The need to write this blog post came unexpectedly this year. One that was I not expecting to write anytime soon. The idea of a business rebrand was something that I thought would happen five years from now. It wasn’t a goal for me.
Not this year. Not even close.
As mentioned in my LinkedIn and Instagram accounts, I felt I had experienced some setbacks in the spring, which I knew was normal. Initially, I thought it was something I could bounce back from, get back on the horse again and keep on plugging away.
Instead, I had lost all motivation doing what I had been doing for the past couple of years (consulting in social media + blogging and blogging workshops). I had no desire to get back on that particular horse. Which leads to me to one of six reasons why your business may need a rebrand.
1. You Have No More Motivation To Run Your Business The Way It’s Currently Being Run
In the past, every time I hit a slump, I would find a way to get motivated again and work toward my goals.
I didn’t realize it back then in the spring but I was bored. Even when potential opportunities presented themselves, I rejected them initially or was secretly thankful when it didn’t end up working out.
I wasn’t really sure what was going on at that point, but all I knew was that I didn’t want to do the same thing anymore. Something needed to change.
2. Your Energy Is Shifting and Going In a Different Direction
My energy and enthusiasm for blog and social media consulting had gone down the drain. The idea of facilitating a blogging workshop no longer lit a fire in my belly.
My biggest fear came true.
I had lost my passion for my business.
New passions were surfacing/old passions were re-emerging. Strange as this may seem, I felt as if I was cheating on my business when I had all these new bursts of energy working on different projects:
- Launching The Bacon Bits ‘n’ Bytes Podcast
- Co-founding The Kaibigan Connection Community and having its first event last month
- Being a co-author for Fitness to Freedom and Lighting the North
- Taking on the position as lead author for The Defining Digital Moment
All of these projects needed a lot of my time and energy in the beginning. They presented different challenges and continue to do so, on many levels. Not only that, they require an ongoing commitment.
But they EXCITE me. Despite the challenges. Because it’s something new. I am learning new and different things, gaining new skills.
Read this: I am not bored when I work on these projects.
Just like how the blog became a passion project to escape the monotony of my 9 to 5, perhaps the aforementioned endeavours became the passion projects necessary for me to escape the boredom I was feeling with my business. They were paving the way so I could initiate the process to rebrand.
3. Your Mission Statement/ Your Purpose Has Changed
The more I thought about it, the more people I talked to, my purpose had evolved into something bigger.
4. Your Target Demographic Has Changed
I found myself being wanting to learn more about a different demographic and how I could attract them, help them.
5. You Don’t See a Future/ You Can’t See Long-Term With The Current State Of Your Business
You know when people get excited about all the new things they’re working on for their business? That wasn’t me. As sad as it was, the way things were currently running, I couldn’t see a future anymore, even with the ideas I had with my current business plan. I couldn’t envision what the business would be like next year, let alone five years.
And the new directions I could take my business in? I saw the potential. I saw the scalability.
I had spent so much time, effort, and money creating a brand that people loved and recognized and now here I was at a crossroads. I’m sure many business owners feel this way when they have to rebrand. You end up becoming so attached to your brand that it becomes hard to let go, hard to let it evolve.
6. The Logo Doesn’t Fit Anymore
Before we get into it, I need to stress that your logo isn’t your brand. But it is part of the visuals for your brand. The Makinthebacon logo has been around for over 4 years. I love my logo and I know many of you do too. I wear it proudly on my t-shirts and have a sticker of it on my Macbook. However, the current state of the logo is not representative of what I’d like the rebrand to portray.
At this point, I can’t say if I’m just going to tweak the logo a bit or change it entirely. All I know is that it needs to be changed.
Conclusion:
So I wrote this blog post to announce the rebrand of Makinthebacon, which is scheduled to happen sometime during the Fall of 2019. With that being said, I will not be publishing any new blog posts for the time being, unless they’re podcast-related. As I write this, I’m kind of torn between two directions I want to take it (they’re kind of intertwined, but I think it’s better to just focus on one of them).
I’m also feeling overwhelmed (re-branding your business is not something to be taken lightly. It requires a lot of research and planning prior to execution) and scared that it won’t turn out the way I was expecting to or it could fail, but hey good things never came from comfort zones.
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