In her British accent she exclaims, “Hello, dah-ling!”

Working with Karen Sinclair Drake on her brand photoshoot was an absolute delight. She’s passionate, all about philanthropy, hilarious and totally gorgeous to photograph - plus her home (where we did her shoot) is off-the-charts magazine worthy, so that was a magnificent bonus!

Karen is the brains behind Flowering Pharmacy where she uses her decades of knowledge and experience in the skincare industry and combines it with her knowledge and passion for flowers and all things of-the-earth and creates custom fragrances for small businesses and personalities! How cool is that?!

It was awesome to work with someone in the green science space since I haven’t done any brand photography for anyone in that industry before this. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how much I loved working with a female entrepreneur over the age of 50. Being around her, her energy, hearing the story of her career - it was all really awesome. I felt that I was both in the presence of a peer AND a mentor. (Oh, and it was so fun to be given some of her all natural & luxury skincare line! I loved it so much that I’ve ordered it on my own several times now! haha! I love when I get to be a client of my client’s!).

Karen, in particular, is a special client to me because we started to work together just as we were having to put our dog down. He was almost 18 and it was time. I had told Karen because I didn’t know exactly what day it would be and she and I were trying to schedule a planning call. She was beyond gracious. She had put her cat down a few months before and sent me a voice memo with the most beautiful words of compassion and wisdom. She was so open and flexible with scheduling. She really treated the situation the way that we should 100% treat women in business - that we can still be total badasses at what we do AND we’re human and go through sucky things sometimes. She held space for both - I was her brand photographer AND a human. THIS is how we overcome hustle culture and move into our feminine flow of self-care and true self-awareness - to allow other women in business to do the same.

We’re in the process of booking another shoot and I can’t wait!

Want to know the thing that sets you apart from the hundreds or thousands of others offering the same thing you are? Guess what? It’s YOU. Yes, your unique journey, perspective, experiences, triumphs and trials! Your personality, your enneagram, your astrological sign, however you want to think of it! Whether you are a health coach, life coach, business coach, artist, real estate agent, course creator, social media guru or marketing manager extraordinaire, you’re likely not in an industry all by your lonesome. So it’s really all about YOUR way of approaching things, the way you treat your clients and customers, and then those quirky things that make you YOU.

When you’re out there sharing your one-of-a-kind story as it relates to your business, you set yourself to be an authority and you definitely want people to think you know what you’re doing!

So, then HOW do you build a personal brand?!

Let’s get into the 3 Steps to Add More YOU Into Your Personal Brand!

STEP 1: Create an “About Me” document

Don’t worry about what makes sense for your business or the things you don’t want to bring up, just write down the following:

Write down the fun stuff about you:

• Simple pleasures

• Guilty pleasures

• Favorite vacation spots

• Fun facts

• Makes you laugh

• Lights you up

Write down the deeper stuff:

• Overall journey

• Smaller pieces of the journey

• Values

• What do you stand for

• What is most important to you in the whole world

What you love & hate as it relates to your 5 senses:

• Taste (ex: love chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven / hate raw coconut)

• Smell

• Hear

• Feel

• See

What are your super powers?!

• Personal

• In your business

STEP 2: Create commonalities and endearment

• Go back to your “about me” document and circle the things you would like to have in common with your audience

• As you look at your list, create a set of VALUES from it. For example, personally, I had my implants taken out in early 2021. Now, it would be ridiculous to want to have that exact thing in common with my audience. BUT, that act was from self-love and self-care, and those are definitely VALUES that I want to have in common with my audience. So, you can begin to identify values that you would like to have in common with your ideal clients.

• Ask yourself, “What do I want my audience to know about me?” What makes you likable, cool, fun, approachable, relatable, endearing, smart, etc. How do you want your audience to think of you and what pieces of your story convey that?

STEP 3: APPLY IT TO YOUR BRAND

• In captions and photos - ex: do you work from home? with kids? That’s personal, consider sharing it!

• Brand color palette - is everything more joyful? Or do you need some depth to your colors? They should make sense with who you are and what you want to get across!

• Brand elements - are you more whimsical or preppy or formal or casual? Bring that in!

WANT TO DIVE IN A LITTLE DEEPER? WATCH THE VIDEO TRAINING HERE! (You’ll have to request to join the Facebook group first.)

Now that you have this wonderful list for your personal brand and you’ve narrowed down what you want parts of it you want to show up in your brand, you can use this information for things like your about page, writing bios, social media posts and captions, emails for your newsletter and more. You can weave it into your products and services, your branding and really stand out!! Go get ‘em!!

Working with Madison was an absolute joy. She is so centered and calm, but also joyful and always looking to become the best version of herself. She is truly the embodiment of grace and growth.

I love working with full-hearted and creative women entrepreneurs, for I am one and I thrive when I feel my client and I are not only on the same page, but that we could talk for hours. Helping these kinds of women to show up as the face of their brand inside their business is truly an honor and, honestly, is just so damn fun!

Like many of my clients, Madison rented a beautiful home rental for her personal brand photo shoot. This option makes a lot of sense if your home and/or work space is dark or doesn’t align with the message you want to convey. The bright home with mainly light decor, woods and plants, combined with some pops of color really went along well with Madison’s brand of down-to-earth, positive, hopeful, and welcoming.

For her wardrobe, we stuck to light yellow, neutrals, denim, and some maroon.

The “struggle” - and I put that in quotes because very brand shoot has a struggle, but it’s not REALLY a struggle for me, it’s usually something that the client comes in with that we need to break through a little bit.

For Madison, she wanted to bring in some of her playful side, but she’s naturally shy in front of the camera. In this case, it’s all about making sure you have a connection with your branding photographer and being able to trust her. Personally, I’m all about being a goofball on my shoots and that really tends to put people at ease and help them open up so that we can really capture who they are!

Her website is beautiful - so centered and peaceful - and you can also see how she used her brand photos on it! I LOVE seeing how my clients use their photos on their website!

Scroll down to see some screenshots from her website!

SCREENSHOTS OF MADISON’S WEBSITE & HOW SHE’S USING HER BRAND PHOTOS: