Watch This Episode of MwahTV About Michelle's Brand Overhaul
If you're contemplating your own brand overhaul right now in your business, then you're probably going to find this episode really inspirational. See exactly how I did it with a client, Michelle Lucherini. Let's get you all inspired up and ready to formulate some of your own ideas.
Let's go!
My Last Shoot With Michelle
we featured Michelle before here on Mwah TV and that was way back in September 2018 when we shot these gorgeous nature-inspired brand photographs together. You can skip back and see what we did then here.
What Prompted Michelle's BIG brand Overhaul?
Now Michelle's business has experienced major growth since we last did that turbo session together a few years ago and I think that's the main result of Michelle choosing to niche her business down. She realised quickly that she was doing a little bit too much of everything for not the same sort of client and she wanted to bring that niche into more of her zone of genius who has a real operational focus to it.
Breakthrough into Focussed Action Taking
As soon as she had this breakthrough, Michelle meticulously gathered the right client after the right client to build up a solid client base of people who had similar-sized businesses in very different industries, but they all had the same need for operational expertise. And one of the things that she uses to define this audience is that the business owner must identify strongly as a visionary.
Her New PERFECT Client
They all have quite a clear and ambitious date in mind of when they want to hit that seven-figure turnover mark in their businesses. Michelle even evolved the way that she delivers her services, and she moved her business to a retainer-based setup. So, she defines a clear-cut project with her clients, it could be multiple years long, by the way, but then because she has a very clear end goal in mind, she can then work with the client over a long period of time to help turn their visionary ideas into actual reality.
Behind-The-Scenes
Now in this time of flux in Michelle's business, we have also changed roles with each other quite a bit as well. I have myself experienced some really good operational focus sessions with Michelle and I do that on a one-off basis when I hit clear milestones in my own goals for my business. I honestly highly recommend them; they really provide value for money.
I've also been involved with Michelle behind the scenes to help her come up with the right type of brand strategy for her business so that when we got to the point of doing a brand overhaul, everything that we needed to make key decisions about was made on solid strategy. It made this whole process a really enjoyable experience, for me, for the other creatives involved and especially for Michelle.
From This...
Michelle decided to keep her brand name, Michelle Lucherini, but with the shift into a more focused business that appeals to the highly ambitious visionary, Michelle wanted to increase the perception of sophistication about what she does, and it was important that we position her as the pragmatic BFF to these types of business owners.
We enlisted the help of Cheryl Laidlaw, AKA, the London Web Girl. She helped encapsulate the reimagined brand in a graphic way as well as overhaul Michelle's website.
Planning The Photoshoot
Taking the graphical expertise that Cheryl brought to the table, made planning this shoot a total breeze. It really was a blissful operation, I had every single piece of information that I could possibly need to help me inform how we do this in a visual, photographic way. I was delighted to learn that Michelle had transformed her own living room at her home, and she said that it was her new on-brand living room.
Location
She had been so inspired by the work that had been going on in her business, that she decided to redecorate her own living room in the same sort of style. This made it really easy for us to find a safe space that we could control while following lockdown measures and make sure that everything indoors was weatherproof, but also that there was enough variation to mix up the way that this shoot came out.
Poses & Body Language
To top this off, I made sure that I had a really strong shot list of very pragmatic and quite domineering style poses so that when I was directing Michelle, we were getting across that pragmatic BFF factor in the way that she's holding herself in the final images.
Here's what happened on shoot day!
Shoot Day
LAURA: First stop today, coffee. (laughing)
First set done with that sort of background and now we're doing some outfit changes and repeating it and then we're going to move on to this white wall here next.
You'd be surprised how much we've got out of this one little corner with Michelle. We've had the big chair here, that's behind Rosie the Reflector, then we brought in the white chair and now we've changed the setting a little bit through some bits and pieces and Michelle's going to be sitting right there.
That's the first bit over. What did you think Michelle?
MICHELLE: It was a nightmare! She thinks she's Francis Ford Coppola or something (laughing)
LAURA: What a diva, eh?
That's a wrap.
An ultra-quick preview here.
You can see we've got 577 images. (reel clicking)
Ahh, I'm going as fast as I can. (reel clicking)
Tonnes, she's got tonnes of images.
Our Wrap Chat
LAURA: So Michelle, let's pick up where we last left off. We did a shoot a couple of years ago, but you've had so much change in your business. Let’s catch everyone up on what's happened.
