Audience-Centric Design That Goes Beyond A Basic Logo with Calvina Nguyen | Episode 98

This is an unedited transcript and the timestamps don’t match exactly with the final audio. Thanks for your understanding!

@0:00 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

all right so let’s just dive in.

@2:00 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

And I feel like, you know, when you’re younger, you’re just kind of like, Hey, let’s just let’s just have some fun and figure yourself out.

And then so right now my business is, you know, it’s literally over time your business about supporting your family and then.

And then now it’s like, really feel like, yeah, it’s about myself too. There’s a lot of myself I’m bringing into this business.

And a lot of it has to do with helping people feel sane and hurt. And I just feel like that’s kind of like the main thing.

But in terms of the trajectory, like, like the goals of my business is to help my, you know, my family, you know, like continue to support them, but also really paved the way for what my life is going to look like.

Like, after all of this is over after I can put my business to rest and so that I can, you know, really enjoy my life so right now when I’m doing a lot of business planning.

I’m also alongside of like figuring out what. numbers look like, you know, what are my business activities? directly connect it all with what is it that I want from my life?

Like what is that freedom look like? What does, you know, what are the values that I live for? What is it that I want to do with my husband on a monthly basis?

What is it that I want to do with my daughter and my son, like every family member? And so this year, I really, you know, like, because I just celebrated my birthday, okay, I’ll just say it, I just turned 50 two days ago.

And I just like, I know, just like, my husband just keeps saying like, tell everyone it’s a 50 and I’m just like, it’s such a big number to admit to.

But that number is so, you know, I didn’t realize how pivotal it is until literally the day up or like the day before.

When I realized that gosh, it’s like, I’m really taking stock of my life. like, you know, what is, what are all the things that I have accomplished in my life and also, you know, what is that I’m working for, you know, in my business?

And so I get to celebrate, I get to, you know, really, you know, figure that out. And so literally, my birthday came the day after I started, like, sat down and did some quarterly planning and where I wrote down a lot of my goals.

And so yes, the trajectory is to continue to have to really, you know, bring the money and the purpose together and making sure that I’m putting boundaries in place in the right places, making sure that I’m like, you know, being very smart about who I’m bringing on to work with.

And, you know, and also laying out like what that looks like. Is that, is that the trajectory you’re talking about?

you talking more about like the types of people I’m working with?

@4:56 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

I’m not, I wasn’t sure. Yeah, more your big picture vision. mean, the people you work with, that are obviously a huge part of that.

It’s so much, especially, you know, we’re direct service providers, you know, you have an education branch too, but we’re directly working with humans, right?

@5:10 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

So, of course, that is a factor in our experience, their experience, our brand experience outside of us.

@5:18 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

But I was asking more sort of division, which is what you talked about, that sort of integration that future looking, that building something that is around your life and for your life and through your life, that life first business, I feel like got a lot of shade from the internet gurus of, you know, you can’t plan a business, a lifestyle business.

@5:43 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

You know, that’s not scalable. Why not?

@5:46 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

Why do we need to scale into oblivion? Why can’t we scale to the point that we need for where we are and where we’re going, our family and our goals and our values?

it sounds like that’s exactly the point that you are at. Questioning at and implementing that?

@6:02 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

Yes, absolutely. So I do think that in the next couple of years, I am going to scale. There are ways that I want to scale and I do believe that there’s a lot that I figured out in my own business to strategically make that happen.

Like you said, there’s two sides of my business. One is the service side and where I work directly with my clients and I love this part because I have such direct access to them and they have to me and then I’m doing the work for them so that they don’t have to or actually is more of a co-creation process and then I have the the educational side where I love it too and I love working with my my students, my cohorts and you know just watching like their eyes light up and so that is I do think that that’s where you know I can scale you know down the line and just because I

can work with more than one person at a time there. so I’m definitely, I have a program called Brennan a Week that I’m currently putting a pause on for this year so that I can redo some of the things inside because I want to actually bring in things like, you know, more things around, say, messaging and things like that because I do feel like some of that is missing where it is because it’s purely purely I mean it’s it’s a it’s a design class it’s a branding class but I want to bring in a little bit more about like overall overarching, you know, content creation that type of a thing into it so car currently like, you know, redoing that right now and putting a pause and then I’ll launch it back down the line and I will launch it probably around the same time I do I launch my YouTube channel which is something that I hope to do.

@7:57 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

How exciting! That’s what’s so wonderful is we can put things on pause. We can be working quietly in the background.

