Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Hunter Myers. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hunter, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Mission: Bridge the gender gap, one woman-owned business at a time

The Story:

Growing up, my mom owned and operated an auto repair shop. Time after time, I saw her go toe to toe with men who didn’t think she was qualified to help them fix their cars. They’d try to undermine her, they’d ask to to speak to the owner… when she would say “I am the owner” they’d then say, “I want to speak to a man.”

Even through all of this, she stood her ground and provided excellent customer service and care for the individuals who frequented her shop. As the economy started to take a turn (it was especially difficult during the “cash for clunkers” era), the business began to struggle and I could see the toll it was taking on my mom. That confidence she had began to wane, and the days got harder and harder. Eventually, she wound up selling the business, for far less than she should have got for it (but it was the best thing she could have done for herself)….

All I wanted to do was help, but didn’t know how (I was in late middle school through high school age). It wasn’t until graduating from college and entering the field of marketing that I realized what could have been done…. a rebrand.

Now, you may be thinking… A rebrand? That’s what would have solved her problems? Really?

But hear me out.

Over the years, I’ve realized that a brand can make or break a business. Businesses that have professionally developed brands show up more confidently, build more trust with their audience, and ultimately make more money. They are able to carve out a niche in their markets that make them the go-to for their target audience which leads to higher income and more sustainability.

That’s what my mom needed. She needed to differentiate herself in the market. She wasn’t just any auto repair shop. She was a WOMAN-OWNED shop that was dedicated to serving her customers with transparency and heart. You weren’t just a customer to my mom. You were part of the family….

Unfortunately, that’s not the story the brand told. She inherited the business from my grandpa and it was still telling HIS story.

My mom isn’t the only woman-owned business to experience this. And when you pair that knowledge with the statistic that women entrepreneurs on average make only half of what their male counterparts do, I knew I had to do something to start shifting that reality.

While I work with both men and women, Verdure Design Co. aims to offer high-end, professional design to women-owned businesses in particular, who are ready to step into their power and show up with a competitive edge. I help them truly identity their ideal clients/customers and then we build a brand that’s strategically designed to attract, convert, and retain those people.

Over the years, I have helped numerous women entrepreneurs bring their visions to life, increasing their prospects and profits in the process.

If I could turn back time, I would go back and do the same for my mom… since I can’t, I work hard each and every day to provide this service to other hard-working women like her.

Hunter, 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 started my business back in 2020 after I was furloughed. I had been a contract worker for a while for a different company than was W-2 as a designer. Once I got furloughed, I was like, “you know what? I think I could probably do this on my own. I have the design skills. I have the people skills. I just have to learn the business side of things.” And so for the last four years, that’s what I’ve been learning. Along with honing my craft and really figuring out the kinds of business and projects I want to partner with.

Each client that I work with, I kind of become a part of their team and help them really bring their vision to life to help the people that THEY care most about.

I did not go to school to be a graphic designer. I actually went to school for English and sociology. I thought I was going to be a writer. When I got into the graphic design field, I thought: “oh no, I’m going to be one of those people who doesn’t use their degrees!” But, now that I’ve run this business, having the background in the communications areas that I do and learning how to listen to people and to dissect information and to look at a bunch of sources and research and be able to put forth a more concise answer or concept has really served me well. It has allowed me to communicate very, very well with clients and to tell their stories in a way that is strategic instead of just making something look nice. The design work I do gets to serve the business. And that’s been really, really nice.

Additionally the background in sociology has really served me well in teaching me how to view and predict how groups of people will interact. When you’re branding and doing graphic design, you aren’t just designing for the client. You’re actually designing for the client’s client or the client’s customer. And having that degree in sociology and that ability to see how people interact with each other has taught me how to craft brands that build communities.

I know there’s a big focus on buyer psychology, but I think there really is a lot to be taken away from knowing how people interact in groups and viewing your brand as an extension of yourself and as a person itself that these other individuals are interacting with.
Being able to tie those degrees into the graphic design work that I do is hands-down one of the most unique things that I have to offer and has really aided me in solving my client’s problems. It allows me to help them get in front of the people that they’re wanting to get in front of and to actually connect with those people. The work we do turns viewers into buyers and one time purchases into lifelong relationships.

Originally, I viewed not having a degree in design as a weakness, but I’ve actually found it to be one of my greatest strengths.

So the types of services and creative work that I provide:
I am a graphic designer, so I do all sorts of graphic design work, though my main emphasis is on rebranding businesses and really developing out a solid client experience from start to finish. I work with them to figure out who they want to be showing up as and how we can marry that person/persona/brand to the customers they are looking to serve.

Something that I found a lot of my clients experience before they come to me are feeling of Discomfort… like they’ve plateaued and don’t know how to move past where they’re stuck.They have this idea of where they want to go, but their brand and their current look just isn’t getting them there… instead it’s holding them back. They can’t quite figure out what’s off, but they just know something is.

Through our time together, I’m able to help them Fully embody the business that they are wanting to become… The business that they dream of being in five or ten years. I tell clients all the time, “Tell me where you see yourself in 5-10 years… because that’s what we’re going to build together!” And we do. I help take their vision and place the stepping stones needed to get them there.

