How to Choose Your Side-Business Brand Colors - #48 (Replay)

Show Notes

Nola and Lori explore what it takes to set your side business apart from the competition. To do this they look at what goes into developing a business brand. Just how important is having the right color palette, especially if you plan to do business globally.

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Let’s get this color filled episode started!

In This Episode You’ll Learn

• What are brand elements and why are they important to your business
• How branding impacts your customers
• What makes your side hustle business stand out from your competitors
• The elements of building brand awareness for your side hustle

 
We humans are visual creatures. Yet, there’s more of a demand on customer’s attention than ever before. So how do you, small business, side hustle owner, gain recognition with your target audience? It begins by understanding the elements for building a solid and recognizable business brand and strategy.

• (7:26.16) What is the difference between brand, branding and brand identity.
• (12:25.40) Guess which company uses red and purple as their brand colors?
• (15:18.92) Where this color and you just might get mistaken for an employee rather than a customer.
• (16:35.92) What neuroscience says about color and how that impacts your business.
• (18:14.74) Don’t wear this color if you want to attract a mate.
• (18:34.72) These colors could have a negative impact on your business especially if you plan to reach a global market
• (24:34.58) Free resources to help you choose your brand colors

 
Resources
Color Seed - https://www.design-seeds.com/ (Blog, Search, Seasonal) - add a photo you like. I will generate a color palette.

Coolers - https://coolors.co/ (Color Scheme Generator) New Website!

Canva - 100 color combinations and how to apply them to your designs (Be sure to scroll down to see the image and color palette https://www.canva.com/learn/100-color-combinations/  

https://palettegenerator.com/

 This episode was supported by: Middle Kid Media [middlekidmedia.com]
Logo Lite and Social Packages for $475 see our offers page for details [https://www.stickybrandlab.com/offers.html]
​
Additional Savings for Other Branding Services Coupon code SBL20 (Excludes Logo Lite & Social Packages)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Nola: [00:00:00] Have you been wondering whether your side hustle needs branding? Well, we're gonna stop you right here and answer that with a resounding YES! The reality is every choice you make about the way you present your company's products or services matters. Branding your side hustle is a key step on the road to success.
Why? Because it's what people notice. It's what captures attention. And it gives your business a credible look and feel which are very important. In today's episode, we're going to show you how to choose brand colors that are both appealing in the eyes of the customers and triggers positive vibes. All without spending a dime,

  Lori: [00:00:46] Hey there, side hustlers - hope you're having a great week! It's Lori and Nola from Sticky Brand Lab here with another you-will-not-want-to miss-this podcast. In today's Episode Four, we're going to be showing you how fun and easy it is to choose the [00:01:00] colors for your business branding. But first, be sure to hit the subscribe button and give our podcasts some L-O-V-E love, so other entrepreneurial seekers, just like you, can learn about the Sticky Brand Lab podcast's amazing format for starting a rock-solid side hustle. So let's get your professional shine on with today's colorful show!
So Nola, how did you choose your colors for your side hustle that's still in the incubator stage, but how did you choose the colors for glad travel? 

Nola: [00:01:33] I have to say it wasn't necessarily methodical.
I want to say I went more on emotion. I kind of know what colors I like. I like earthy colors. I like a little bit of contrast. And from there picked a, a main color and accent color and some neutrals that went along with that and said, okay, this looks good. And then I just made sure that any photograph for the site kind of fell along.
The lines of those kinds of [00:02:00] colors and I've come a long way since then. Yeah,
I will say that once I had my logo made, I did identify which what the exact colors were, so that if I really did have to come up with something or create something that would go with my brand, that I had the perfect color match. So once I decided, you know, I. Tried to obey the rules. After that humming up with them.
I want to say it was more organic and emotional than scientific. How did you choose your colors for GB Brand Partners?

Lori: [00:02:33] I'm a visual person. So I imagine things and see them in my mind's eye first. And then I have a kinesthetic part of it as well, which is why I hand write my notes. I can't type them. I need that. So together.
That's how I form ideas. In my head. Let me show you a picture. That is what set the tone for GB brand. 