We can be still doing the client work we love. thing with being an online service provider is that this guy is a limit in terms of containers and we’re able to temper all of our ambition and all of our big ideas with our capacity in that moment.

And also what the, quote unquote, market is asking for. I know, so I know this episode will come out later in 2025, but we’re still fairly early in 2025 as we’re recording and it has been a weird year for a lot of businesses.

Money has not been flowing the way that it has in the past for a lot of people. People are looking for different experiences and it’s nice that we are able to adapt accordingly because, you know, we don’t have, I don’t know, stockpiles of product hanging out.

around and we don’t have really stuck systems and protocols necessarily like a big corporation would where a lot more agile as solopreneurs, small agencies, that sort of thing.

So, you know, pros and cons to all models, but that is something that’s really nice that you can be working on your scalability as you work with very selective one-on-one clients at the forefront.

Yeah, exactly. So, what was the one decision or experience that changed the trajectory of your life? Not necessarily to this current pivot, but just in general.

@9:35 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

In general, I, gosh, it’s such a good question. So, I want to say if there’s one life-changing moment in my entire life, was when I was 21, I was in college and I did kind of a cultural exchange program over the summer and I was like the summer of my sophomore year.

And leading up to this, like 20, I was 21, but I was an immigrant. I was- Chinese immigrant, I came to United States when I was nine years old.

And so by the time I was 21, I had like, I want to say, you know, had spent some of the most formative childhood years in America.

And, you know, because the earlier years, like up until nine, those years in China were pretty much kind of forgotten, you know, it’s, you know, my, by then my English is perfect.

Nobody could tell that I was born anywhere else. And I’d never gone back to China before. It was the very first time that I went back without my parents.

And it was with other college students. And we went there to do a cultural exchange program. And it was in a part of China, where there was actually a quite a bit political unrest.

so, but it was, but it was a very fascinating, it was like kind of big, big deal, like even politically there.

And we were on TV because we’re talking about how they were letting in, you know, American students into this area.

And it was like big um, I would. with a very diverse group of Americans going into a very like kind of a cultural there was like a cultural thing you know like you know tension there so I was like kind of forced to come to grips with my cultural identity in that moment like so I remember thinking wow I have an advantage that nobody else has which is the fact that I can see culture from a lot of different perspectives not a many people can see um you know culture from literally like from you know having born in another culture knows multiple languages and can be able to do that because of that I was able to connect with the people there and in a way that like a lot of my other like you know students my classmates couldn’t and then so and then also I was very like it kind of felt like going back to that part of China was like I felt really fortunate to be in America right like to be in America.

at that time. And then so I was like, wow, there is like this purpose to my life, to this, you know, to my own set of perspectives for who I am that I never ever have seen and recognized before.

So I realized that my life is really blessed and I wanted to do something with the gifts that I’ve been given, which is like being an American, a Chinese American in America.

And so like I just remember just really wanting to lean into purpose. And then like, so for basically the next several like a couple of decades, I was doing a lot of work overseas doing doing a lot of like global types of like, you know, global issues.

I worked in the slums of India, like, you know, in the red light areas. And then so but working directly with brands and small businesses there, that are, you know, that are there to make a difference, right?

they’re They put themselves in the slums to help the people of India, the marginalized groups there. their whole point isn’t necessarily like to bring in the most money.

They make money in order to make sure these people are provided for. that’s this purpose value driven perspective. That’s what I did for a decade.

And so I loved it. And so that’s when I started working with those brands. And I realized that they don’t have these organizations, don’t have access to great design, great marketing, because they’re all their money, all of the things that they’re doing.

It’s all people forward. it’s like, so I really, really deep inside recognize why there’s so much struggle with them.

Because half of or more than half of their effort is helping people. And then if you think about how hard it is,

this for us to run a business like they still have to run a business and that’s what the other so anyway other like that’s what the whatever remaining energy that they have left you know and so um so I gave a lot of my time a lot of my energy and working with these types of businesses so I would say that like it was all really because of like that time when I was 21 years old in such a like you know when I was defining my career when I was defining what my life is about you know when I was defining what I was making money for that’s exactly what I did like and so I really did spend my 20s and my 30s really not making a lot of money let me just tell you that like I’m being perfectly honest that I spent my time I have spent that peer to my life giving away my time and my money um you know for these types of organizations and um because I wanted to help people yeah and hopefully feeling fulfilled in other ways they’re like they’re they’re

@15:00 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

There is something to be said 100% for making the money we need and want and deserve, and being able to make money that we can pour into causes we care about, you know, without being a volunteer or running ourselves ragged for sure.

