Marketing Happy Hour Podcast
Join The Marketing Broker, Shelby McFarland, for the Marketing Happy Hour Podcast. With over 12 years of entrepreneurial experience and as the owner of a successful sign shop, Shelby brings a unique perspective to the world of marketing. Each episode, Shelby dives into insightful discussions, practical tips, and expert interviews designed to help entrepreneurs and marketers alike navigate the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing, branding, and business growth. Grab your favorite beverage and join us for a lively conversation at the intersection of creativity and strategy. Welcome to the Marketing Happy Hour Podcast with your host, Shelby McFarland. Cheers! 🥂
Marketing Happy Hour Podcast
The Power of Strategic Rebranding
Shelby McFarland shares her journey of rebranding from Exposed Marketing to Shelby and Company Incorporated to The Marketing Broker, explaining the strategic reasons behind each change and the lessons learned along the way.
• Choose a business name that clearly reflects what you do to avoid constant explanation
• Google any potential business name thoroughly to avoid trademark issues
• Consider your long-term exit strategy when naming your business
• Remove your personal name from the business if you ever plan to sell it
• Find people who can replace you as "the glue" of your business
• Create a comprehensive rebranding plan including press releases, social media announcements, and client communications
• Update all branding materials simultaneously for a clean transition
• Notify existing clients before making public announcements about rebranding
• A strategic rebrand can actually help generate new business opportunities
If you're thinking about rebranding your business, take the leap with confidence - you already have the entrepreneurial drive to make it successful.
Welcome to the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. I'm your host, shelby McFarlane, founder of the Marketing Broker. Join us as we dive into marketing tips, business insights and creative strategies to help your brand stand out, whether you're an entrepreneur or a marketing pro. Grab your drink and let's make marketing fun and effective. This is the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. Let's get started. Hey, what's up guys? It's Shelby here with the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. Ceo of the Marketing Broker.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited that you tuned in for another episode of our podcast and it is so great to have you here with us. All right, today we're going to be talking about rebranding. If you didn't know, I used to have a brand named Shelby and Company Incorporated, and before that my business was called Expose Marketing and Branding Agency. So I want to kind of dive into why I changed my brand, what the purpose was behind it and how I chose my name of my business now and what that looks like for the future. So if you're a business owner and you maybe just started out or you're like, hey, I'm thinking about starting a business, so I'm trying to figure out what kind of name I want, my number one trick is to Google the heck out of any kind of name that you want to use for your business. I have a friend that actually named her business and she's in a small town but she didn't look for the trademark stuff and ends up using a name that has a huge trademark out of California and they are threatening to sue her and that, right there is scary. Guys. You don't want to be a small business being threatened to be sued by a big company that has lawyers and you know lots of money and you're like what the heck? So when you're thinking about naming your business, I want you to do your best to come across as like exactly what you are, and this is somewhere or something that I felt in. So like, whatever your service is, try to get your business brand name to actually reflect what you do. So when you're like, hey, I'm Shelby, I own the marketing broker, we're a full service marketing agency, it's like, oh well, duh, that's, what she does is marketing.
Speaker 1:So my first name when I started my business 10 years ago was Exposed Marketing and Branding Agency. I was one of the first five agencies in my state to offer digital marketing for clients and really back then it was just social media marketing. It wasn't necessarily called digital marketing, and so I named it Exposed Marketing and Branding, because I'm like I'm exposing your business to other people or to potential clients or just getting your name out there. And that was back in 2016 before a lot of, I guess, non-conservative people came out, and so I got kind of rammed a little bit about that name with it being exposed. People be like is it expose? And I would have it on the side of my car, and people be like well, what are you exposing? What kind of business is this really? And so I was like, okay, okay, okay, I need to rethink this whole thing. I need something that means something to me and that I can grow Back.
Speaker 1:Then I was thinking, okay, I'm going to have this huge business, I'm going to have all these people working for me. I had my goals really out of order, if that makes sense. I'm sure you've been there, done that one as a business owner. I came up with Shelby and Company Incorporated because, hello, my name is Shelby. And then I was thinking, oh, the company I keep are the people that work for me, or I could say it's the people that I do work for. And so I kept that name for a while.
