A Re-Brand Story: From 'Think Creative Collective' To 'Boss Project'
How do you know when it’s time to rebrand? The short answer is that something will shift in your business that will bring you clarity to know when it’s time (if you need to do it at all).
If you’d like a little more insight than that, keep reading. I recently had the pleasure of talking to my friends Abagail Pumphrey and Emylee Williams about their rebrand, and they’ve been kind enough to give us a sneak behind the scenes so I can share it with you!
They're the co-founders of Boss Project, formerly known as Think Creative Collective. We had such a fun & insightful conversation about their partnership, the evolution of their business, how their new brand got started as a side project and the time and steps they took to get clarity in their decision to rebrand.
THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF A BEAUTIFUL PARTNERSHIP
Abagail and Emylee met in a FaceBook group a few years ago and both had recently started their separate businesses - Abagail had a web design and branding company and Emylee was a lifestyle photographer starting to work more and more with entrepreneurs.
After engaging with each others’ posts for awhile in an Instagram pod they were in and realizing they were saying the same things to the same audience, they had several conversations which led them to create Think Creative Collective. It was a no-brainer, and blended their brands and messages to collectively help other business owners become profitable.
“One of the biggest drivers for us going in to business together - I liked her [Emylee] too much to compete with her.” - Abagail Pumphrey
Three-ish years later, and with amazing success as TCC, they were feeling a little stuck and trying to figure out how to clarify their vision for the future of their business.
8 STEPS TO TO REBRAND
After hearing the entire process of how they got to the rebrand stage, here is my summary and their insights of the 8 steps they took in making it happen.
This process is exactly what they needed to do, but not everyone will go through the same process to rebrand. Hopefully, this will give you a guide for what to look for if you’re feeling like you might need a shift, change or update in your business.
The funny thing is, Abagail and Emylee never really intended to re-name their company, but when something comes up that feels right, you go with it!
STEP 01 - SOMETHING FEELS OFF
After growing their business very quickly, and seeing huge success, Abagail and Emylee were feeling a bit exhausted and burned out with the business model they created - where they were two steps ahead of their audience learning and testing and mastering new things in their business to turn around and teach their audience.
EMYLEE: That wasn’t sustainable. And it’s not actually that fun. It started getting in that danger zone of, why are we even doing this & what is happening?
ABAGAIL: Emylee and I go through weird phases together. I don’t know, maybe it’s because we have our periods synced, who knows. We tend to have the same inklings at the same time. We go about them in different ways, but that’s just how we’ve always worked together. And sometime, II couldn’t tell ya exactly when, we started to feel this lack of creativity in our business.
STEP 02 - START ASKING QUESTIONS
EMYLEE: We took some considerable months to really sit and think about what did we want Think Creative Collective to look like in the years to come? How do we want to serve our people? What did we want it to stand for, and what do we want to provide?
STEP 03 - GET CREATIVE
ABAGAIL: We’d made it very clear to each other, we had no interest in changing the business, we just wanted to fill a creative void. So, Emylee started painting and I started building my own personal brand. And, somewhere in the mix of all that, I decided to start another Instagram account.
EMYLEE: Yeah, she had all the time on her hands!
ABAGAIL: It was called BOSS PROJECT. I thought it was an awesome name so I started the account to start showcasing other creatives I thought were doing an awesome job. I didn’t actually work on the project long at all.
EMYLEE: So in true Abagail and Emylee fashion, we let it sit for a year. And then I came in and said, I’m gonna steal that from you and we’re gonna use that.
STEP 04 - TEST THE CONCEPT FOR YOUR NEW DIRECTION
EMYLEE: The idea of a summit had been around for a couple of years…the idea of providing a stage for other people to come and educate and teach and get in front of the audience we’d spent years building, sounded really exciting and really fun.
EMYLEE: When we decided to go full fledge with our first summit in 2018, we decided to use the name BOSS PROJECT, kind of as a test run to see. Do people resonate with this name? Do they like it? And, do they also like us NOT being the people who are teaching them?
EMYLEE: So this was our first test in 3 years to provide a live experience where we weren’t teaching!
ABAGAIL: We hosted. That was it!
STEP 05 - REVIEW THE RESULTS & EVALUATE YOUR EXCITEMENT
EMYLEE: We literally just HOSTED [the summiti]. Spoiler alert, people loved it, and we loved it! Then, it became a deeper conversation.
