I’m riding solo today to tell you all about my new sub-brand, Brunch Behavior! No, I’m not selling OJ and champagne. Brunch Behavior is about making room at the table for all entrepreneurs and giving them the resources they need to see success in their businesses.

The Branded by Bernel Podcast is brought to you by Bernel Westbrook, lead designer and founder of Branded by Bernel, a design studio dedicated to building strong brands and Showit websites for creative entrepreneurs.

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The Branded by Bernel Podcast is brought to you by Bernel Westbrook, lead designer and founder of Branded by Bernel, a design studio dedicated to building strong brands and Showit websites for creative entrepreneurs.

Make sure you’ve hit that follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast player to get notified each week as we air new episodes!

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Why Brunch Behavior?

New entrepreneurs come to me all the time needing help picking the name of their new business. I get it – it’s HARD! I picked the name Brunch Behavior because of how it made me feel. I love going to brunch with my friends every Sunday, having a good drink, and telling it like it is, and I wanted this community to feel just like that. 

I wanted small business owners to feel like they could have a brunch-style conversation with other people who get it. 

Three ways this community is like brunch

1. You can talk about anything and walk away in a good mood. Brunch is a judgment-free zone. I want small business owners to talk about their weeks, what went well, and what didn’t work.
2. There are no time constraints. Brunch doesn’t have an end time, and neither does business growth. Let’s normalize that slow and consistent growth is something to be proud about!
3. It makes you feel classy and comfortable. There’s a certain way that you feel put together at brunch, and that’s how I wanted members of this community to feel too.

The mission behind Brunch Behavior

My personal experience as an entrepreneur made me want to launch a community where others can learn and grow together. I know how lonely this journey can be, and I know what it’s like to educate yourself. 

“I really, really, really want to cut down the time it takes for other entrepreneurs to get to a place where their business is sustainable and successful in whatever way success is to them.” -Bernel

3 lessons I’ve learned from entrepreneurship

1. Offering services you enjoy that fill a need. Offering services you don’t enjoy will drain your energy, but if your services don’t fill a need, it will be hard to gain clients. You need both to have a successful business that you love.
2. Dream wildly and plan strategically. If you’re a creative entrepreneur, you know that dreaming comes easily and planning is not so easy. Once again, you need both to have a successful business!
3. You don’t have to build a business alone! You will learn so much quicker and avoid frustration if you surround yourself with good people. You need others to validate and question your ideas and challenge you to think outside the box.

The Brunch Behavior community has room for you

At Brunch Behavior, the end goal is the growth of your business. There is room here for all of us to learn and teach. 

Learn more about Brunch Behavior here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CM7Ept0FLeQ/

Videography: @thefeelfilms

photography: @arielperrry

florals/table decor: @hybridjon

balloons: @fettiandflow

Cameo appearances by: @thewowfactorcakes@livelovelaughlay@wildly_mixed@rodartes.corner@bellamyinspires@carrieallenllc@jennasuze

Connect with Bernel

brandedbybernel.com

instagram.com/brandedbybernel

Review the Transcript:

Hey, hun. Welcome to the Branded by Bernel podcast. I’m your host burnout. You may know me as the branding and web designer who obsesses over the details. So you don’t have to, we all desire to be great at what we do. Although once we get there, no one seems to talk about the messy middle. This motivated me to set the table and invite industry peers over to share stories about living and working in the creative world. So grab the OJ and champagne, pull up a chair, join the creative community and be prepared to build a brand you fall in love with. This is the Branded by bernel podcast.

Good morning. Oh, my goodness, am I excited to share with you guys so much on today’s episode of the podcast, it’s kind of crazy to me that we’re already midway through the season that I had planned out. And, you know, I’ve done a lot of guest interviews this season. So I’m super excited for a solo episode. And just a really come on here and talk to you guys about something that’s very, very near and dear to my heart. If you’ve been listening, leading up to this, you know that my guests usually say something interesting at the beginning, like, oh, it’s always a good day for brunch, or thank you for having me at the table. Or even if you’ve read the show notes, it talks about brunch style conversations, as well as in my intro, I mentioned, grab the OJ and champagne. So at this point, you’re probably wondering what in the world is Bruno’s obsession with brunch? Well, it was all building up to something that I am so excited to release today, which is my new sub brand brunch behavior. Yep, you heard it here.