Nola: [00:02:55] Oh, how cool is that? 

Lori: [00:02:56] Yes, it is. 

Nola: [00:02:57] Oh, [00:03:00] that is so cool. 

Lori: [00:03:02] That is an artist from Curacao. Podcast listeners. You're going to be able to see this picture on our website, in our blog post, to give you an idea.
There are vibrant blues and greens and yellows. It's a picture of a woman and I fell in love with this picture. And when I had to decide colors for GB Brand Partners, I went to that photo and matched color numbers primarily using that painted picture. 

Nola: [00:03:34] So would you say it's because we had this emotional reaction.

Lori: [00:03:37] Okay. Do it. That picture is in my, uh, hanging on my wall in my office still because it brings so much good memories of the trip. And I, there's some funny stories and I just love the colors. When you're working in an industry with other business professionals who are trying to establish their brand [00:04:00] and their messaging, and you want to tie everything together, you're working on their website or in many cases, redoing websites, you get to see that a lot of times people didn't think about that continuity all the way through.

Nola: [00:04:15] I mean, you and I have seen a lot of really kind of tacky websites that on one hand, I want to give people credit for putting something out there. Okay. And I mean, doing something is better than doing nothing, but there are times where you can see that somebody has done something, but it just lacks that aesthetic.
And very often, often, if you analyze it's down to, they didn't really think about their colors and the importance of the color scheme or of the branding itself. 