Speaker 1:But I got to a point, to where I was like I'm so tired of having to explain what the heck I do, because I'd be like, hey, I'm Shelby McFarlane, with Shelby and Company Incorporated, and they would be like well, what exactly is that? I'm like, well, you're right, this could be a hair salon. I could be a freaking electrical service. I could be a construction service, like I could be a dance studio, because when you're thinking of the name company, you think of a hair salon, a dance studio or something like that. So I was like oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:So then I get with um, a business coach that he helps people exit out of businesses, so he helps small business owners look into the future. How far do you want to go, um? How long do you want to be in business? How long do you actually want to work in your business? What's your exit plan? Are you going to try to sell? I'll go back a little bit.
Speaker 1:When I met with my financial advisor about four years ago he said hey, what's your plan for retirement? I was like, bro, I don't know. I was in my late 20s, I didn't know what my retirement plan was, and he goes. Well, part of that retirement plan can be to sell the business that you have. And I was like, oh, so that kind of planted a seed in my head of like, oh, I could sell my business Like I never thought like a retirement plan would be. Hey, I'm selling my business and of course I know so many people that have sold their business and retired. But I never thought that that would be possible for me, because I've always worked, I've always been my business, I am the glue to my business.
Speaker 1:So fast forward to this business coach and he's like you know, if you're trying to sell your business, one, you have to get your name out of it and two, you have to somehow get yourself out of the business to where you are not the glue that holds it any longer. You've got to find the right people. You've got to, you know, align with your goals. He goes, but over the course of the next 10 years, if that's your goal, you need to learn how to learn. You need to change the name of your business and you need to learn how to rely on other people to do your work, so that way, when you are gone and someone comes in and buys your client list, then you don't longer have to be there, like they can just take it over, and people will. It'll become like a seamless, uh project. And I'm like, oh, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:So a couple years go by and I'm thinking to myself, like, what am I gonna do to rebrand my business? What am I gonna name it? How am I gonna come up with it? And I started this early 2024. I, okay, I really want to rebrand my business this year. I want to get it done before January of 2025. And I just need to put my head down and do it.
Speaker 1:And, of course, as always, I get really busy with work. I'm really busy with my kid. I kind of put it in the back of my mind. I got overwhelmed every single time. I was like, oh, I like this name. Oh well, that name's taken. Okay, oh, I like this name. Oh, that name's taken.
Speaker 1:I'd go to chat GPT. I would do all the AI stuff, I did the searches. I was just like nothing is really sticking with me. I'm just not resonating with these different names and you may be struggling with that right now, because it is a lot of pressure to be like, oh, this is the name of my business forever. It's not necessarily the name of your business forever, obviously, right, I've gone through three business names now. So, as long as you can resonate with it and it aligns with your values and I want to save you the headache of having to rebrand in the future, because we're going to talk about the process of that, but to have to like prevent having to do that, definitely put more thought into it. But if it's something that you're like gosh, I just really don't know right now, but I really need to start and that's the only thing holding you back, then just go for it and you can worry about rebranding in the future. Again, we'll go through that so that way you can understand the whole process.
Speaker 1:So back to my story where I was trying to figure out what I was going to name. Well, I had a um an Airbnb marketing business for a little bit in 2023. And I thought that I was going to um. I thought that I was going to like do this Airbnb marketing thing and I thought it was like that. I was like getting into an industry that was going to be really great, but looks, I mean, it ended up being that it, airbnb and BRBOs were getting so overwhelmed in our area that there were so many of them that it was almost impossible. And, um, cities around us were also like making them go away and like creating laws that you can't have them or anything like that. So, and then, of course, the real estate market was not great, so that's really cool.
