We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Liz Mosley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Liz, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

I have recently been on a journey with rejection and I think it’s something that we don’t talk about as small business owners and designers especially at is something that we all experience. Over the last few years I set myself a challenge to pursue rejection in my business. It all started when I invited Chris Do to be on my podcast and he said no and I felt so embarrassed that I had asked him. I immediately caught myself thinking, ‘This doesn’t feel good, I’m not going to ask anyone of that level or reputation to be on my podcast’. Over a few months I pondered on this and realised there must be so many opportunities I was missing out on because of my fear of being rejected in my business. I love to gamify things in my business and so I set myself the challenge to get 100 rejections in 6 months. I absolutely failed this challenge and got no where near that many rejections but this set in motion a series of events that has totally transformed my business. The minute I decided to do the challenge my mindset shifted and I realised I had created a win win situation for myself, and it was effectively exposure therapy. I noticed that I recovered a lot quick when I got a no, I was bolder in what I asked for and pitched for and interestingly I ended up getting far more yeses than I expected. This ended up with me working with dream clients, speaking at events, getting my dream podcast sponsor and having some incredible guests on the podcast. My outlook on rejection has been changed for good and I truly believe that it helps small business owners if we are willing to talk about your rejections and failures because it happens to all of us, just not many people talk about it.

One of the most amazing outcomes of this challenge was as I shared about it online so many people messaged me telling me it had inspired them to pitch for things they wanted to do and they had got incredible yeses and went on to have these amazing experience, all because they were brave enough to ask!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have been a graphic designer for over 16 years now and in the last 10 I have specialised in designing branding for small businesses. Because I am a small business owner myself this demographic appeals to me so much and I love the drive, creativity and adaptability that small business owners have.

I really believe that good branding can have such an incredible impact for a small business. If you think of it as the uniform for a business it can give them confidence knowing that it looks great and reflects them well, but it also saves them time not having to make design decisions every day, and it helps build trust as they show up with visually cohesive and consistent branding.

I also want to support small business owners who maybe don’t have the budget to outsource their branding so I have created various resources to help with that. For free people can listen to industry experts talk about branding and marketing on my podcast Building your Brand and then I have also created a series of courses for business owners who want to design their own branding and need support and accountability doing that.

Everything I do falls under the umbrella of supporting and empowering small business owners to show up in their businesses more confidently.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

After Chris Do had said no to being on my podcast and this started my rejection challenge, about 6 months after I started I decided that I would pitch to him, that I should be on his podcast. I told the whole story about the impact his no had had on me and how I had taken something that I perceived to be negative and turned it into something that was incredibly positive and made a huge difference to my business and my mindset. I didn’t hear back for months but about 3 months later I got a response saying he would love for me to be a guest, and the episode came out almost a year after I had started the challenge. This was a lovely full circle moment and we had a really brilliant chat about the challenge and the impact it had on me and my business. It also ended up being very beneficial to me as he has a much larger audience than me with over 2.5 million YouTube subscribers (the podcast is also shared on YouTube)! This was great for marketing myself to a new audience and again it was all from taking a risk and asking for what I wanted, even when there was a high change I would get rejected. The thing I have had to really unlearn through this whole process is that rejection or failure is something shameful or needs to be kept a secret at all costs. For me the way I now see it is that rejection is a part of the creative process of running a business and that we need to expect it, embrace and even search it out if we want our business to grow and thrive. It’s not something to be ashamed off, its something to be proud of.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think one of the most important ways to build a reputation within your market is to make it as easy as possible for people to get to know you. 3 years ago I started a podcast called Building your Brand and podcasting is a really incredible way for people to get to know you authentically as it’s usually an unrehearsed conversation and is very intimate. People can learn a lot about you from the way you talk, but also they are usually learning something at the same time and so it’s a form of content that is very beneficial for them and builds the trust they have in you. My podcast is one of the ways I have marketed myself most consistently over the years and as much as people find the idea of being consistent challenging, it really does help build trust and with it, your reputation. It is one tool in a wider strategy that helps potential clients work out if they want to work with me and if I am the right fit for them. Another way I’ve built my reputation has been by being a guest on other people’s podcasts. This has been a great way to get myself in front of new people and someone else’s audience and this further builds my reputation and peoples awareness of me as an expert in my area of expertise.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lizmosley.net/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lizmmosley
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-mosley/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lizmmosley
• Other: https://buildingyourbrand.net/

Image Credits

Marie Palbom Photography