MICHELLE: Yeah, so back then, the brand was all about, it was still about growing the business, but it was much more marketing focused and so we went out into the forest and the trees and we had the whole earthy vibe going on and really over the past 18 months, I've really focused down and realised from working with some of my one-to-one clients, what I was really great at offering was operational consultancy and support at a much more strategic level. We've really been honing that over the last 18 months and made my business more sophisticated, Up levelled it a bit.
Making Changes
LAURA: You've changed your client base quite a lot. Who are your ideal clients compared to what we talked about last time?
MICHELLE: Yeah, so now I'm really focused in on, they're either wanting to scale and grow an agency or they're high-ticket consultancy service provider type business that is really into the, they're already quite multiple six-figure businesses, but they're really clear, focused, driven and that they want to get to that seven-figure, that one million turnover mark.
LAURA: And you integrate yourself into their already established team, so how do you do that? You must have so many different teams that you're part of.
MICHELLE: Yeah, it is-
LAURA: How'd you do that? (laughing)
How Does She Do It?
MICHELLE: Lord knows, that's a joke because I have five different inboxes, I'm the Operations Manager labelled as this brand, labelled as that title under my client and having to switch between that.
So really it's about having my own system and processes in place and actually outsourcing stuff within my own team internally to help support me so that I can switch a bit easier, but I also block out my time and I'm really focused. I don't have a big group of clients. I have a small group of clients and they have their time that's very dedicated, I'm not chopping and changing around, so it's easier to get my head into, I'm in client A space today, I'm in client B's space tomorrow-
LAURA: Yeah, that makes sense. Okay so, let's talk about then what's different in this shoot compared to the one we did last time.
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The Last Session
MICHELLE: The one we did last time was a one-off typical Laura Pearman-Esque session, whereas for the past, I don't know, year, six months, around that year, I've been working with you on a retainer basis, with you much more as my creative director and I love that because I know every month I'm paying you this and anything that comes up in that month, we sort it out.
We have a base level of what that retainer includes. For this month, we've added in an extra photoshoot and some videography. I just love the fact that I can sit back and go, okay, Laura's got that sorted out, she'll keep me right when it comes to all things creative direction and brand.
LAURA: Okay so let's go into a little bit now, Michelle, about the way that your brand is feeling more sophisticated. I'm interested to hear in your words how you see that we've done that.
The NEW Sense of Sophistication
MICHELLE: Yeah so, a lot of work has gone on with Cheryl, London Web Girl
LAURA: Shout out to Cheryl.
MICHELLE: Yeah, shout out to Cheryl, and really a lot of that has come down to not only the colour palette, we've still stuck with the green and gold earth tones but we've levelled that up and made it, I don't know how to explain it 'cause I'm not the creative mind, but they're richer colours that give off a more sophisticated vibe, but still for me, the green and gold and earthy colour palettes are still very much a part of my brand, we've just enhanced those colours to be in line with that.
We've also gone with a more sophisticated font, so less playful, more "I mean business". We've looked at making my logo more sophisticated. If you want to see my updated brand, here is the link to my website. Or we can connect over on Instagram.
Looking At Michelle's NEW Website
LAURA: Let's see how these images look on Michelle's newly live website.
MICHELLE: I just love my new website. You can see there's a lot of white space, it looks very clean and sophisticated. That's one of my big brand values is about keeping it simple and telling it like it is so there's not a lot of extra fluff and things to distract your eye.
It's a really clean, sophisticated design. This is what we wanted to get across with the evolution of my brand and the target market that I'm going for, and just look how amazing my brand photography is. Laura did a fantastic job in really making sure the look and feel of my photography fit in with the new brand and the new website. If you'd like to come and see my new website for yourself, then head over here.
LAURA: Don't forget, you can meet more of my clients by visiting this playlist called Meet My Clients here on Mwah TV. Have a look at this and gather some inspiration for your own brand.
Love To The Rest Of The Creative team Involved
Amy Caiger
Amy helped Michelle unleash her niche client.
Laura Robinson
Laura helped Michelle with writing all of the copy on her website.
Cheryl Laidlaw
Cheryl provided graphics and created Michelle's new website.
Shooting Bespoke In Marbella with Rachel
Rachel used the same service as Michelle, but we took her session over to Marbella in Spain. See more results possible with this same Brand Photography Bespoke Service.
Timestamps for this Episode of #MwahTV
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