Hey Reader,
We’re halfway through the year tomorrow—and that halfway mark just so happens to land on my birthday. So the mid-year reset always hits a little deeper for me, since it’s also the start of a new year of life.
Honestly, it has been a weird year for me so far.
It hasn’t gone as expected or planned in a lot of ways—especially when it comes to work.
After spending the majority of my fourth year in business repositioning and relaunching/testing all of my offers, I entered the new year with a big ol’ chip on my shoulder because I still hadn’t relaunched my own website. I felt (and knew) it was holding me back—especially when it came to having important data for my brand.
Q1’s plans kind of went to hell in a handbasket the moment I fell shoulder-first—skis up—and broke my humerus in five places. That meant an extra three weeks directly after my holiday break when I could barely work, and another four weeks working one-handed.
What I thought would be a year of carefully planned launches and content turned into something much different.
As my fiancé’s business took off, my role at home—and helping him—needed to look a little different. I couldn’t drive, so midday trips to Home Depot to get Kyle’s work materials became the norm—just so I could get out of the house in the dead of a Buffalo winter. Plus, I had 2–3 doctor and PT appointments per week, not to mention planning a wedding.
My time was becoming harder and harder to manage, but I was honestly just rolling with the punches and dedicating every spare moment/bit of energy I had to getting my website published—which I did on March 9th (my first and only real “launch” so far this year).
By the time Q2 rolled around, physically I was independent again—and the theme really became leaning into that independence and recharging my creative battery because it felt so drained after back-to-back client launches preceding my website. I was inspired by Fran from Passions Collective and Maia Benaim to challenge how I viewed my work week and my time.
I began to experiment—first with my Friday Hike Club (taking a couple of hours off for myself each week), and then by the time June rolled around, taking Fridays off completely for the month.
(The inspiration for these time experiments was 100% Fran.)
But—with the exception of this newsletter—since the day I hit publish on my new site, my own brand has been on the back burner.
I wish I could say that going into Q3 I have the perfect strategy—especially because I know it will quite possibly stretch my creative capacity and visibility more than any season before.
But maybe that’s why I don’t have the perfect strategy (at least not yet—probably ever).
What I do have is a super simple strategy.
And in this week’s newsletter, I’m going to break down exactly what I learned from my mid-year brand reset.
I’ll be doing my two Brand Management Retainer clients’ mid-year brand resets this week, and I’m so excited to see what comes from resetting three very different brands with the same process (I’ve done theirs the last two quarters, but this is the first time I’ve done mine too!).
If you’ve been following along with the mid-year brand reset in my last few newsletters, you can now get the whole process packaged in with my Brand Roadmap Notion Dash—so you can not only reset your brand, but have everything you need to put the plan you come up with into action.
I used the exact process I mapped out in Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 of this newsletter series to come up with the following findings and strategies for Q3.
Let’s dive in.
What I learned from my Mid-Year Brand Reset
Things I sensed, but the data verified
- Clicks on my newsletter are up — and the newsletter is my healthiest channel, which makes sense because it’s my most consistent.
- The Studio Session page got the most attention on my site. I’ve been linking to it the most often, so this makes sense, but I was surprised to learn that it gets the longest engagement time of all the pages on my website (meaning viewers spend more time scrolling this page than any other page).
- Still, my last 3 Studio Sessions clients have come from referrals (which is fine/great), but I want to learn how I can make this page convert better in Q3.
New realizations:
Long-form, teaching-led content was the best performing
I feel like this is my voice, but this was “off trend” for so long that I was always trying to find the perfect formula to make it more digestible. As I’ve worked through Creative Living and on finding that voice again, the data itself reflects that it is working.
After hanging with my friend and SEO educator Mariah Magazine in May and talking about content creation, giving value openly, and teaching something for free just because you think it is worth teaching—and trusting that the right people will come when the time is right for them (which she does so well in her newsletter, YouTube, and more)—I was inspired to just teach without worrying about “giving too much away.”
My most engaged traffic comes from search & social — not direct
My plans for the Summer CCO Week were already to beef up my site’s SEO + get the blog up (and the three blogs that have been written for 6+ months now) — this data reinforces that it’s a smart use of my time and a visibility-builder.
What didn’t work in Q2
- My email list isn’t growing right now — a 7-week gap (talked about it here) lost me some momentum, but it has since recovered. Still, with newsletter and email list growth being one of my main goals this year, I want to address this in Q3.
