[LATOYA SMITH]
Welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast, episode number 718.

Welcome back to the Practice of the Practice podcast. I am LaToya Smith, one of the consultants with the Practice of the Practice. I’m doing a podcast takeover and today another great person is here to join me. Her name is Keshia White. Keshia is a brand and web designer for experienced coaches, consultants, and service providers who want to create high quality lead generating digital presence through elevated brand and website design. All that sounds good. Keshia, welcome to Practice of the Practice podcast.
[KESHIA WHITE]
Thank you for having me.
[LATOYA]
Yes, I’m really excited to have you on and you know what I say, when I do the takeovers, I usually, I try to connect with different people and I know I saw your video on LinkedIn, so that’s how I reached out to you. I liked the video you created and I was like, man, that that’s really good. It drew me in and I was like this would be great for the listeners to hear. So tell us a little bit about you and your business.
[KESHIA]
Okay. Well, yes. Well, I have been designing websites probably for like eight years or so now. I started when I worked in corporate sales, I worked in B2B sales for about seven years and then did web design. I bid on the side because I was looking for a more technical in-demand skill. Then I also wanted a skill that I could use as a freelancer on my own to have like a flexible business, a flexible lifestyle and so ended up leaving corporate in 2018 and I’ve been doing it full time for three and a half, almost four years now. So it’s been great to be able to work with different consultants and other professional service providers to help them create the online presence that draws in their target clients and all of that. So it’s definitely been very good. Very good move. I’m glad I made the move to take it full time.
[LATOYA]
Were you always creative or in graphics? Is that what you’re doing for corporate America or just what really drew you to websites?
[KESHIA]
No, I wasn’t at all. I was like extremely bored in corporate America because I was in sales, so I sold telecom I worked at AT&T, business to business, sales in the corporate space then some software sales too and then some consumer product sales as well. My favorite was software, I guess, because I did like the technology aspect of it, but there was no creativity at all, which was something, well, I guess one of the reasons why it was felt boring to me. So I had a bit of a creative streak that I tried to use in my free time so I started a blog, like a lifestyle blog when I was in corporate. So that was actually the first website I designed, was the site from my blog and from there I was, was like, oh, this may be a cool way to use some creativity. Then also my enjoyment of technology too, so I just stumbled upon it like that, but my degree in college was in marketing. So that really wasn’t very creative either so ended up being able to find a way to express creativity later in life after college.
[LATOYA]
Awesome. That seems that’s really, sounds really great. So basically you had this creative itch and you put your skill sets together, maybe passion and then your skill and then here we are and you’re creating amazing websites. I heard you say a minute ago you look at people’s website and you help them find what’s missing. What do you, what’s the common things that you see missing from people’s websites and you’re like, whoa, I really need to get ahold of that one or I would love to work with that.
[KESHIA]
Well I guess a common thing missing, I’ll say maybe their own unique look of their brand and then having a cohesiveness to it because a lot of times, if people maybe do their own website, it either looks very cookie cutter. Maybe they use some template out there that anybody else in the world can use so then they look like everybody else or they just let it stay really, really plain because if you’re not versed in design, then you don’t know how to really jazz it up and give it a unique look. Or if they do try to design on their own, then it can lack cohesiveness.

People may not know how to pair the colors or how to select the right font and maybe they select lower quality fonts that give them a bit of an amateur look. So all of those things give people a really, really beginner amateur look, even if they may not be a beginner. When your design is a bit more elevated and more cohesive and more unique, it helps people to really stand out and to look like a elevated professional at what they do. Yes, that cohesiveness and uniqueness is something that I see missing a lot.
[LATOYA]
How does, sometimes when we start a business right away, people start, they don’t think about any of that. Again, just my transparency, like I sure didn’t, I was just like, when I opened my doors in my practice, I’m like, Hey, here I am. So I didn’t think about colors, I didn’t think about those little details. So say somebody says, okay, even for the person starting today or for the person who’s been in practice for years and just never really put that much thought in this cohesiveness that you’re talking about like, how do we back up? How do we establish that? What’s the starting point?
[KESHIA]
Well, I always tell people to think about themselves as like a miniature, like corporation a bit because if you’re looking at like Coca-Cola or AT&T or any major hotel brand like the W or whatever, they always have their own signature unique look. It’s important because of the perception that other people are going to have of your business. So if you do great work and you’re going to serve your clients. Well, people who do are not familiar with you, they don’t know that so they’re judging you based on the look. If you lack that cohesive look, because you just jump in then, unfortunately giving off the wrong impression to a lot of strangers who aren’t familiar with you and your quality, which can make the services look low quality even though they’re not.