First, branded by brown now has a sub brand. And the name of that is a brunch behavior. So okay, what in the world is brunch behavior? No, we’re not selling Bottomless mimosas. But brunch behavior is a community rooted in the belief that all creative entrepreneurs not only have a seat at the table, but the power to build their own table. So that is what the new virtual havior community is. So with that in mind, one of the biggest resources of brunch behavior of the community will be to really give back as much free information as possible, really teaching you guys all the things that I wish I had known when I was starting out in business. So one of the biggest resources will be the podcast that you’re listening to right now. And as we continue to grow it, it really is my goal that we highlight the journey of as many entrepreneurs as possible. The whole premise behind brunch behavior is that this is so much bigger than me and you it is all of the entrepreneurs in our communities and adjacent communities that are just trying to get their footing and to navigate this thing that we call small business. So just in this first season, we have laughed together, we’ve cried together. And we’ve learned so much about each other’s messy middle. And so that is the goal of brunch behavior, whether it’s in the Facebook group, the podcast, the new landing page on my website, go check that out if you haven’t seen it yet. But that is the heart and soul behind each one of those avenues that we’re going to share the most transparent resources that we possibly can in order for you to really feel like you’re not alone.

So why did I name it brunch behavior? Because I’ve gotten this question a lot. As I work with building small businesses, they asked me, How do you pick a name? How do you choose a business name that is really impactful and that you won’t outgrow? That’s a big question too. As people get ready to rebrand a lot of times, they are facing the question if they want to change their business name or not. And, of course, that’s a whole struggle because you know, securing a new domain name securing a new name on social media that won’t lose the followers that you’ve currently built. So anyway, I just wanted to tell you guys a little bit about why I chose the name branch behavior, because I’m sure that comes off a little bit random, even though we all know that I love the BB alliteration. brandable however now, so what’s the brunch behavior? I knew I wanted a name that was a feeling. One of the things that I love doing every week on Sundays is going to get brunch with my friends or sometimes I go and get brunch by myself or during the pandemic. I’ve done a lot of DoorDash and Grubhub thing but anyway brunch really is a staple of of my week, it isn’t a relaxation activity, it is me practicing self care. And so I really took a step back and said, let me make a list. This is a quick exercise that I give my clients.

And so I went through this exercise myself, when naming a new product or brand or service, look at the things in your life that currently impact you and make a list. So I made a list full of adjectives, verbs, phrases, words that really conveyed how I wanted this community to feel. So I wrote down things like helpful, inspiring, a mood of vibe, things like that. And so I was brainstorming my list, one of the things I actually put on my list was brunch style conversations, like just, you know, being around good people with a good drink, telling it like it is. And so a few months ago, I was getting ready to travel to Charleston with some friends. And one of my friends asked me, oh, on Sunday, would you like to grab brunch? And I had to chuckle because I was like, of course, I want to grab brunch. And so my response to that, before I even thought about it was I’m always down for brunch behavior. And it just clicked. I pulled out my list. And I was like, Does this meet the adjectives and verbs and the feeling in the mood that I want it to convey? My new community, my, my podcasts, my resource library, eventually, other training educational platforms that I want to launch? Could this scale with me brunch behavior? So after the preliminary list, I was like, Yes, I think that that’s the name. Oh, my goodness, I think brunch behavior is the name it feels right. So I wrote down three ways that this community is like brunch. So the first way is you literally can talk about anything, but we’ll walk away in a good mood. Now, that may be the Bottomless mimosas, and the chicken and waffles that make us all so happy at brunch.