ABAGAIL: We went back and forth for awhile. Do we change the name all the way? Does the Boss Project continue to just be the name of our summit series and we just do that?
EMYLEE: And does that feel good to us? If we’re going to redirect the whole ship to provide these other resources for our students or for our community - does that feel good or do we need to tweak it or do something else?
“The feeling of the summit - bringing everyone together like that - it brought so much creativity and life into our business last year. I’m super excited.” - Emylee Williams
ABAGAIL: The [Boss Project] Summit was the obvious first step for us and everything just started falling in place after that. So, we went for it.
EMYLEE: What it secretly enabled us to do - that I didn’t even think would be a thing - as soon as we let go being the only resource for creative entrepreneurs to grow a profitable business, we were able to focus on how we can best serve our people. It gave us so much clarity.
ABAGAIL: I think the CLARITY piece is such an important aspect because I remember telling Emylee, I swear I said this phrase a million times…I feel like I’m short-sighted and can’t see past 2 weeks from now or a month from now.
ABAGAIL: I was walking into the mist where there was nothing in front of me and all of a sudden the Summit helped me to see clear again. I know where we’re going and I’m really frickin’ excited about it. And being excited about what you’re doing in business is more than half the battle in my opinion.
“If you’re not excited about what you’re doing, it’s really hard to sell it.” - Abagail Pumphrey
STEP 06 - CREATE A NEW VISION & MISSION
EMYLEE: We definitely liked what Boss Project stood for and were very deliberate in the term PROJECT and what it means for us and our students. It really means serving you holistically; you are a constant project; constantly working to be a better version of yourself because that changes all the time.
ABAGAIL: We’ll continue to provide the same resources we have. We’ll still have our own podcast; we’ll still put out our own course content. But, additionally, we’ll support other small businesses in a variety of ways. The summit is part of it. This year alone we have 3 summits slated and they’re gonna be BIG.
EMYLEE: Hold onto your panties!!
ABAGAIL: The last summit we did reached over 2 1/2 million people and we had over 11,000 people participate. This is gonna be big!
ABAGAIL: It just opens the doors to collaborate with more people, to holistically serve more people. And yes, we definitely have a focus on the business side of things, but we realize and understand that you are a whole person. Being a mom, or working on your health or your mental well being…those are all things that add up to YOU and effect your ability to be a BOSS and effectively serve your clients.
STEP 07 - IDENTIFY YOUR LONGSHOT VIEW
In asking these lovely ladies what else they needed to consider in rebranding and updating the vision and purpose of their brand, they talked about pulling back to look at the big picture (which is so essential when you’re looking at your brand).
ABAGAIL: Identifying how large we’re talking…if you want to make half a million dollars versus 13 million dollars, you’re talking about very different things you’d have in place as a business owner.
ABAGAIL: Thinking about - how many people are working for you? What are you going after? What types of products are you selling?
ABAGAIL: Having a long shot view, even if it’s not ultimately where you end up…we’ll say it again, in the book TRACTION, we have really identified that this is just a direction to head towards, it’s not necessarily a hard and fast goal.
ABAGAIL: I think so often we get stuck on goals having to be so concrete and you hit or miss them. I’d rather aim towards something that’s lofty and awesome and something you can really get excited about and create things that help me get there.
“We worked on how can we make something and work on something where we’re serving people the way we want to show up in the world and have it ultimately feed a goal or an aim or a star in the sky.” - Abagail Pumphrey
STEP 08 - READY , SET, LAUNCH!
BOSS PROJECT officially launched on Feb 18, 2019 to great reactions and support from their community!
Their mission continues to be providing you with the resources to help you grow your creative business, but their vision has expanded to give even more resources for your holistic growth into the boss you want to be, and to share their platform with other experts and educators to bring you more than they alone can teach! You can check them out at bossproject.com
Hold on! There’s one more thing! In great boss fashion, Abagail and Emylee gathered tons of entrepreneurs, myself included, to create an amazing bundle offering in their BOSS VAULT for their launch week, Feb 18-22.
You can snag my “31 Ways To Boost Your Brand” E-Book as well as 17 other amazing programs (a value of $2,000) for just $99. Just head to: BOSS VAULT to see everything included and get your hands on it before it goes away on Friday night Feb 22nd!