That’s why it definitely should be a priority for people because you don’t want to be given off that wrong perception and turning people away. Then a good starting point for it, if you maybe have a limited budget and you can’t necessarily get a professional designer at least coming up with your own unique color palette from the beginning and maybe doing some research on color psychology and seeing what colors are in alignment with the values you hold for your brand or the way you want your brand to come off to the public, like if you want it to come off as witty or humorous or do you want it to come off as very professional or do you want it to be very inspirational and spiritual, whatever the adjective words that you would use to describe your brand do some color psychology research to make sure you’re choosing a color palette that is in alignment with the image you want to portray.

Then use those colors consistently with the exact same colors everywhere so you can stay cohesive. Then you can also provide those colors to maybe on those cheaper sites. If you can find someone who do, who may, could probably could do a decent size logo for you that can get you off the ground, like going on a site like Upwork or Fiverr with the colors that you pick and asking for some logo there could be a starting point. Then maybe picking some template through like a, really all the website providers have templates, just whatever your personal preference is. Whether you want to pick a Squarespace template or WordPress template or Wix template, whatever know you want to pick and then using the logo you get on one of those templates and then using the colors you picked as well on the template too.

So that’s the easiest way to start if you’re doing a DIY. I don’t recommend keeping that for the long term. I recommend just doing that until you get off the ground and you get enough revenue to hire a professional designer. Then once you hire a professional designer, they’ll handle all that for stuff for you and help you really elevate the look. But the DIY route is good if you’re in the beginning and you’re bootstrapping things and you just want to get some revenue in first, then the DIY thing is a good way to get started.
[LATOYA]
Yes, I know like, you said, there’s research there with the colors and how they make people feel like your target audience and things like that. But I notice for myself, even when I look up something for business or want to work with somebody, I really do take a look at their website. Not that mine’s perfect, but, I know the importance of looking at somebody else’s and then wanting to get that feel like, do I feel like this person connects with me or how’s it make me feel when I log on? So I think all those things are important, things that aren’t normally thought about, but people want to achieve in business. Talk a little bit more about a brand. I think that’s a word that’s thrown around a lot, but when you say brand or branding for a private practice or for an individual, what are things that as business owners, practice owners really need to be thinking about when it comes to branding?
[KESHIA]
The branding a lot of times, I guess the biggest misconception is people think that a “brand” is just their logo and this one main logo that they have and that’s it. But really a brand is what you’re known for. It’s more, I liken it to a reputation or something, so like if someone was having a conversation with a friend of theirs trying to describe your business to that other person, your brand is how they would be describing you basically to that other person. So it’s like that perception and that reputation that other people have when they think about you and your business and what you’re known for.

A lot of branding really begins with the messaging part, which is why I like to, for some of my design projects for clients who are able to do the professional copywriting part, too, it really helps them to get a lot of clarity on their messaging for their brand. Like what values do they want to exude through the message? How do they want people to feel when they read about their brand? What tone of voice do they want to use to draw people in and just all of that. So that reputational part is a really big part of branding. Then from there just that cohesive look sort of comes into play again, because then there’s the visual brand piece that I mentioned with the colors and the imagery and how your website may look and how any marketing items that you have, whether it’s flyers or billboards or business cards, all of those, having a unique cohesive look.

That’s a bit part of your brand too, because if you see the red and white anywhere with the cursive letters for Coca-Cola, you’re going to automatically recognize like, okay, that’s Coca-Cola. I know what that red and white and the Coca-Cola letters represent. So that’s like, I guess a visual reputation in a way people are recognizing that visual piece. Then they recognize, well, the messaging part is the part that sticks in their head, I guess and how they would describe you to other people. So a combination of those two things, like I said, the message and then how that message comes into play in the visuals and being cohesive with all of that stuff is the brand really.
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[LATOYA SMITH]
So there’s a part of your company too, that helps with the copy. For those that don’t know, the copy is just all the writing that goes into, or the verbiage right on the website. So if I don’t know what to put or it’s overwhelming, then you have a piece of your company that would help me establish that?
[KESHIA]
Yep. Yes, I do. So that’s add-on for clients if they need some help with their website copy because I used to have in the past, I didn’t have that incorporated in there, but then I noticed that website copy was a place where a lot of people got stuck and it delayed like a lot of projects and people had a hard time with figuring out what to say. So I have a copywriter who’s available to be added on to projects for an additional investment and people want to get her expertise. Then she does a kickoff strategy call where it’s a really deep dive call on someone’s message, helping them, just asking them a bunch of questions that really makes them think when it comes to what they want to say about their business and their brand.