Lori: [00:04:44] You don't know what you don't know until you get a professional who points out continuity to you or branding and brand messaging. I hear ya.
I was working with a lawyer and he was rebranding himself. Cause he hadn't [00:05:00] branded himself. You just put a website up. And when I went to look at the website, it had three colors, it had yellow, black and white. And all I thought was, this looks like a bee. And I know, you know, it looks like a B or sings, like a B if you were thinking Muhammad Ali, but I know that's not what he was thinking when he did this at all.
I mean, he had been in practice for a couple of years, but relatively new in the industry, his clients had mostly been referrals from family and friends, friends, and a few colleagues. And he was seeing his brand, or I should say his business start to increase. So he was going beyond that and he wanted a more professional.
Look, and we started in the rebranding. Just kind of, what are the colors going to be for your logo? What [00:06:00] colors do you want when you hand somebody a business card? What impression do you want them to get a view? And that's 
Nola: [00:06:07] because while you want to have a more professional image for your brand, especially when you're building up beyond family and friends, it's important to not think that you have to make it look like it's bigger and badder than it really is.
I mean, being authentic, that's very important, but it's just important to look professional when you build a really strong recognizable brand. It'll help you add real legitimacy to your business. Having a side gig does not mean you're an amateur. You can have a side gig and be professional and your brand is going to help you look professional and people are going to come to you to talk to you about what you provide, whether it's a side hustle or no, it exudes that professionalism that your customers want.
And you're going to get the customers that are going to be willing to pay for that. 
Lori: [00:06:52] Absolutely
understanding what brand is and why it's important, [00:07:00] especially when you're just starting out in a business, comes up a lot, people wonder, do I need a brand? And the mistake that they often assume is that a brand means a logo. They don't think about it. They don't understand what brand actually means. 
Nola: [00:07:19] This is so true.
Lori: [00:07:20] And that's where the confusion happens.
Nola: [00:07:22] And it's easy to do. It seems like such a nebulous term. 
Lori: [00:07:26] Think of building your brand with three B's: brand, branding, brand identity, cause a sticky brand is a brand that sticks in the minds of your target audience, your customers, your brand is the perception the world outside has of your business.
It's what people that are your target audience, what they think about you, they almost are the ones who say, this is what makes a [00:08:00] brand. 
Nola: [00:08:00] Your brand is how others perceive your company. And it's really how you are trying to have others perceive your company. And part of their perception is how do they perceive how they're going to experience.
You are product or service as they interact. So it's certainly the visual, it's the physical, but it's also an experience. What is their expectation of interacting with you and your brand? 
Lori: [00:08:28] And that's branding. So that's, it's the active part of it. You'll often hear people talk about personal branding. If you are a business owner and you're the only one in it, it's not a large company.
So that's what our side hustlers and aspiring entrepreneurs are doing is they're starting out. You are representing your company, your business. You're the face of it. Every time you interact with a prospect, every time you. Wear colors that [00:09:00] represent your business, or you hand out a business card, even the act of giving a business card.
When you're talking about your personality, it's bringing to life. That's branding. That's the active part of it. All the more 
Nola: [00:09:18] reason to be authentic 
Lori: [00:09:19] about it. Absolutely. Cause if you try to be something you're not, it feels fake. 
Nola: [00:09:26] You try to create a caricature of what you think a brand should be like, and then that's not really, you.
It comes off flat. The other B is your brand identity that refers to all of the elements such as your colors, which we'll talk about soon, your typography or your font, any type of images. Especially those that go into creating your logo, images on your website, on, you know, brochures or marketing material print, or even on online, you know, 
Lori: [00:09:59] materials. [00:10:00] Everything. 
Nola: [00:10:00] Even your business card. 
Lori: [00:10:02] Your social, sorry, your social, LinkedIn, all of those are part of your brand identity.
Nola: [00:10:09] Okay. Absolutely. The three B's come together with this alchemy that just, you know, comes alive. Um, with your unique brand. However, we're just going to distill this into one element for our podcast. 
Lori: [00:10:25] Right. Because we're all about small steps, big effects. Things that you can do in three hours a week. So we're narrowing it down.
Here. 
Nola: [00:10:35] And when we come back, we're going to focus on one element of your brand identity and that's choosing the color palette for your business. 
