BEFORE YOU HIRE THEM
We talk about the importance of clients getting to know you before you are hired as their designer. Nicole touches on the depth of the relationship and how much work goes into developing a brand that is driven by someone's story and passion for their business. The depth of that relationship is so much more than picking colors and that to collaborate and share that way you have to be really comfortable with one another. Nicole always does an intake call in order to feel one another out and see if it would be a good match and to see if what they need from a designer is something that she can provide but that it all starts by connecting as people.
ON LETTING CLIENTS GET TO KNOW YOU
Nicole and I discuss ideas for how to let clients get to know YOU on your own website or through social. Nicole loves videos and faq sessions and suggests engaging your audience through polls and using stories to share authentically pieces of you and your day in order to create connections for your business. More formally on your website having video content and allowing people to see your face and hear your voice adds so much value.
SOULFUL BRANDING
Nicole started a soulful branding facebook group as a meeting place for experts in marketing as well as entrepreneurs who need to speak to those experts sharing advice and tips and answering questions, sharing inspiration and support.
RISING TIDE DESIGN CO.
Nicole talks about what is coming down the pipeline for Rising Tide Design Co. They are working on updating their own brand as well as working on some new Showit templates that are launching that are specifically for coaches with more coming on the way.
Book Club Recommendations: Glennon Doyle, Untamed
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