A lot of times it’s questions that people didn’t think of, but then they end up saying like, wow, that was a really good question because it’s helping me view my business in a new light. Then it helps them really uncover what makes them unique and different in their industry too so she can really write some copy that helps them stand out as well. So yes, so she’ll do that deep dive kickoff call and then once she’s finished with the writing, you’ll be presented with a full working draft of writing for all five of your website pages and all clients have to do is just review the writing. People love that because it just takes it off their plate and it relieves above a bunch of stress or just angst or trying to figure out what to say by themselves. So then all they have to do is just give her the feedback. Then I take over once the wording gets finalized and I design and make it look all beautiful on your website. They come together really, really well.
[LATOYA]
I would love that because I’m one of those people if somebody asks me to write something for a website, I’m like, oh, it’s permanent. It’s like right in concrete. Like once it’s on there, it’s on there and just getting tripped up on saying the absolute right thing that people can feel and call up and then want to see a therapist. So I would just love the idea of just this is what I’m thinking and what are some, do you know some of the questions that she may ask, like the really help pull out emotions in people or to get that stuff on page?
[KESHIA]
Well, she definitely ask questions around like what’s the client’s brand values? Then she’ll even have random ones in there, like what if you had to associate a song with the brand? What song would it be like? That’s a fun part of it.
[LATOYA]
Yes, that’s a good one.
[KESHIA]
Yes, because that’s one that I never even thought because I do kick off calls too when clients don’t get the professional branding done. But she’s the only one who came up with that question. I was like, oh, that’s a cool question. Then she’ll also like to know what are the person’s goals and what types of target clients do they ideally want to attract to the business? This way she’s able to make sure she’s writing in a way that’s going to attract those target clients. Then she’ll also ask like what differentiates you in your industry compared to others who do the similar work as you do? What tone of voice would you like to come across in the writing and that type of thing. I’m trying to think of one other really good one. One she has, how do you describe your brand essence? I know that sounds imagination-ish a little bit but that one helps people’s wheels turn to be like, okay, what personality does their brand exude? That’s what that essence question ends up giving people some ideas around that.
[LATOYA]
I like that. What’s the personality of your brand. I love the song one because immediately I’m thinking like, man, what song would I put? See, I like to see that, this is why I would love somebody doing the copy because if somebody just ask me a bunch of questions and I can answer on them I’ll be like, all right, bye. Then they know that you’re working on that. That takes up, just relieves me of so much stress of having to write, to think I have to write something of perfection where somebody can just pick up my words and lay it out. So it’s already like this service that you provide like a stress reliever.
[KESHIA]
It is. Yes, yes
[LATOYA]
I like what you said too, what’s the personality of your brand? What do you want to give off? That’s most important because when people log on, they want to be able to see that. So what’s the process like from start to finish, if somebody calls you up and says, “Hey, I want to work with you.” What’s that look like?
[KESHIA]
Well the process begins with the kickoff session if you do the copywriting piece. My copywriter who I partner with, her name is Courtney, Courtney will do that kickoff deep dive call with you. It’s a one to two hour call where she’ll take you through those questions, take a lot of notes and then after that she delivers the notes over to me so I can get started on your brand identity design and then brand identity design includes selecting your brand colors based on color psychology. So I’m selecting, I look over the notes that Courtney gives to me and then I listen to the recording as well from your kickoff session. It helps me pick the right colors based on color psychology that are in alignment with how you want the brand to come across.

Then I’ve put those into what’s called a mood board, which is a collage of images together that show the visual look and feel that we’re going for. So the mood board and the color palettes are all together and clients get two options to pick from for the mood boards and color palettes. Then after the colors are finalized and I go into the logo design stage and clients get four main logos to select from. The logos are designed depending on what they need. Some of them incorporate symbols if the client has a brand that assemble that they want to associate with the brand and then some of them don’t have symbols. It just depends on what’s appropriate for them.