Lori: [00:10:43] People love our Sticky Brand logo. Many assume we've spent thousands of dollars on it, but the truth is it only looks like it cost a lot. Middle Kid Media makes getting customized professional brand elements, simple from one-of-a-kind logos to marketing collateral and so much more [00:11:00] Tish at Middle Kid Media helps you stand out with your brand out. Podcast listeners save 20% coupon code SBL 20. Visit middlekidmedia.com to see her work. 
Nola: [00:11:13] Come a little closer, listeners. You are not going to want to miss these podcast launch deals. For a limited time only, Tish has created a special offer on your choice of a logo design, or social media package to find out what's included in the super sweet savings head on over to stickybrandlab.com/offers for details.
Lori: [00:11:35] Welcome back the Sticky Brand Lab, the podcast for the soon to be entrepreneur who is ready to accomplish more by building a side hustle in less time. Before we left, we gave an overview for thinking about branding to help side giggers and side hustlers get started. Now, we're going to focus on that one small step to help you think about choosing the colors for your brand.
The best part about [00:12:00] this is you do not need to be creative. You don't need to be artistic. You don't even need to know anything about marketing or branding to have fun, choosing your colors. 
Nola: [00:12:11] True. That 
Lori: [00:12:12] true 
Nola: [00:12:14] that. 
Lori: [00:12:15] Nola when you think about big businesses out there, businesses that we all come in contact with. And you think about the business and branding. What comes to mind? 
Nola: [00:12:25] Virgin the Virgin companies. They have an amazing brand and they use a lot of red and purple. They are all about. A funky experience. Yes. I mean, I had, for a long time, I had a, a Virgin mobile phone that would come in a bread box and whenever I had to call for whatever reason to activate this or do something that their voicemail would go, Hey, dude.
How's it going, you know, I mean, it was just everything that was a touch point. Their brand was just, it was flawless. And then recently I had the opportunity [00:13:00] to ride one of the Virgin planes. I don't suppose Virgin Atlantic or Virgin. It was so cool. And I write in a lot of planes and they're all kind of, you know, the only difference it might be the color of their hair.
This had about purple neon lights going down the aisle. They had though red menus and tight tech touch. Menu thing it may be, but it was all experienced. Everything was the experience of being funky and rad. And I don't even know if those are still words than this generation, but was 
Lori: [00:13:37] get a good picture.
It sounded so cool. 
Nola: [00:13:40] And when I think about colors, especially when it relates to brand do think about. Virgin. 
Lori: [00:13:47] And just watching you talk about it, you like light up, right? You're excited. You're animated, your faces expressive. So clearly your experience was really positive. 
Nola: [00:13:59] And [00:14:00] that I'm sure is their intent.
Lori: [00:14:01] Well, yeah, there's a connection to it. Now, when you think of them, you think of them as being hip or. Rad is using and funky because the purple and the experience of being in there, the high-tech experience all left you with an, a positive feeling. 
Nola: [00:14:18] Yes, absolutely. And the color was a big part of that. And so, I'm sure that there's a science behind why they picked out red and purple.
Lori: [00:14:27] Boy I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall and that discussion.
Nola: [00:14:30] I know. I know. As you know, colors are more than just a visual aid. They convey emotion and feelings and experiences, and the colors create a vibe and a combination of colors, creative vibe, and that vibe can be part of your experience. And so when you repeat that color, you repeating the experience, right?
Yes. 
Lori: [00:14:54] Absolutely. I agree with you. 
Nola: [00:14:56] So when is the last time you saw like [00:15:00] a red bull's eye? And didn't think target immediately. 
Lori: [00:15:06] So both for sure. First of all, my name is Lori and I'm a Target-aholic. 
Nola: [00:15:13] I 
Lori: [00:15:13] love target. Um, so I, yeah, 
Nola: [00:15:18] I go in there 
Lori: [00:15:18] with a list and then I buy things that aren't on my list. Because I think it's so cool.
Yeah. One time my husband and I were in target and he was wearing red kind of polo shirt. And somebody came up to him and asked him for where to find something. And he looked at them, he's like, um, I don't know. And she then looked at him, she was very frustrated. And she said, well, don't you work here? No shopping.
I have [00:16:00] heard other people who, if you have that real passionate red color associated with the target bullseye and you're in target, there's just an assumption that you must be an employee. 
Nola: [00:16:14] Cause it's their brand 
Lori: [00:16:15] color primary brand color. Okay. 
Nola: [00:16:17] Yes. 
Lori: [00:16:20] Can you imagine.
 At first she was frustrated because she thought he worked there, which I found to be just funny in general. That was plenty of it. But that connection, like when you were talking about Virgin and I'm relating this story of the red logo, according to neuroscientist, Antonio, Demasio how consumers feel about a brand has more.
Pull than what they think about a brand. 
Nola: [00:16:50] I believe that I believe that 
Lori: [00:16:52] in colors, there's a psychology to colors. And when you're thinking about branding and choosing your psycho colors, even though I'm about to [00:17:00] tell you just some connection, emotional connection that often happens. Listeners when you pick your colors, keep the psychology part in mind, but don't base your decision on the psychology.