But also, there is something to be said for meaningful work that doesn’t necessarily translate to money in the bank, especially if we have a supportive partner or generational wealth, or however else we can support ourselves, it is for each and every one of us in each season of our life to decide what that balance needs to be.

so I think it’s wonderful that you were able to have those experiences and now you can charge more, you have more experience under your belt, but you can still work with perfectly aligned, purpose driven companies who maybe have a bigger budget.

I love that all of the landscape of what it means to run a business and be prepared Striven is so, so varied.

@16:03 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

I can tell you the lessons that I learned there. Let me just tell you that like there are some hard lessons learned in that period of time, right?

Nobody taught me these lessons when I was in my 20s and my 30s. You know, I came here as an immigrant.

So my parents didn’t understand the value of investment in investing or, you know, they just worked their butt off and they safe, safe, saved and they put me through college and all of these things.

so that’s why I saw. And so I didn’t understand like really what it meant to like build a life, you know what I mean?

Like, you know, I really didn’t. I’m going to be perfectly honest. And so I was a very idealistic, you know, person with a big heart and, you know, giving my time.

And do I, if I can relive that moment again, like if I can give my, tell my 21-year-old self, like some good sage advice, I would definitely.

like, I would have something very like big to say, right? Like, I would say, definitely, you need to make sure you are, um, you were taking care of yourself.

You need to make sure that you’ve got oxygen before you give your oxygen away to somebody else. And then there’s, there’s, there’s like, and there are ways that you can bless others, but you’ve got to make sure you’re okay.

And then so, um, so those are things that I think, you know, in that period of time, know, I was so idealistic and it was just so, so wanting to help others.

didn’t like, I didn’t work on myself. I have like really good business instincts, but I felt a sense of guilt about that.

And then so there was something, I don’t know, misguided and I like, and I so now I’m tapping into all of that.

And I still actually believe that, um, even if you’re purpose driven, you actually like need to invest in, in, in good, in, in, um, in your business.

So all of those things that I saw because I have in and it’s because I spent like a good 10 years working with organizations like that and making a lot of mistakes, that’s when I realized it’s not like every organization needs to even if you are purpose driven even if things are hard, you need to have some skin in the game and you need to invest you need to invest in yourself like it doesn’t change whether or whether or not you’re a valued man or you’re just a like, I every business, let me just say is a value driven business, right?

Every business and it doesn’t mean that like and it just just because like you’re not in the slums of India doesn’t mean that you’re not a value driven business.

I think that like every business is like, you know, now like after traveling all these years, there is. And I also believe that so I don’t think that I would treat a business that is based in India any different than I would treat a business here.

And I’m like this is for all my seriously living some things the hard way because I do think that like any business needs to be able to and willing to invest in themselves in order to really succeed.

And then so if you can choose who you invest your money with and that person, you know, and what they give you and how they work with you and what their values are, that’s who you choose, but you still have to make that investment.

And it was probably one of my biggest mistakes to give away my stuff so easily and so fast. And so those are things that I would probably never do again, right?

And not because I’m like, I’m not saying that because I’m like, oh, I didn’t spend my time making money, not because of that, because I saw how little sometimes that impact made if they were not invested.

And then so over time, I changed my ways, I changed my strategy, and I changed the way I worked with people because I realized that there needed to be, I need to get a buy-in, you know, from them, whether it’s monetary or

monetary or time or whatever that looks like, they need to truly understand what it is that they are with that they’re trying to do.

And so I feel like that’s actually wrapped up in messaging. Like that’s exactly the stuff that you help them with is just like for them to like come to grips with like what the heck am I doing?

Why am I doing all of this? And then all of that will become a north star for them to make every decision that they will do down the line in their business, right?

@20:25 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

Exactly. Yeah. okay, I have a few thoughts. One on the investment front, I come from the nonprofit sector and you mentioned the word guilt.

And so many of us who come from the nonprofit sector feel bad about making money. And it’s because, you know, nonprofits sometimes, not all, wear this badge of honor of, you know, 99% of our dollars go to programming.

And then their staff is woefully underpaid. staff means social services that their nonprofit provides, which for me just doesn’t.

and sit right. That’s why I’m a huge fan of social entrepreneurship, which sort of bridges the gap between purely capitalistic and purely non-profit chasing dollars.

But then on investment front, I think it is so important to invest and also by the same token recognizing that we don’t always have that money available to us.

But can you seek out grants? And messaging helps so much with being able to receive grant funds because you’re able to very clearly articulate who you are, what you do, who it’s for, why it matters, why you’re perfectly aligned, to receive these grant funds, what you will do with those grant funds.