But I like to believe that it’s because brunch is a judgment free zone, where everyone shares about their crazy weeks. And you all end up laughing at the fact that you forgot to mute yourself in the Zoom meeting. Because guess what, it’s happened to all of us. And so that is the way that I want the conversation to be with this platform. With the brunch behavior community, you can talk about anything, you can share the lessons that you’ve learned the things that went great this week, the things that went not so great, but I want you to walk away in a good mood, I want you to walk away ready to take on whatever the next week throws at you. So the second way that this community is like branch is branch has no time constraints, and neither does business growth and education. Think about it on a Sunday brunch, could be at 10am, or to pm, there really are no rules. It’s like Time stops, brunch, maybe two hours brunch, maybe all day and nobody feels ashamed by that. You literally can walk into work Monday morning and somebody says, What did you do yesterday, and you can say I had brunch, and you feel fully accomplished as if you accomplish something literally by going to brunch. And that is the feeling that no shame, no remorse feeling that I want you to have when somebody says, what did your business accomplish? And you don’t have an answer of quantifiable data, or of revenue when you’re going to answer is I shared my time and knowledge helping someone learn something new, or I took some time and invested in my own business education, and listened to a podcast. let’s normalize the fact that slow, consistent growth with no time constraints is something to be proud of. The third way that this community is like brunch, is it makes you feel classy. There’s a certain way you just feel put together at brunch. Brunch is a mood if someone tells you hey, girl, let’s go grab brunch, or dressing your best brunch attire. You know what they’re talking about. That means something different to everyone.

But at the end of the day, you know that you’re going to be classy and comfortable. And so that is really the way and the energy that I want people to approach this new creative community to approach it in a classy but comfortable way. So with the idea of launching this new brunch behavior community, I knew that I would need new graphics. That’s something that I talk about a lot on the podcast a lot to my clients that a huge component of your brand visual This is your brand photography and by extension, brand videography as well. So I did want to talk a little bit about a style sheet that I had a few weeks ago, it was the first is tangible piece of birch behavior, you could say, I had been talking about this for months. And I really want to shout out and thank our yo Perry photography, as well as the philosophy films, because I had been talking about this style shoot for a while. And our aim really was like, bro, let’s just do it. Like, let’s get a place. And let’s bring that vision to life. And so they really did do that if you’re listening to this in real time, you know that today, on Instagram, I launched my new brand video, that is amazing, as well as some new brand imagery as well, that really captured my vision for this, but also captured the feeling of collaboration culture. And so it’s really hard in a picture to capture how a group of people can work together to uplift each other. But if it’s possible, they really did capture it. So I just wanted to give a special thank you to REO parry photography, and the philosophy films, there were about eight other businesses that participated in really bringing my business to life and all of them will be tagged in the show notes. They’re all tagged on my social media, under the imagery as well. But already, that was just an affirmation to me that there are really awesome creatives out here who want to get together who want to share ideas, who want to laugh and talk and let each other know that we’re not alone in this. And so I’m just really grateful for finding that community. So early in building this, this is very much in the new stages, I am still outlining all the things that I want to do to really impact those around me.

And so this is just a stepping stone number one you guys like there is so many ideas swirling around in my head, I am literally one of those people. That’s like having eight Google tabs open at one time. But I’m really going to try to streamline that for you guys. Because I do think that I am so grateful for all that I have learned on this journey. I’m so grateful for all that I’ve been able to accomplish. And I really, really, really want to cut down the time it takes for other entrepreneurs to get to a place where their business is sustainable and successful in whatever way success is to them. So one of the reasons why I launched it right now, I kind of wanted to talk about that briefly with you guys. I have had this idea for a while, as I’m telling you, but I chose to launch it when I did primarily because we are rolling up on the fifth year in business, like this month is five years in business for me for years with the LLC, but five years since I decided that this would be my full time career. And that is crazy, like five years in business. And I’m not 30. And so, you know, you can imagine the amount of growth that I had to do growing up in connection with my business growing up at the same time. And so there’s three big lessons that I’ve learned from raising branded vibrato. And yes, I said raising because it really is my baby, it has taken a lot of time and attention and nurturing over the years, not to mention the amount of sleepless nights. Granted, I know, it’s not exactly waking me up at 2am in the morning, but there are plenty of nights where I wake up at 2am with ideas that I have to jot down. So talking about those three big lessons that I’ve learned in the last five years really kind of led me to why I wanted to help other entrepreneurs with this journey.