Cause it won't be nearly as much fun. Blue is often associated with calm, trust and intelligence. Yeah. And there are a lot of logos out there where blue is the predominant color and you'll see it a lot. In banking often. Yeah. A psychological component to that. It would be terrible if you didn't trust your bank, orange creativity, youth, and enthusiasm.
Pink, as you might guess, would be femininity, but also playfulness. And of course, depending on the shade of pink, it could be romance and yellow is often associated with happiness, hope and spontaneity. 
Nola: [00:17:58] It reminds me about a [00:18:00] study. I read about recently in which the color purple a lot of women it's like their second favorite color is purple yet.
When men were polled, 0% liked purple. 
Lori: [00:18:12] You're going to be dating don't wear. 
Nola: [00:18:14] Or actually there was an article written about it that said, men, if you want to attract your mate, wear purple. There was a psychology behind where this one website that had a lot of purple and it never said we are for women, but it turns out that all of their clients were women and everything was purple.
Like, as you said, it's not an exact science and you have to go with the colors you love, but you also do keep in mind, especially depending on, you know, how re local or global you're going. There are cultural differences, for example. Red China. Red is good luck, but if you're in South Africa, you're going to a funeral.
It's the color of morning. Wow. We think of money green, but you know what, not every country's [00:19:00] money is green. So. You wouldn't have that same association. We talked about the color of morning being red in South Africa, and we think of it as being black. Cause you're, you're sad, but in some East Asian countries, it's white.
You know, so you can't really make that assumption across the board. And we always talk about green with envy. Well, Germans talk about being yellow with envy. So, wow. I used to work for a nonprofit organization that was international. The colors were red and black. And when I was there, it was like they were expanding different countries.
I do not remember the details, but I do remember that that the people who were dealing with their partners overseas had to come back and say, look, they don't even want to work with our materials because the colors. Mean bad things where they, where they are, they did a rebrand and made it something very, you [00:20:00] know, nonthreatening.
And I believe it was blue, blue, you know, they came with a, a nice shade of blue and that did not offend anybody. And it was acceptable in all the countries we've worked in. It can be an expensive lesson to have to rebrand everything in order to even grow your business. 
Lori: [00:20:14] Very, very good point. Going into other countries.
If you are thinking that your side hustle is going to eventually morph into something bigger, or if you have a digital person product, you may not want to limit it to the United States, right?
You may want to offer it beyond that for the moment and you can always rebrand later. But for the moment, if you're thinking that's the direction you want to go into, it's a good idea to know that certain colors could have a negative connotation to them. 
Nola: [00:20:47] It's like a final check before you, you know, sign off. 
Lori: [00:20:51] Today's episode was is really about helping our listeners choose their brand colors.
And we gave you some information to [00:21:00] start with about why branding was so important. So how do you go about choosing your colors. So, we're going to use our own experience of how we chose the colors for Sticky Brand Lab and the websites that we used to help us put together our color palette. And those links are going to be available to you in our resource page and in our show notes, but they're free.
They're easy to use. And, uh, yeah, and we hope that you get a lot out of the experience. Now, typically on the limited side, if you were going to pick colors, you often want to pick somewhere between one and four. When you see the image. That we use to eventually help us narrow the colors from our logo, into what we're going to be, the color palette of our branding.
You will see there's two images [00:22:00] in that PDF that we'll have available for you along with our colors and the numbers so that you can see if you are not familiar with our Sticky Brand Lab logo, it has practically every color in the rainbow. We picked it because it couldn't be contained. 
Nola: [00:22:21] Exploding with creativity. 
Lori: [00:22:24] And that's what we've done.
We're like, I love this. You can't box it in. And that's, our image has a kind of a box around it. And then the colors go outside the box. It was 
Nola: [00:22:35] outside the lines. 
Lori: [00:22:38] And so we fell in love with the story that we were creating in our mind. About what this was going to be. We 
Nola: [00:22:46] ran into problems. In our case, we had the logo before we had the, the color palette.
Lori: [00:22:51] We loved it for what it symbolized. We loved it for how it made us feel and what we hoped our audience would feel. But then we had to start working [00:23:00] on our website. 