You’re able to say why this partner is such a perfect fit, etc. You’re able to, you know, when you are face to face with three different practitioners who have three different budgets or the exact same budget, money’s not an object, how do you choose?

Well, based on that values alignment and then the third point you made made that really stood out to me was that every business is values driven and I actually think that’s an important point because so often we sort of pose values driven values led businesses as the ones that are positive in our brain yes right the ones that are like leading with values that align with us that feel positive generative that feel you know uh in our camp but Amazon is 100 values driven yeah their values are just not in alignment with many other people right so they they are absolutely living out their values it is just that their values do not align and so I do agree that every business every person is values driven we only act according to what is important to us uh and when I talk about you values alignment being value

driven, I think I often overlook that concept of not all everyone’s values are the same. And I only ever look at that positive side of the people who think like me, but you know, we’re all showing our true colors.

@23:16 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

It’s just we’re not always the same shade of the rainbow or you know, whatever analogy you want to go with.

Yes, absolutely.

@23:25 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

100%. I agree with you. So I’d love to know we sort of have touched on it, but what’s your current elevator pitch?

What’s something that you would say at a networking event or in a Zoom chat?

@23:39 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

Okay, so I help businesses who have been around for about five, 10 years. So this is like, okay, this is, let me let me start over.

this, you know, like I, so at a right now, because I’m doing a lot of promotions for my current, my current service, like private clients, business.

This is our, you know, I, I have a certain elevated pressure and then, but I have a different one for my, my students and my cohorts.

And then so currently, when I’m talking to like, you know, when I meet somebody, I do help, you know, businesses in about five to 10 years old who have been in business for some time and they’ve really made things work, but they have, until this point, kind of like just figured it out for themselves, you know, figured their own branding, they’ve gotten everything, you know, they were, they’re been in Canva doing all the things and they’ve just kind of like got their brother-in-law to do their logo and then, and, but it’s, it’s worked for them, right?

And then they’re kind of at this point where it’s like, they also tried so many different products. They’ve got like this offer and this offer and then they’re, you know, just all over the place.

And so they’re at this point where they need to really like elevate their brand presence to a new, like, to a whole different level and order.

for them to grow. They can’t stay stuck where they are because they just don’t look like the pros and, you know, there’s a huge disconnect with where they are.

Sorry, that’s not like a one-liner at all. That was very long. If I were to have a conversation with you, sorry.

@25:17 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

No worries.

@25:18 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

right.

@25:19 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

So you really read the room first, which I think is also important. And I think a lot of people think, oh, well, I have to nail my elevator pitch.

It has to be one line. It has to be the same, no matter where I show up. It has to be memorized.

So you very much posed the opposite of that. Well, it just depends who I’m talking to. I sort of let flow and I read the room.

And that’s wonderful too, especially if we’ve really internalized our main talking points or just, you know, essentially our main values, our main value add.

That’s wonderful. Then what do you tell a stranger when they ask what you do?

@25:58 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

Basically your dinner party description. Oh, so if I had just a cup, yeah, like a dinner party who had like, no, like, they’re not even business people.

I said, I help small businesses with design and brand strategy. That’s what I say, like a few words and that’s enough, like, you know, so I, you know, I am a designer for sure.

That’s, that’s why I am, that’s what I deliver.

@26:18 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

But then I don’t just design it all comes with brand strategy and all leads to that. So, you know, that’s my, that’s my quick one liner.

Okay.

@26:26 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

Yeah, but, but yes, I, I do feel like I do read the room and that’s actually a big part of what I, like, I help my clients with it’s like, you know, you need to tailor your message exactly to that person you’re talking to, you need to hone in on exactly what that is.

And in order to, to make something that’s connecting, otherwise, you’re just going to say, you know, something in general, and it’s like, goes right over their heads and is meaningless.

And so, for me, it really is, like, realize that the person who hires me usually have been in business for at least five years, and they figure themselves out.

But they’re like, but they’re not professionals in communications. And so they help me to hire me to help them visualize what they could look like, help them elevate their visual messaging and bring it all together for their entire journey so that every part, every touch point for their clients and their prospective customers look cohesive and they can build trust and then all the way down to their current clients so that they can continue to build that relationship and they have retention, right?

And so that’s the goal of like this brand.

@27:35 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

And so yes, I’m a designer, but there’s so much more to it than that. do that just design. Yeah, yeah, I love that.

think that also shows your experience because I think a lot of young designers or just newer designers or just simply age thing, but simply less intentional designers only focus on the visuals rather than the bigger picture of a brand experience.