- My 404 page is getting a lot of traffic, and I think I know why/how to fix it — I just need to go fix it.
Accomplished in Q2
- Re-found my long-form voice and newsletter cadence
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Delivered retainer and project work for 6 brands, including:
- an author
- a farm winery
- a malt house
- an SEO educator
- a nutritionist
- a nonprofit organization
- Planned, funded, and hosted my bridal shower; had my sister, brothers-in-law, and nephews in town; and took 19 of our best friends to the Adirondacks for a 4-day coed Bach weekend
- Completed 10 hikes in 12 weeks
- Started strength training on my own again after graduating from PT, and have gotten myself up to 3 sessions a week — aiming for 4 in Q3
Focusing on in Q3
-
July CCO Week — addresses the need for time to publish blogs and update SEO
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Doing it live not only keeps up my own accountability, but as a free resource it can help with growing that email list
- I should set a goal for how many people I want to participate in the live CCO Week, but I’m concerned about failing.
- Repurposing long-form content into other forms of content — especially carousels
- Leaning back into learning. After a time when I really didn’t want any inputs, I’m craving reading again — especially on Substack — and watching a lot more educational stuff on YouTube. Summer curriculum, here I come.
- Being creative for no reason. Damn, did art school ruin me (in some ways). I want to finish a painting for a reason — but I also want to regain the permission within myself to create with nothing attached to it. It’s not a gift. It’s not for the wedding. It’s just for me.
- My goal is to book 5 more Studio Sessions this summer. I have a birthday promo planned out for these (keep an eye on your inbox tomorrow), and it has been a while since I’ve really attached a number to my goal for booking (since my big Brand Brushstrokes launch last spring — honestly, ugh, I miss her! I really think I may have to launch her again next!). That worked so well — plus, 5 is one of my favorite numbers, so I’m really pumped about that goal.
- I also want to book my October 1:1 design project spot by the 6-week mark into Q3, and I already have a disco call on the books for it.
After finishing my mid-year brand reset, I needed to take what I learned and put it to work. I was able to map out a Studio Sessions launch while keeping it as simple and as low-lift as possible, including strategies based on my data + my own notes and insights that referrals and rebookings continue to be a major driver in my business. I’m focusing the bulk of my efforts for that in the short term and on the most engaged sector of my audience I already have.
But AI couldn’t do that for me — that is where being a brand strategist comes in.
That’s where creative problem solving, imagination, and human context come in.
I had to do some back and forth for these strategies to totally make sense for me — the first draft wasn’t quite right, neither was the second, I had notes for the third — and by the fourth back and forth, I felt like it had gotten where I wanted it to go.
I am actively working on working less in this season — but making the most of the time and content I do have. That is the strategy I need in this season. And I know a lot of you can relate.
I haven’t spent these last few weeks talking about doing a mid-year brand reset just to give you another thing on your to-do list to stress about.
We all have enough of those.
And in the short term — yeah, this is another thing on your to-do list — but it is also something that is going to help you discern what should and shouldn’t be on that to-do list for the rest of this season.
It helps you to really understand what is going on behind the scenes of your brand.
- Separate from the emotion.
- Separate from what your coach is telling you to do because it worked for them.
- Separate from what I am doing for my brand.
If you get to the end of Pt. 2 of the brand reset and you still don’t love the strategies you are coming up with, remember: Context is important! The notes & reflections from Pt. 1 of the Brand Reset are what make the strategy your own, including:
- Where your clients actually come from. Analytics can't see referrals, DMs, word-of-mouth, or “we met at a thing.” If that's where your business comes from, the AI will credit the wrong channels unless you say so. Example: “Most of my bookings this year came from referrals, not my site or email — factor that in when you tell me what's working.”
- What's in flight that the numbers don't show yet. Pending payments, invoices sent but unpaid, etc.
- Your real offers, prices, and the order people move through them. Otherwise, its “strategy” runs on guessed numbers. Example: “Here are my offers, prices, and how clients usually progress from one to the next…”
One of the most important parts of the Brand Reset process is in the second prompt of Pt. 1, where you describe what your season of business looks like based on your own capacity. I spent YEARS always setting the bar way too high for myself for the time I had, and I still struggle with setting reasonable expectations for myself. When putting your Brand Strategy hat on, you have to make sure things are actionable and attainable. The data helps you figure out where to get the most bang for your buck with the time you have.
