Archive of ‘branding’ category

Motivation Monday: How Rejection Fueled Wedding Gown Designer Heidi Elnora’s Future

Birmingham-based wedding gown designer Heidi Elnora Baker helps a bride on TLC's "Bride By Design,'' which premiered in July 2014. (Image from TLC)

Birmingham-based wedding gown designer Heidi Elnora Baker helps a bride on her new TLC reality show “Bride By Design,” which premiered in July 2014. (TLC image credit: DCL)

By Chanda Temple 

What a difference a year makes.

In 2005, Alabama designer Heidi Elnora Baker was the second designer eliminated on Season 2 of “Project Runway.” But she refused to stay stuck in her present. She used the rejection to fuel her future.

In 2006, she started her wedding gown design company, heidi elnora. Today, her designs are in 25 stores worldwide; she’s preparing to show at Fashion Week in New York in October; and she’s on Hollywood’s radar.

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Motivation Monday: Do you work your job or does it work you?

By Chanda Temple

Marcia and Marla Pruitte are motivational speakers, helping folks get their IT together. (Photo: Special)

Identical twins Marcia Pruitte, left, and Marla Pruitte are motivational speakers, helping folks get their IT (intimate truth) together. (Photo: Special)

In 2010, Marcia Pruitte thought she was working her dream job.

She had opened a natural hair salon in Jackson, Tenn., where things were good for business. But soon, she realized she wasn’t being fulfilled. She wasn’t a licensed cosmetologist, she just owned the salon. So if stylists didn’t show up to service clients, she didn’t make money. She didn’t like someone else having that type of control. To her, that wasn’t freedom.

Meanwhile, her identical twin sister, Marla Pruitte, was having a similar feeling about her cupcake business. Also in Jackson, Marla worked hard to make her bakery a success. But if customers didn’t come in, she could potentially have a bad week. Her store became more of a job than a dream. She felt trapped.

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Twitter tips for entrepreneurs and bloggers

By Chanda Temple

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I recently served as a panelist on a social media panel, where I discussed what has worked for me on Twitter. Everyone is different. What works for Sally may not work for Sam. The main thing is to try and see what works for you. Here are some of the tips I shared:

  • Follow people you like and those that feed your passion and interests

If you have quality tweets that teach people something, make them laugh or inspire them, you’ve piqued their interest. They’ll look at your feed. If you have content that makes people want to keep scrolling down your feed, they’ll likely follow you. I figure that if this is what gets others to look at folks’ tweets, then it is also what may get people to look at me.

Tweet about what you enjoy doing and reading.

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What does your business card say about your brand?

 

Sherrod Shackleford, left, and LaVon Lewis founded their branding and marketing company, PDG, in a dorm room, 14 years ago. Today, they are handling accounts for major companies. They are based in Atlanta, Ga.

Sherrod Shackelford, left, and LaVon Lewis founded their branding and marketing company, PDG, in a dorm room at Alabama A&M University, 14 years ago. Today, they are handling accounts for major companies. They are based in Atlanta, Ga. (Photo by Chanda Temple)

By Chanda Temple

Before you hand your business card to Sherrod Shackelford or LaVon Lewis, make sure the card is truly what you want to say about your company.

If not, be ready for their feedback because the two founders of PDG, a branding and marketing firm based in Atlanta, Ga., are not shy about sizing you and your card up and  saying what they like and don’t like about it. 

“I don’t know what you are selling,” one of them told an entrepreneur during a recent branding workshop, where attendees provided their business cards for critiques.

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Motivation Monday: How to build a better you for your business and your brand

What does your brand say about you and your company? Image by Rupert Ganzer via Flickr/CreativeCommons.

What does your brand say about you and your company?
Image by Rupert Ganzer via Flickr/CreativeCommons.

By Chanda Temple

I love a good conversation,  especially when it’s packed with engaging or powerful tips to help make me better in my professional and personal life. Earlier this year, a friend suggested I check out her former college classmate’s weeklong teleseries on branding. I’m glad I did.

Ten minutes into the teleseries, Atlanta visual brand strategist and image coach Brandi Mitchell had me hooked on wanting to improve my branding game. Her information was bold and helpful, especially for setting goals for 2014. She left listeners feeling that whatever held them back in 2013, will no longer be a factor in 2014. 

To get wherever you are going, she says, will take preparation and determination. “Don’t wait to be given the green light,” Brandi says. “Go create your own reality. She who brands it, believes it, builds it and becomes it, wins.’’

Impressive, right? Well, here are some of her tips for building a better you:

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