And so I think I think that. That’s a nuance that’s really important and and you’ve mentioned messaging a couple times actually already, so I want us all to Understand and demystify this idea of messaging.

What do you think of when you hear the word messaging?

@28:16 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

Gosh, I think I mean as asking me and somebody else like because I mean it’s so much um for me it’s it’s it’s what uh Uh, you know, it’s it’s how you are articulating your values and knowing exactly who you’re talking to and saying that And so I think that’s what messaging is and I think it’s so incredibly important To and this is why I think you and I click because like we’re like i’m digging in when we first met we’re like We so align on how we see messaging and then for me.

It’s like I I feel like I have to make sure um People get their messaging down before they even move forward with me and the design and then so

However, I don’t, you know, one thing I don’t necessarily do is I don’t go as deeper, right? you know, how the way I feel like, um, you know, your, how you do, you know, you get so deep and, you know, to really break a lot of things down.

For me, is that like, I capture people’s messaging, I capture that purpose and that values, and then I bring it down, I bring it with them in developing their, um, the visual communications.

@29:26 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

Yeah, I really see brand messaging as the root system, the foundation, and then the visuals as like the trunk of the tree, or like if it’s a tree analogy, the brand messaging is the root system, the visuals are the trunk, they’re the bulk of what you see, they’re the thing that’s propping up the brand, but the roots are really the underlying thing that are growing from this foundational brand messaging, or if you think of like a house analogy, then the visuals are the actual structure of the house.

curb appeal, the structure, the the um the sighting or bricks or windows and all the things but the foundation is what is holding all of that up that is the brand messaging.

Yes. values the voice the personality the what is it that this house is even going to feel like be like um how we how will you feel when you step into this home or when you you know sit under this beautiful tree whatever analogy floats your boat um they really do go hand in hand and um the brand messaging alone is important for the decision making but it’s not beautiful right it’s it doesn’t create a completely holistic experience yeah whereas when you combine the very intentional messaging with the perfectly aligned visuals it really does create a a full sensory experience.

@30:49 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

I actually am loving your tree analogy because I currently have one in my presentations of an iceberg so um yeah so I use the iceberg and I show that too when I when I do my teaching.

And then so I was just, um, you know, I have the iceberg on top with the part you see and everything below, which is so much bigger and unseen.

That’s where all of the messaging is. And then so, um, I think that’s, I like your cheat, like, I think I’m like, man, that tree analogy is, I feel like it’s even more rich because the root system, you know, you don’t see that.

But without the roots, everything will die. then so, and then so I love that, you know, trunk of the tree being the design, but then like you can also bear fruit and you can also have flowers and you have that stuff that comes from the business.

@31:35 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

so I’m like, whoa, that’s really, really cool. In my, so in my imagination of, of the tree, it’s the roots are the brand messaging strategy, right?

And then the trunk is the visuals and then the branches, the leaves, the fruits, the flowers, depends on your tree, right?

@31:53 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

kind of tree are you? What are you in?

@31:55 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

changes. And but all of those that are at the top of are combining the messaging and the visuals for all of your copy, content, conversations, all of your marketing, all your decision making, the entire brand experience is at that top of the tree.

And so all of this is being propped up, all of your visibility is being propped up by that perfect combo of the messaging and the visuals, and they manifest in, you know, the top of the tree.

@32:24 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

I love it.

@32:25 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

That’s…

@32:25 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

I have to use that.

@32:28 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

Yeah, I do have a visual of it, but your manifestation will be decidedly more beautiful. But yes, I feel like it’s a really…

I’m a huge fan of analogies because it just brings the theoretical down to earth. It just brings us into our everyday senses, our everyday experiences.

so what is your own brand’s messaging? What’s the process been like as you’ve discovered how you want to communicate, who you are, what you do, how you want your…

your visual is to reflect that.

@33:02 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

Yeah, it’s interesting that you ask that because it’s, as you can see, like you literally saw me in practice like, you know, describing my own messaging and it really has to do with my clients who I’m working with and what my offering is.

So it, you know, it should, I think messaging should be so tailored that you are able to articulate the specifics of how you can help somebody and the specifics of exactly like, now we’re down to the very need of that person.

So I, so the, the, the, it’s changed. Um, I think based on how my business trajectory is and, you know, my business direction and where and who am I wanting to work with in that period of time.