Then there’s two revision rounds for that stage as well. Then from there, I build out the rest of the brand style guide, which just includes all the visual brand elements. I think of those as little ingredients to pick and choose from as people are designing things for the brand. So they’re like the ingredients, quote unquote that I pick and choose from to design the website and then our clients get the full brand style guide so they have the ingredients to choose from. If they’re getting flyers designed, if they want to go get a billboard designed somewhere, or if they want to get some worksheets designed or client intake forms or just anything they want to get designed moving forward, the items in the brand style guide are there and that way everything can be cohesive.

So the color codes for your color palette will be in there. The brand fonts pairings that I recommend will be in there for you, the brand accent pattern, the alternate logos and the main logo, and then the brand little sub marks and icons. So with all that, those different logo sizes, you have sizes for different spaces and logos for light and dark backgrounds. This gives clients like all the little visual brand ingredients to use to design anything moving forward. People after working with me sometimes they’ll get PowerPoint slides on. Sometimes they add that on for me, I may add on, they may add on the PowerPoints for me to design or speaker media kits design.

This way, when people encounter their business anywhere, they’re going to have the same look. Then usually at that point, once I finish the style guided Courtney is finishing with the website copy around the same time. So she’ll deliver the website copy for clients to review and she gives two revision rounds for that too so you can make sure the wording is to your liking at the end. Then once the copy is finalized, then I’ll go ahead and build out real life replicas of the website pages in a web design prototype tool. This is before we even hit the internet.

I’m just building the page mockups out to show you the plan and show you what they’re going to look like so I can get your approval on the designs before I build it out on the internet. I build out custom layouts for each person’s design, so everybody has their unique custom look and we’re not using these cookie cutter templates that everybody else could be using. Then there’s two revision rounds for that. Once those are finalized then I go ahead and build it out online at the end. My favorite builder is Squarespace. WordPress is the second one if people are on there and they want to stay on WordPress, but the platforms for me don’t really matter necessarily, because I can build the same design on any platform, it’s just more client preference on that type stuff.

Anyway, so that’s pretty much it. At the end we do a little training session to let clients know how they can make little tweaks and updates to their websites as they go along. We give clients a little promo graphic to announce their new website on social media so they can get it some buzz around it and then we’re done. So it’s pretty much all hands off, like the copy’s written for you, all the design is done for you and all you have to do is just respond with your feedback as we give you updates on what’s going on.
[LATOYA]
That sounds really good, especially like when you say everything is under, we can get everything right, so from, it sounds like you give us templates for, okay, here are the colors. Here’s the letterhead, the logo, everything that you need. You’ll either design it or you’ll show us how that we all, we just, everything matches so it’s not like over here, I’m using one color and over here I’m using another or it looks different. Because sometimes when you start things at different seasons, you have a different idea and a different look and it could be a lot of mitch-max. I know that one, but it’s good that you help with that from the start. What about wait, how often should somebody change their website?
[KESHIA]
The changes, not many of my clients need a ton of changes unless they have like fresh press or something. Those are other people who get changes the most, like if they have some new media or press features and they want to update those. But the only other times people need changes is if you’re selling a new service, let’s say, so like, if you want to me to design an additional new page for a new service you’re about to put out there. Then that may be a change but for the most part, when people, once they finish with us, with Courtney and I, they pretty much leave it alone.

