We recently connected with Bethany Studnicky and have shared our conversation below.

Bethany, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

At Brand Method, my mission is to provide creative entrepreneurs that do good for the world with all of the resources, education, and support that they need to make the greatest impact with their business.

The phrase “creative entrepreneurs that do good for the world” to me means anyone that has a dream to create something that improves the lives of their clients, their employees, and their community through compassionate and conscious business practices. From a buyer’s perspective, I believe that it can be difficult to find businesses that answer your needs AND align with your values. From a business perspective, it can be difficult to uphold the seemingly endless expectations of the world, provide high quality services while competing with businesses that cut corners, and still make a profit.

I want to see more businesses in the world that take responsibility for their position of power AND make a profit. I want to see good people with good ideas thriving.

That is why I do what I do. I want to work with businesses that earn our loyalty and respect by choosing quality, sustainability, inclusivity, and compassion every day. I want them to set the standard for what a successful business looks like. If my small business coaching and design services can help just one business tip the scale, I will consider Brand Method a success.

Bethany, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have been creative my whole life–thanks in large part to my mom. I come from a big family of BIG personalities (seven kids to be exact), each with incredibly unique identities and interests. Having seven kids with lots of interests isn’t easy though, and we spent most of our childhood figuring out ways to do what we loved with as little money as possible. My mom was our biggest supporter. She made sure that every football game, birthday party, and prom was unlike anything you’d ever seen. She showed us how to fundraise for the things we couldn’t make, and make the things we couldn’t afford. We dumpster dived and scavenged at thrift shops and made ordinary objects into something extraordinary. No matter what, she always made sure that I had the tools I needed to create.

This creativity took on a new life for me in seventh grade, when my art teacher noticed my art-making abilities. I was nominated for a gifted and talented arts program that would change my life. For seven hours every Saturday for six years I studied fine arts history and practices and truly learned how to be a visual story teller.

At the same time, I was also an international competitor in a business club called DECA. I LOVE public speaking and managing organizations. This turned into a pretty ambitious desire to be the best “business person” I could be. Through this club, I would create fake businesses and would present them to a panel of fake investments. They would judge me on how viable my business would be in the real world and whether or not they would invest. This experience taught me about the intricacies of running a profitable business, and what it takes to compel a person into believing in that business’s mission.

I always thought that I would have to choose between my love for art and my desire to “climb the corporate ladder.” Thus, in college, I wavered between going to business school or pursuing a degree in fine arts. The problem was solved when I joined the interdisciplinary program, where I was offered the opportunity to create my own major by taking a series of classes in both.

I first found digital art when I was in college. I was putting on my first real art show all by myself and I needed to learn how to advertise for it. I visited the Emery Center for Digital Scholarship relentlessly. Eventually the manager said “why don’t you work here are we will teach you to do it yourself?” This opportunity gave me something invaluable: the ability to create art that is both beautiful and useful. I used this new skill to find my place in the working world. Prior to Brand Method I bopped around in various marketing roles including graphic design, editorial writing, and art direction. All of these jobs took place in start-up companies that allowed me to have a deep look inside their operations and how our actions as marketers impacted the overall business.

Inevitably I realized that no one role was giving me the opportunity to tap into both my creative, artistic skills AND my managerial skills. The closest it came was when I served as the Director of Arts and Exhibitions at an art gallery in downtown Raleigh. In this job, I had to opportunity to perform a full brand revitalization just in time to Covid to close our doors. I knew then that I had a unique combination of skills to help small businesses identify their brand strategy and create the visuals that helped to convey it. Thus, Brand Method was born.

Through Brand Method, I help creative entrepreneurs align their business practices with their aspirations, identify their brand strategy, and communicate their brand identity to the world through effectual visuals. I take a truly comprehensive approach to understand every part of your business and create a unique brand identity that is intrinsic to your story and irreplicable in your industry.

I love to work with businesses led by ambitious creatives that seek to create a truly unique brand identity. I personally enjoy working with creative service vendors such as photographers and florists; artists and makers; and restaurants and food vendors as these businesses have so many opportunities to connect with the emotional, sentimental, and creative sides of their target audiences through illustrative visuals.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

This question, as a service provider, is less so about getting more clients, and moreso about getting the RIGHT clients. Early on in my career as a graphic designer (before I could even call myself a branding designer) I, like many new business owners, was taking any work that I could get. This landed me in the finance and tech industries doing design work that can only be explained as the word “corporate.” It was the antithesis of what I wanted to do as a designer, but felt like an insurmountable task to change the nature of the people who hired me.

In order to access and grow the target audience I desired (in this case, creative entrepreneurs open to vibrant brand identities) I followed this step by step process:

1. I identified other businesses that served the kinds of people I wanted to work with
2. I thoroughly analyzed their messaging, imagery, and client experience by reading their websites, viewing their portfolios, and consuming their social media content
3. I rebranded my own business to mirror the messaging that was both true to me and seemed to connect with my ideal clientele.
4. Over time, I identified what made me special and DIFFERENT from these sources of inspiration and I highlight those differences heavily in my own core messaging. This allows me to further niche and convert potential clients into dream customers.
5. I set boundaries and expectations for how far I could scale sectors of my services and began to offer services that are attainable for me to provide to a larger audience.

This process allowed me identify who exactly I wanted to work with and communicate with them more effectively. By being excessively clear about who I want to work with, I have increased my conversion rate of sale to almost 90% and have saved precious time by not having to explain my services to potential clients that are not right for me. Inevitably, I am now serving more clients because they see that my service offerings are exactly what they are looking for.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

As a branding designer, the greatest reward that I receive from my work is experiencing the joy that comes to my clients when they see their vision for their business come to fruition before their eyes.

Often times throughout the creative process my clients have a difficult time finding sources of inspiration that show *exactly* what they want me to create for them. I explain to them that this is a great thing, because their vision is unique to them and if we can’t find a visual representation of it somewhere else in the world, that means we are most likely creating something that has never been done before.

That is a really intimidating process for a lot of people, so it is my greatest honor to be given this window into their personal world and to have the opportunity to take that dream and bring it into the real world.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.brandmethod.agency
• Instagram: @brand.method
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Brandmethod/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brand-method/about/?viewAsMember=true
• Other: Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/Brand_Method/ Tiktok: @brandmethod

Image Credits
Images by Sarah Coleman Photography