I’m going to be honest with you, like sometimes, and this whole conversation is about like our business. as our life and our life and our business and I think as sole openers so many of us you know you know who are small like one to two person agencies and businesses you know it’s it’s healthy and so important for us to bring our life you know we shouldn’t be working like you know just about our life should not be about work it’s our businesses feel our life and we need to have a defined you know desire of what this life means to us and you know this and then so that means it’s like my offering it has changed little bit and like and I’m going to be totally transparent with you also is that like I had an incident with my my family where my parents not my parents cohort in

the fall I just like that was it wasn’t actually it was the thing that was kind of the trigger that made me double things like oh I don’t know if I can do this launch like when I’m going like when I’m literally in the ER with my my father-in-law right and I of course in in on the ideal world you know you’re pitched to build this business that you can like handle anything that life throws at you but in reality is that there are times when life throw you some things but however does it doesn’t mean that it is uh the end or it is a problem it just means hey you need to be able to shift your focus it means there’s there’s somebody telling you to do something and so the the cool thing was that like I knew I didn’t meet like but it was like I couldn’t launch or like I shouldn’t launch it would like literally probably put a lot of stress on me to launch during this period of time when I was like in the ER with my father-in-law but that has

into something deep inside of me that I knew needed to change. So it was something that some time, know, I knew there’s something in my program that needed to change and I didn’t take the time to do it.

And then so I was like, I’m going to put it to rest. This is my opportunity. So you just kind of have to go with the flow of things and I will I was willingly able to do that.

And then so now that left me have a lot of time to work on my private clients work. And that is also something that I really, really wanted to do more of.

And so that’s why I’m leaning into my client work. that’s why, you know, in that process, I like, you know, dove into talking about this private client, you know, these businesses.

Because if I were to talk about my messaging for my cohorts, it would be very different because the people I’ve written for my cohorts are new businesses.

They’re like, they haven’t figured out what they’re who exactly they’re talking to. They have not figured out, like they’re wanting that first, you know, logo,

that they don’t have the budget to hire, they want to figure out themselves. They’re wondering what kind of colors they should use for their templates and for their social covers and for their carousels.

They’re needing to create little things like that and they don’t know how to do it. so that’s a very different person than people who have been in business for 5-10 years, who have most of that stuff figured out.

so my messaging has to change between one to the other. At the end of the day, I love the question you’re asking.

You’re like, okay, well, what do you do? Honestly, what I do is I do brand strategy and messaging. But truly, I don’t think that’s the best use of those.

I truly just say that when I’m talking people who have no idea about business. But honestly, what I do is that I help people to realize who they are and why they’re doing their business.

I help them to articulate what they do visually. to to to feel like with a sense of confidence, how they want to operate their business, how they want to show up online and digitally.

And also in person, I want them to have the confidence to be so that their digital present is as dynamic as their human presence, right?

Well, so we’re all trying to talk about our businesses all the time when it’s so much easier to say that in person, right?

But somehow, like when we are like our online presence, or when you’re some people their website, like it falls little bit flat because it’s not the same anymore.

so, so that’s those are the things that I think, you know, the commonality between the two, but then like very separate audiences and separate messaging as I’ve evolved over like, you know, who I work with.

@38:47 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

Oh, I love that idea of consistency. I talk about consistency a lot. And I talk about it in the sense of brand consistency.

love that idea of being as dynamic in person as you are online. Because I feel like so often we either are like this big personality online, and then you meet in person, and they’re like totally shy, or totally different, closed off, or vice versa.

know, their online presence is completely generic, and just like level up your business, and then like that, and then you meet in person, or you have a call, and all of your energy and passion just comes pouring through.

And so when I talk about brand consistency, it is absolutely that vibe consistency. It’s not the formulaic post five times a week, or a day, and you’ll magically have a thriving business kind of consistency.

It is really about that consistency in sentiment, in the visuals, in the messaging, in really the entire experience, that I think is what builds the trust.

Much more than, oops, missed a newsletter posting, oops, I didn’t, you know, do. whatever formula someone said I was supposed to do.

So I really like that goal that you outlined there. I’d love to know, actually, you’ve talked a lot about audience-centric design, audience-centric messaging.

How do you know you’re with your perfect fit people for your business? What are the clues? How do you figure out the words and or the visuals that work for you and for them as you actually connect?

@40:34 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

Do you, sorry, are you talking about, like, do I design for my clients so that they connect with their ideal clients?

Or how do I create my own materials to connect?

@40:48 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

Yeah, no, either or. was asking more about you and your perfect fit people. But if you want to zoom out a little bit and say more generally how you work.

view that and like how you translate that for your clients, that would be interesting too. Whatever you want to share.

@41:07 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

Yeah, I think it’s all about understanding the audience and I always always come back to that. Like as narrowly focused as you can on like their biggest questions and their greatest need and always comes down to that.