I will say, I design with a, I call it a timeless modern style. This way it’s something that will stay with people from years to come. I try not to make my design too “trendy” to where it’s something that cannot look outdated in a year or two, because we don’t want people having to go through this long process again in two years. We want you to use this for like five years and more, as long as your business is still selling the same services.
[LATOYA]
I like that. So basically it’s not like, okay, you get your website done in 2022 and then in 2024, you need to change it all over again. What you’re saying is listen, this is timeless. It’s well you can go in and change some pages or change some photos, which I imagine you got to change photos often. Is that the part that should change to keep it fresh or that is a —
[KESHIA]
If people want to, that’s more of a personal preference because a lot of times since I work with people who do some professional service, they only have a few pictures of themselves on there. It’s only a people who have a lot of pictures of themselves on there. If they have more like a personal brand website, that’s like a website named after them with their name or something. But even those that’s personal, I guess if they feel like their appearance changed, then they want to just update it with some fresh pictures, then they can switch them out if they want to. But that’s still more personal preference. Changing pictures won’t make or break your state as long as you, so yes if they want to they can, but it’s not required.
[LATOYA]
Then another thing I want to mention before we get off, so you have on your, and I want people, you to tell people about your website and how they can contact you, but then there’s also something on your website, like if I don’t know my brand personality, if I don’t know how, I don’t know, so is it a quiz or something like that? Then how accurate is that when people take that quiz that that’s really their personality when it’s time to build a website?
[KESHIA]
Oh yes, yes. I used to have that quiz. I took it down now though, but we try to really tap into more, a little bit of the person’s personality a little bit too. So even if you may not necessarily attribute those characteristics to your business itself, a lot of times as small business owners, we’re giving our business the personality just by being who we are because we’re the one running the business. So you can still have some personality come through just by tapping into like, okay, what’s my personality and what am I going to bring to the table as the person running the business if that makes sense.
[LATOYA]
Okay. I like that your business has personality, so really puts your, what I’m really getting from you is like puts your feeling and yourself into it. Like don’t try to be cookie cutter. Like I heard what you said, don’t have your site looking like 20 other sites. And really, and that’s what your team works to do so that, listen, this is your business. You built it, let your brand really speak that and not like you’re just showing up like the next person.
[KESHIA]
Yes, exactly. Then I will add on a little thing. This is outside of even web design, but a lot of the copy that Courtney writes for the website, it can be repurposed honestly for like social media and even business emails. Because a lot of the marketing copy is pretty similar across the board so things that could be typed out as like, okay, this is a section about the benefits of my services. Then maybe you want to create a post on social media that talks about the benefits of your services so you can just repurpose it and use it across the board in different places. Just like you can with brand identity elements and using those across the board in different ways you can do the same thing with the copy so you have that cohesive message and you’re not having to reinvent the wheel or trying to think of what can I say about my business every day?
[LATOYA]
Yes, I like that. You guys, it sounds like, listen with this service it’s always a giveback, like once we make the investment to work with you all, we can use it for everything. The color scheme can go a bunch of different ways. Like you said a minute ago, the letterhead, the logo, if I want to do a one page for presentations, or now I want to turn the copy into social media post and then repurpose it over again. So it’s definitely an investment to this business of really what we all want to drawing more clients, to serve more people and to help the community. I love it. I love it. So how can people work with you? Where can they find you and how can they sign up to even do like a initial call?
[KESHIA]
Well, I can be found at my website at keshiamwhite.com. Keshia is spelled Keshia and then M as in Michelle and then white, white.com. Then I’m also @Keshia M. White, everywhere on social media as well. Then the first step is to schedule a complimentary brand discovery session. You can click the links on my website. There’s links all over that say schedule a complimentary discovery session. Once you click one of those you’ll be able to fill out the appointment form and get a call on our schedules. Then you can chat about possibly working together and what your needs are because we’re really big on making the recommendations, because well, in the beginning of those calls, we always like to just listen, to see where people are and what issues and pain points have they been running into with their website and their copy. Then this way we can make a recommendation just for them to meet them where they are. So, yes, that’s the way to get started and we’ll be happy to chat and talk about a good recommendation for you.
[LATOYA]
Awesome, awesome. Keshia, thank you so much for joining me here on this podcast takeover. I really appreciate everything that you laid out and I know I’m going to be trying my best to get my stuff together with everything that I have. Thank you again to our audience for listening in. You know where to find Keshia. Check the show notes so that you can sign up with a call with her and her team. All right. Have a blessed day.
[KESHIA]
Thank you.
[JOE]
We could not do the show without the support of our sponsors. We are so excited about BiOptimizers coming on as a sponsor. Specifically with their magnesium product the last two years have been crazy and we’ve never experienced anything like this in our lifetimes. A lot of us and our clients are dealing with anxiety, stress, and poor sleep, keeping your kids occupied all the time. But we support mental wellness here at Practice of the Practice and Magnesium Breakthrough can help you finally feel it yourself again. All you do is take two capsules right before bed. You’ll be amazed at the improvements in your mood and energy levels. It’s something that I’ve been taking for a few months now and I’m just, I love it. It’s great. Feel free to check out the offer over at magbreakthrough.com/practice. Again, that’s magbreakthrough.com/practice. If you use [PRACTICE] during check out you save 10% and get free shipping. Go check that out.

Thanks so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have a great day.

Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music.

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