Speaker 1:But that company had the word broker in it and I named it guest brokers and because I was like, oh, we're your guest brokers. You know, we do your marketing, we do your email campaigns, we do all your SEO work, we'll set up all your processes when it talks to, when it's like a communication with your client. So we weren't a property manager, but we were more of like a marketing manager for the Airbnbs. So one night I literally was like, oh, guest brokers, I remember that name, okay. And then I was like, oh well, that's it, that's the marketing broker. Like hello, I'm the marketing broker. It was under my nose the whole time. It took me seven months to get to. Oh, it's in my nose. It's like, right here, the marketing broker. Duh, and if you've ever Googled me, I actually spell it MKTG, so the MKTG broker. And because I really like the clean look of it, I changed everything from black and pink to white and black because it needed to be more gender neutral. According to the business coach that I was using at the time, no-transcript and white made it gender neutral and then changed my name to the marketing broker.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk about how the rebranding process works. It can be overwhelming and you really need a plan before you start doing it. I don't want you to just be like oh, change my name, let's make a Facebook post and we're done. Like no, no, no, no, no. You need to write a press release on it. You need to put that press release and you need to send it to like the local news stations, the business publications, all the things. You need to change your Facebook name and all your social channels. You need to change your website. You need to change the branding on all of that, plus the URL that you have for it. And then on social media, I really want you to focus on how do you, how has this changed? Like this branding changed? What exactly are you changing? Is it going to be like night and day? Are you going to be able to kind of just make your way into it? There's many different strategies on how you can rebrand on social media. So, with the marketing broker, all my graphics were pink and black. So, okay, well, that's an easy change. I'll change all my graphic colors to black and white and I'll start adding the marketing broker logo on there.
Speaker 1:I made a really big announcement on social media in October of 2024. I sent a press release the same day to local news stations so they can put it out news station so they can put it out. And then I also started just posting about why I changed it to the marketing broker. I made a podcast about it in January of this year of being the marketing broker and the rebrand. So people knew and it's important to be like, hey, listen, we're rebranding, but I'm not going anywhere, especially because right now I'm still kind of the glue for my business, and so I wanted my clients to be like hey, listen, I can still trust her, I know she's not going anywhere, she's just rebranded. And that's another thing.
Speaker 1:You need to think of your clients Now, if you have a client list, like I do, that you work with on a monthly basis, daily basis, weekly basis, whatever, you need to make sure that you send out that email the same day you make the social media post. I've seen companies do that where they will write the press release, send it out, make a social media post and all the customers are like yo yo yo, what's going on? Why were we not told first? And if you wanted to make them feel even more special, send it to them the day before. Be like, listen, you guys are VIP lists. This is them feel even more special. Send it to them the day before. Be like, listen, like you guys are VIP lists, like this is what we're doing.
Speaker 1:And so I also did that. I sent it to my entire email list of like a thousand people so that way they knew like hey, I'm changing to the marketing broker. It also helped actually gain clients from that, because they're like oh hey, I forgot about you. How are you doing? Because before that I was not really doing a lot of email campaigns because I was too busy doing stuff for other people, not making time for myself, and so I knew that when I named it the marketing broker and I rebranded that, my entire strategy moving forward was going to change. But also I was going to make sure to stay consistent. I was going to do exactly what I do for my clients and I was going to do it for myself and I still, to this day in 2025, that I am still doing that and I'm really proud of that, for sure.
Speaker 1:So if you're thinking about rebranding your business, obviously I would love to help you, but I literally just gave you the process and the tools and the resources to do it. You can use ChatGPT to write your press release for you. Make sure that everything is spelled right and that it does sound like it's coming from you. Make sure that everything is spelt right and that it does sound like it's coming from you. Make sure you get that social media post out there, email your clients and customers on it, and then any kind of branding stuff that you have. Just make sure that you change it all at one time.
Speaker 1:I don't want you handing out Shelby and Company business cards when you've rebranded to the marketing broker, or wearing Shelby and Company t-shirts when I've rebranded to the marketing broker, or wearing Shelby and Company t-shirts when I rebranded to the marketing broker. Like, I did everything at one time my name tag, my t-shirts that I wear, the Instagram, the Facebook, the press release, the email everything all at one time. So that way, it was very easy for people to see the transition and it actually started a lot of chatter. It was like, oh hey, how okay, that's cool. And when I meet with clients now they Google marketing and it helps with my SEO. So they know that like, hey, this is the marketing broker, this is what she does, and so, yeah, it's been a really cool transition. I've really enjoyed having the new name of the marketing broker and it's going to be easy to sell in 10 to 12 or 15 years.
Speaker 1:Whenever the heck I decide to do that, and I think that if you're on the fence about doing it, I'm always like, worst case scenario, you go back to the old one, right, like, at least jump out and do it. You're already a business owner, so you already have the drive to do it, you have the hustle to do it, you already have the guts to do it. Like I know that if you're into rebranding or you're thinking about it, just jump out and do it and just don't apologize for it. Be yourself and just run with it. All right, guys, I'll talk to you later.