Like what is the whole point of them working with you? What is the whole point of them working with me?

What are they really wanting to get out of this whole thing, right? And then so I think it’s also like it’s defining that like defining it to as close to like the T as possible.

I think that is the only way you can get really good success out of that. So like I do that for myself and that’s why like I have narrowed it down to like, you know, you know, starting off with like pieces have been around for five to 10 years.

you know, that’s because I know that people that, you know, like, If you’ve been in business for five, 10 years, then you’ve got, there are certain things you’ve figured out.

There are certain things that you haven’t figured out. And then, and then so like, there are some very definitive issues.

like, and I, but with like, say for my clients, I like probably I spent the most time drooling in what they actually want out of their business for them, right?

I spend time then asking why the people want to work with them and what are the biggest issues, right?

making that connection, I feel like that is the key. Like if I can just like, those are the only questions that I ask, you know, of course, I ask lot more, but then that’s, I feel like that is without those questions, then you’re not able to tailor a, like an experience for them, like that is direct and that is as custom, you know?

And, and that’s where resonant happens, right? you have to resonate ultimately, right? there’s, we’re in a, in a very busy, noisy world, especially when it comes to marketing.

There’s, and then there’s a lot of times when people feel like, I’m, you know, somebody else is doing the same thing as me.

You know, I’m like, and they feel like the sense of threat, and there’s no need to be, right? Like, you can have like two people in the same room doing the same things, but they’re so different, and their clients are different.

so once you actually realize that they’re how different they are, then you’re like, like, yeah, bring on, like, bring on, like me supporting my, my sister over here who’s doing almost exactly the same thing.

But when there’s a client coming to me that is like, you know, when you were defining exactly who your clients are, you realize how many clients there are, and they’re how like, how very they are.

then you, you also realize that client isn’t a good fit, and that person should go to your, your, your friend here who’s doing the same thing.

So, so that means it’s like, it’s all about the clarity. And so, and so that’s means like that clarity gives you so much peace, I feel like.

@44:06 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

Yeah, it really does and I love that we can also build really strong referral partners and that can be an arm of our business or simply goodwill or it can be kind of however heavy part of our business model we want it to be.

But that perfect alignment is so much more important. After you experiment, sometimes you do have to experiment to know what feels right and again sometimes that can change based on our bandwidth, based on shifting our values, based on what people are needing, based on the skills that we acquire or want to leave behind us, etc.

But I think that alignment is really important. Oh, I’d love to know, we’ve also mentioned values many, many times and that value is alignment.

How do you integrate your values into your messaging, marketing, and or.

@45:00 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

or the decision making that you do behind the scenes, how do you integrate your values? I think there’s so many different kinds of values, right?

There’s like kind of surface values, and then there’s more internal values, right? There’s, it’s really, so there are say values in terms of, like I would say some of the more surfacey ones are like, say, maybe, like for example, I’m not saying that that’s like, these are my values, so examples when I’m working my clients, it could be like, say, a women-owned business, like a more, like, say, you value social diversity, let’s just talk about that, right?

you value the environment, value, these are things that are very, like those values online, but there’s also other values, like, and I feel like these values might even be more important when it comes to, say, finding the right person, and it’s like how you work, those are values, Like, for me, I know a lot of people,

come to me because I’ve actually really ditched the idea of traditional design agency, which is that like, I, you know, traditional design agents, because I’ve literally worked in one for, you know, a long time.

And then so is where, you know, the designer does everything. then the client, like, you’ve even changed their phone number on an event or a date or whatever, they have to bring it to the client and go back and forth.

And like, so those are, you know, like how things are run. And then the designer own or designer or the agency owns everything.

They don’t like to release anything to the client, because there is like, you know, basically, if you release it, then you’re losing work, right?

I ditched those values. So those are not necessarily like the values of like, say, this common value of like, you know, we believe in a, you know, healthier planet and environment and stuff like that.