How did I get into this industry?
A little back-tracking… how I got into the design industry:
I went to school for English and Sociology, thought I was going to be a writer, moved down to Austin, Texas without any job lined up or any plan, and was like “I’m going to figure it out when I get here.” So I applied for all sorts of writing jobs, and unfortunately, every single response that I got, if I ever got a response, was “sorry, but no.”

I really began to freak out. I was like, “oh my gosh, I don’t have anything lined up. What am I supposed to do? Money’s running out of the bank. I need to find a job PRONTO!”

And I came across a graphic design position and thought: “Another No isn’t gonna hurt me! I’m going for it!”

I had done some design work for the US Geological Survey and had some illustrations published in some of the local publications in my college town. So I had a small portfolio built up and I sent it straight off to that job. Next thing you know, I’m getting an email saying, “hey, we’d love for you to come in for an interview.”

That was the catalyst that set me on the design path that led me to where I am now.

What do I want people to know about my brand?
I would say the thing I want people to know about my brand is that I very much approach it from a people forward stance.

I’m going to make you look very, very good. That is my job and what I’m great at, but what I’m even better at is listening and understanding where you’re wanting to go when you can’t necessarily see it all there yourself.

I will help you plan it out and then bring it to life… And the results that my clients have gotten have been wonderful!

I have one client I helped rebrand and rebuild her website. Before working together her website hadn’t made any paid-in-full sales in all the time that she’d been in business.Within the first 24 hours of me pushing the new site live, she got her first pay in full sale of a $6,000. And then a couple weeks later, a celebrity was reaching out to her telling her, “Hey! I want to work with you!”

Why did this happen? Because we took the time to figure out what she was really trying to accomplish and who she was and who her ideal clients needed her to show up as, and we built that. Piece by piece, we built it and it paid off almost immediately!

And she’s not the only one! All of my clients leave our partnership feeling more confident, empowered, and excited to be in business and THAT’S what lights me up.

So it’s very fun and something I’m very proud of.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

So, when I first started my business, sales was probably the hardest part, but I think this is something that a lot of business owners Experience. A lot of the time we are starting a business from a passion or an interest— not a sales background— which means sales is something that has to be learned.

In the process of learning the sales, I was taking a bunch calls with people. I was doing the market research trying to convert to sales, I asked my network for referrals, joined different networking groups and things like that. After a while, I thought to myself, this is a lot of work for one person to be doing without getting much of a return on investment.

Now, at the time I was working with a sales coach and one day it dawned on me: oh my gosh all these other people within this coaching program that I’m in are also business owners. Business owners that could use my services. And that’s when I asked myself: “why am I trying to target individual business owners when I could be targeting business coaches who have an entire community of business owners that know, like, and trust them?”

Essentially, why am I doing all this selling, when I could partner with a person of authority who could sell for me?

To visualize this, I really started viewing the funnel more as a pyramid instead. So when you think of a sales funnel, it’s essentially an upside down triangle— the concept is, you put a lot of leads in and eventually funnel them down to a few people who bought….
What I did though was reverse that.

I figured, I want to get in front of as many people as possible with as little effort as possible, so how do I do that? By flipping the funnel into a pyramid, and targeting business and sales coaches who already had primed audiences, in theory I could build a few connections and make maximum sales.

After realizing this, I developed a cold outreach plan where I created a services/investment guide that sold my services as an add-on to THEIR services that they could pitch and sell to their clients while adding an upcharge for themselves. My service would be a flat rate and they could charge what they wanted on top of that to make whatever profit they wanted.

From there I started the cold outreach. I was nervous. I hadn’t ever done cold outreach in that way before. Sure, I had done it for market research purposes but never to actually pitch a service to someone. The messages would essentially say: Hey, I’m Hunter, I love what your doing, especially XYZ, and I think our audiences might overlap a bit. Would you be open to talking about a potential collaboration? I think I have a service that could really benefit your client.”

My thought with this approach was that it’s easier to say yes to because I’m not technically asking for them to buy anything from me at that time. I was simply asking if they’d be open to hearing about the service that would be good for THEIR PEOPLE. After a week or so of outreach (and following up because that’s a key part!), I got my first bite…. And I thought to myself: no way… this might actually work!!!

The person I was speaking to said sure, send me the deck to check out! So I did. I didn’t hear anything back so I did what I knew I had to, even though it was scary because rejection is hard… I sent them another message, asking if they had reviewed it. I figured I’d be ghosted after that, but they reached out again and said they wanted to hop on a call. One thing led to another and next thing you know, I was working with one of their clients.

And I think in the end, going through this specific method, I secured four or so additional clients, all from just taking this risk of being like, what if I flipped this funnel into a pyramid instead? It was a really cool way for everything to come together. I was definitely scared in the beginning, but was able to accomplish something that I didn’t think would be possible.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

If you’re going into business, you have to have a lot of courage. You have to be very resilient. And you have to be able to experience failure and get back up after being knocked down. As I think about this question, one of the biggest things that comes to mind is a failed client partnership…. One that ended in terminating the contract and losing money.