Nola: [00:23:01] So we were going with that multicolored look and there were some pictures, some images that I thought, okay, so we had one image on there that I said, this will be what everything will go with. But it turns out that really, that image almost had too many colors as well. And not enough contrast. Initially things looked good because we had, you know, very little on there, but the more we built it out and built it out and built it out, the more, it just seemed to lack cohesion.
Lori: [00:23:34] You want to have a base color and that's kind of your overarching color. Then you want to choose your accent colors. So maybe one or two accent colors. 
Nola: [00:23:47] We identified one is an accent and one is an action. 
Lori: [00:23:50] And when you're breaking the rules, you can do that. But if you're just getting started, you may just want to simplify it so you can do whatever you want because there [00:24:00] is no hard and fast rule.
There are guidelines. 
Nola: [00:24:03] So whenever we have a call to action click here, type buttons, or listen here whenever we have an, a button that is inciting action, we give it that color. Neutral is a good background color that maybe sets a stage and helps the other colors, pop. 
Lori: [00:24:21] And good colors for that are typically?
Nola: [00:24:25] Gray, tan, beiges, like off-white, soft, soft muted, colors like cream. 
Lori: [00:24:34] We used three primary sites to help us think about our color palette. One is color seed. One is coolers and that's C O O L E R S. And the third one is Canva. A hundred color combinations. We went down rabbit holes every time we looked for our color palette. You pick out one color and [00:25:00] they give you a palette that works with it.
In color seed, you can upload your own image and then they match it. NOLA and I would be sending emails to each other with these color palettes, put them next to our logo. But perhaps one that we ended up working the most from has to do with the Canva hundred color combinations. The top part explains really colors.
It talks about primary, secondary tertiary. It talks about how you can look at a color wheel and do that. And if that's in your wheelhouse, if you are that kind of artistic person, you will get stuck at the top. If you are more like me and you need to find an image that then you fall in love with, and you see the color palette displayed next to it.
Scroll down farther because that's where the hundred pictures are. 
Nola: [00:25:57] And that was so cool because you could then [00:26:00] say, I want a three-color palette, or I want a four-color palette. I want a six-color palette. 
Lori: [00:26:04] We ended up picking and narrowing it down to these two different images. And one of them immediately took me back to Italy. I remember walking on a trail and seeing a Bougainvilleas behind wrought iron, and I saw the picture and it justme. 
Nola: [00:26:26] And when you sent it to me, all you said is, give me your emotional reaction. What does this make you think of? And I said, it makes me think of adventure. 
Lori: [00:26:35] Yes. That is a, such a great combination to go with our logo.
Nola: [00:26:40] Cause I've never been to there. So I don't have the same memories. 
Lori: [00:26:43] When we weren't following our own recommendations to our clients. And we were just winging it because we had the rainbow at our colored options at our hands. We found images that we liked. And that's what was guiding us in the beginning.
We want [00:27:00] it to be very vibrant. We want it to be very colorful. If you feel that there are colors that you like show them to your friends and family and just ask them what comes to mind when you say these colors? Or what feelings come to mind or what do you think? And that'll give you so much feedback.
So I had a acquaintance, he wrote back, he said, Oh, he said the messaging, I really like it. This is going to be very helpful. When I start my next a business, I'm going to come back and really listen. But who's your target audience? A women that been out in the world that were, uh, probably over the age of 40.
And were looking for multiple streams of income, or were looking to start a business that was flexible because they wanted travel. And he said, huh, because I thought it was for young people, like maybe college age. And he said, Why? [00:28:00] What made you think that he said you have so much pop up pink and it's so bright.
I thought you were trying to go for a younger women. And I was like, Nola, we need to have a talk. 
Nola: [00:28:11] Yup. We do. And that's exactly what we did. And so now that we do have all our colors figured out. We use them very intentionally on just about everything. So now that we've created with intentionality, we're finding that everything does really work together. That they're all very consistent in vibe and can recognize something as being affiliated with Sticky Brand Lab.
Well, 
Lori: [00:28:38] that brings us to the end of today's color filled branding episode. And remember, action creates results. So, tap into your desire by taking 1% action every day. Small steps SBLs lead to big effects. 
Nola: [00:28:55] Do you have questions about choosing a color palette? Get a free 20 minute [00:29:00] consultation. Plus, during our launch, we give you half off our Be You-unique consultation. Until next week.
Lori: [00:29:19] Yeah, but you're you kept moving away from the microphone. So, I thought maybe you were like having a, yeah, it was kind of like, she's not believing anything. I think she's just saying. 
[OUT-TAKE]
Nola: [00:29:32] I'm sitting back because my butt hurts.
Because my cushy chair, it squeaks and sounds like a fart.