But these are like, I believe in empowering businesses to make their own decisions so that they are able to

um you know make evolve and change with their messaging and with their visual messaging and with all of that stuff so that because we’re living in a world that is so fast change you need to be switching what you’re saying all day every day it would be stupid I personally think to stick to traditional values and say I’m you cannot you know not allowed to have any of this stuff so it takes kind of letting go of ego like design ego and letting my client have it letting them make their own changes and releasing my rights to it and giving it to them so that it’s their their empowered and they can own it so those are very these are values that I really really lean into and those are not values that a lot of designers have and so um so in terms of like say so that’s an that’s like I would say an example right um you know it’s a different set of values like I feel like two sets of values yes I I

@48:00 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

think that idea of okay I’m ditching traditional design agency that can be such a supportive tool that idea of what do we not want to stand for what do we not want to do what do we not put up with what do we not feel good in so often points as to what we do want I feel like it can be really hard for us to articulate our values because we’re so good to it we live and breathe it every day and we care about so many things and sometimes putting that mirror up to it of like what do we not want what did we instantly have that gut reaction of oh no no no no this has no place here that can be the perfect breadcrumb to find what we actually do want to stand for and I’m personally definitely more for positive vibes stand for something not against something but figuring out what you do not want can really really guide us toward that positivity aspirational

What is it that we do want, situation, especially if we are kind of stuck in our heads or simply too close to it?

@49:09 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

Absolutely, I really believe that too. And it’s like, I feel like, so I feel like, you know, I love what you just said.

What we stand against sometimes is even an easier way for us to. know, it’s easier, a guiding light. Sometimes we just forget to ask ourselves that question.

I feel like that helps to define what we’re actually standing for. It kind of that so much better. And I feel like, I mean, there are, I feel like, and then there’s like another set of values for me.

Like, I feel like the value that is deep beneath at all is, I feel like the empowerment of small businesses.

I feel, and this is probably my underlying, the most important value is that every human being needs to be seen and heard.

@49:57 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

And I feel like, yeah, and I feel like,

@50:00 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

that is probably the most powerful guiding principle that I live by. And whether it was when I was a photographer and doing a lot of photography work in India, in the slums, in the red light areas where people were just abused and abandoned and lost.

then it’s like, when they didn’t feel like they were beautiful, and they felt like they were just ugly, and I just said, no, you’re not, right?

and I photographed them in their, like, in what they felt like was the most stripped down version of themselves, but I was, I wanted to capture them in their beauty as they are.

And then so I know it showed them, like, like this fierce photo of them, of them, and they felt like, wow, never seen myself that way.

And so I, you know, and I do the same thing, I think, in my design, it’s always been, right?

I want people to feel seen and heard. And sometimes the only way to do that is get out is, you know, me giving my

clients, the ability to get out of their own heads and allow themselves to be seen in the way that like, you know, know, you know, I want to say the way that God made you, right?

Like, it’s just this is like how you’re made, like, this is who you are supposed to be and there’s so much beauty to who you are.

And then so, so in that way, like, that’s the guiding light that I have when it comes to my work is that the design is not about styling and it’s not about like, you know, adding a bunch of fluff to, you know, create something that isn’t there just to be for the sake of beauty.

But for me, it’s really bringing out the inner beauty in somebody, just like, like, and so even my design is all it’s just very similar following the same guidelines as I did or the same values that I did when I took a photo of a woman who felt stripped of her beauty in the right, let red, like, you know, area or in the slums when they felt

like in despair and they couldn’t see anything beautiful about themselves. I want to bring those same principles to any business and make them feel like, hey, this is who I am, really?

I am beautiful and these are my values and I’m powerful. And if I can bring that to any business, then that’s exactly my goal.

@52:22 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

Bringing beauty and power to the forefront, that is something our world needs more of. I normally close with a question of what’s a message that matters to you, but I feel like you just beautifully answered that.

So I will close this conversation with what is one tactical tip you can share about design, values aligned design, audience centric design that will save especially multi-passionate deep thinkers, time or money or energy.

@52:56 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

I do think is to get out of your head and allow somebody else in to, you know, to see you and help you see what you can’t see for yourself.

And I think that’s really hard and that’s, it takes a lot of own ability. It takes a lot of letting go of control.

But I think it’s one of the most powerful things that you can do as a business is to let go of your own perceptions because when you let go of that perception, then you’re letting in other possibilities that can empower you to be so much more.

So I think that means it’s like letting somebody else in, letting in somebody who is value aligned, who wants the best for you and somebody you trust to help them see you in all of these different ways.

@53:55 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

Oh, you are speaking my language. I sing outside perspective from rooftops, basically in anything I ever say or write about.

So I love that tip. If someone is picking up what you’re laying down, they want to stay connected with you.

@54:10 – Calvina Nguyen – Your Brand Spark

What’s the best way to do that? Yeah, so my website is your brand spark.com. And if you go to brand spark.com forward slash connect, then you can, I want to meet you.

Like, you know, I would love to meet you in person.

@54:48 – Ashlee Sang (Ashlee Sang)

Beautiful. All right. Well, that will be linked in the show notes. Your website will be linked in the show notes.

And thank you so much!