So, the story:
I had been wanting to work with food businesses at this time and had the opportunity through someone in my network to do the branding for a new food truck.

I was like, “oh my gosh, no way. This is amazing! I’ll get to do some illustration and all sorts of stuff!”

So I was super duper excited. Mind you, there were a couple of client red flags that had occurred, but at that point, I was so excited about the possibility of doing a food truck that I blissfully ignored the warning signs. Plus, I’m a believer that when the universe opens a door for you, you have to walk through it… so that’s what I did.

So, on the sales call, before we start working together, I explain my process to this client. They were like “sounds great! Let’s go!” and paid in full. Now, this person mentioned having a partner, but I assumed the person paying the bill would be the one making the decisions…. Rookie mistake….

So we hop on the first meeting and we’re going through the strategy (which is a big chunk of my process and something that was cleared by the person who paid) and probably 15 minutes into the meeting, the business partner, who I had not met yet, interrupts me and says: “Why exactly are we doing all of this?” And immediately my stomach dropped. For a brief moment in my head, I’m like “wait, should we not be doing this???”

I quietly told myself: “Hunter, you’re the expert here. Explain why we are doing this and keep going.” So I did.

I said: “We go through this process so we can better understand your audience. We want to make sure that what we’re building is something that attracts your audience and to do that, we have to know who they are as people.”

He’s like, “okay, yeah, yeah, that’s great.”

We get through that call and start the design process. I send over drafts and whatnot. And this person in particular is like, no, I don’t like this. Mind you, the things he then proceeds to show me are NOTHING like what they had put in the direction boards. He then proceeds to tell me how he used to design restaurants and just isn’t doing it this time because he doesn’t have the time…. Another big red flag…. And again, my stomach drops as this man is again undermining what I do.

To speed things up, we wind up doing some back and forth based on this man’s new direction, and eventually this person is like, “we don’t like what’s happening…We want to cancel the contract and we want a full refund.”

Again, my stomach drops…. I truly was experiencing the equivalent of month long roller coaster ride.

I knew we all needed to hop on a call because I wasn’t willing to issue a full refund when I had already invested a month of my time and we hadn’t even gotten to the midway point of the project before he decided to pull the plug.

So I’m on the call with both partners. The one who paid me, sat quietly most of the call while the other one whom I learned was dominating this project berated me, told me that I’m not good at my job, that they can’t believe they wasted their money on me, and that they are now so far behind because of me…..none of which was true, because again, we hadn’t even reached the halfway point in the timeline I had pitched and was okay-ed before payment was made.

Clearly this partnership wasn’t going to work out and I had accepted that, but then he reiterates that he wanted a full refund.

In that moment, I had a choice to make. I could be bullied into giving them the full amount back, which I didn’t believe was fair given the amount of time and energy I had put into the project at that point. OR I could stand my ground and do what I thought was fair.

“No.” I said. (This was the first time I had ever let that word be a full sentence.) “We can discuss a different refund, but I will not refund the full amount. I have done about 50% of the work up to this point. If you’d like to back out, I can refund you for the 50% that hasn’t been performed yet.”

The guy was like, “well, that’s not what we paid you for!” And I turned to the partner, the one who’s card was charged and I asked: “Was I clear in what this process was going to look like?”

He said yes.

I asked, “Have we completed steps XYZ of that process that I explained to you?”

He said yes.
I said, “okay, having said that then, I will issue you a half refund.”

The other partner storms off camera, eventually the two of them shut off their camera to talk, and only the one who paid me returns to wrap everything up.

When I got off the call I was shaking, but I was so proud of myself for standing my ground. Of course, the waves of “wait, was that man right? Am I really a bad designer and bad business owner? Should I even be doing this” started to come. That’s when the long-term resilience came in.

I had to remind myself over and over again that that man’s opinion did not define me. I had to remind myself that I was not going to be bullied. That this is my business and I handled the situation in a very mature way (even if he didn’t).

I think women in business have to be especially resilient. I think we are taught to cater to others…. To bend a knee and give everyone else what they want to ensure they’re happy, even if it means sacrificing our own needs.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THAT.

You are the owner of your business and you started it for a reason… because you are good at what you do. Do not let others bully you into thinking otherwise… because they will.

Stand your ground. Believe in yourself.

Fortunately for me, I was able to learn a lot from that failure. I learned to pay closer attention to red flags and listen to my gut when they show up. I learned to ask how many decision makers are involved and to be sure that every single one signs off on the process before we get started. I learned to always have money on reserve so you can issue refunds if you have to… but most importantly, I learned that I can say no to people and it won’t kill me.

Thus far, that has been one of the most uncomfortable and difficult client situations I’ve had in the four years I’ve been running this business…I’m really grateful I chose resilience instead of letting it break me…

Contact Info:

• Website: https://verduredesignco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/verduredesignco/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunter-myers-brand-strategist-and-designer-8b1587141/
• Other: The Brand Bite Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6iFhSRnzi5iBoAufeXaPto?si=80f6e197c59840df