So the first lesson was offering services you enjoy that feel a need. You need both of those things. If you don’t enjoy what you do, it will bleed through, people bounce the energy off that you give. So if you’re excited about it, if you walk in a room and you’re like, hey, guess what my new idea is? Guess what? I invent it guess what service I now offer to help your life to run smoother. Guess what? People aren’t gonna go Oh, really? What is it? Let me see. Tell me more about it because your energy will bounce off of them. Also, it needs to be something that feels a need because you can be super energetic about things. But if people don’t feel like they need it, it’s going to be really hard to convince them to spend money doing it. So you want to make sure that you’re balancing that high energy level services you enjoy with the fact that it fills a need, and it serves others in a really good capacity number to dream wildly and plan strategically, I have to juggle because it is a constant balancing act, especially as a creative entrepreneur.

If you are an artist in any way, shape, or form, you know that dreaming wildly, comes easy planning strategically, not so easy. But you really do need both because while dreams often do not come to fruition with a plan, just like rigid plans suck the life out of wild dreams. So it’s a balancing act. And social media often tips those scales when I’m weighing the options of dreaming wildly, or playing strategically. So just really try to avoid getting caught up in the vanity metrics. It’s something that I talk about on my Instagram account. But the vanity metrics are those numbers that we look at every day, wondering if that determines how successful we are or how likable we are, or how much people really care about what we have to say. And that’s not true. Those are vanity metrics, there are people off the screen that are watching you, there are people that you’ve met at a networking event who you’ve inspired. So do not get caught up just on the numbers that are on social media, because more than likely, they don’t translate to the numbers that’s in your bank account. I said what I said.

Number three, you don’t have to build a business alone. In fact, that’s the hard way. And I’m an only child. So I’m fairly content doing things by myself, as you guys can tell, I’m an introvert. But you learn so much quicker and avoid so much frustration, if you can just surround yourself with a building people. That is a lesson that I did not take to heart, you’re wanting to have business. And I can see the exponential growth that happened when I realized I don’t have to do this by myself. I can outsource to other people, or even if it’s not outsource, and I can get together and network with a group of people and just use it as a think tank. Sometime it’s really good to just get your ideas in the atmosphere, and to have them validated by another person or to have another person question you. I cannot tell you how important it is to be challenged in business. You cannot just surround yourself with people who will tell you yes, that’s brilliant.

Yes, that’s brilliant. Of course, that’s brilliant. Sure, that’s brilliant. At the end of the day, we like to be flattered. But if they’re saying yes, that’s brilliant to everything, more than likely, you will not find your true power piece, your true impactful service, because you’re going to try to do everything. So surround yourself with people who will challenge you who will challenge you to think outside the box, who will challenge you to do better, who will challenge you to be more inclusive, who will challenge you to create services that really are unique and haven’t been done before. Who will challenge you to really tap into your true potential and to give back in the best way possible. So that’s what you want to find. That’s the kind of group that you want to surround yourself with. And if you are in the beginning stages of business, and you are facing that loneliness, or you’re getting on social media, and you’re seeing all these other groups of people, and it seems like everybody has already found their business besties and you can’t find where you fit in, do not let that discourage you, I want you to know that not only the brunch behavior community has room for you, but there are communities everywhere. I am so proud of what entrepreneurs have done in the last 12 months of really rallying around each other in their respective locations in their respective fields, or even just on social media where you can have a seat at that virtual table that you don’t have to be local to these people or even in the same industry as them.

So I want you to know that the brunch paver community is not the only community that you can join their communities everywhere. And so honestly, as I reflect on the lessons that I’ve learned in the first five years, that just kept drawing me back to the idea of building a table specifically with the goal of growing each other’s businesses. There are a lot of tables out there you guys virtual and literal, but I really want it to build one that the end goal is the growth of your business. And so as I look at that, I realized that there’s enough room at this table for you to do more than sit, I know that pulling up a seat at the table is the goal. But there’s so much room here for you to take up space. There’s room at the table for all of us to learn. There’s room at the table for all of us to teach. There is room at the table for all of us to eat, and to eat well.

Wow, that went by really fast. As always, thank you so much for showing up in my little corner of the internet. I would love to hear your thoughts on the show. So please, please subscribe, leave a review and share what you learned with friends. Some of the best things in life are freebies. So don’t forget to head over to brandedbybernel.com to check out our free branding goodies. This show notes and more educational resources.