We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Meg Joyce. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Meg below.

Meg, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

First and foremost, I am a Brand Therapist. Which, right off the bat, is pretty well outside of the mainstream. Often times when I ask people “what do you think a brand is..?” I either get nervous hesitation or straight-up deer-in-headlights fear as a response. Because that question is SO frustratingly ambiguous!! And I don’t blame people who aren’t in the industry for not knowing what a brand is because even INSIDE of the industry there isn’t one totally solid definition to turn to. So… I decided to break through all the nonsense and the ambiguity that floats around and say it: Your brand is the soul of what you do.

It’s not the colors. It’s not the logo. It’s not the look and feel of things…. it’s deeper than that.

I like to say that all those surface details are like an outfit that you wear on the outside. As human beings, we change our clothes and our styles all the time. I ask business owners “Are you wearing the exact same kinds of clothes you were 10 years ago?” No! And that’s ok! That’s GREAT! Because that surface stuff CAN change, which means decisions about colors and logos and fonts…. they can change as YOU change and as your business shifts and grows.

But your soul…? Has your soul changed in the last 10 years? How about the last 20 years? Probably not. You might know more, now, or understand things differently, but the soul of who you are hasn’t changed. And that’s true for your brand, too.

If I enter into a brand designer-client relationship by asking you what you like and what you don’t like and by letting you lead the conversation and trusting your understanding of yourself and what you want (aka, sticking to the surface stuff, the right-now stuff)… I’m not touching your soul. I’d just be getting your next outfit ready.

So I don’t do that. Instead I ask things like:

“What was the emotional reason behind you starting this business?”

“When you think about your future, does it make you happy?”

“When you wake up in the morning, what do you feel most excited to do? Or… are you even excited anymore?”

Because we don’t start businesses just for the sake of something to do. We all start businesses because of something that is burning deep in our souls. A need that we see in the world around us that we feel so strongly about filling. Starting a business and growing a brand isn’t a “job”, it’s a CALLING!!! I bet if you asked any entrepreneur if they’d trade their freedom in decision-making and all the open-ended questions and confusion and isolation and crazy highs and lows and sleepless nights… for a “job”? They’d say no. Yes, a 401k sounds nice… yeah job security and a steady paycheck are tempting…. but we don’t do it. Because we can’t. We’re all here, on this crazy brand-growth journey, because something deep inside of us is telling us that there is something MORE ahead of us. Something incredibly beautiful that only WE can create in our own, uniquely passionate way. And THAT…. that is your brand.

The heartbeat of every brand is human.

And I start the whole branding journey by facing that humanity. And by exploring all the incredibly hard, and exquisitely beautiful, emotional stuff inside of that humanity. It’s SHOCKING how many entrepreneurs have built businesses around filling emotional needs that they struggled with or that were neglected in their early years or even in their childhoods. And what happens when we start the branding conversation by dealing with the emotional stuff is AMAZING.

And here’s how that works:

First, we actually get to the heart of what’s going on inside of the business, because everything that’s happening and going right or wrong comes directly from how clear and confident the business owner feels about their purpose.

Second, we talk about the things that are holding the business owner back (ie. fear of failure, imposter syndrome, etc) and what’s holding the brand back (identity crisis/confusion, lack of passion, burnout, etc.).

Third, we talk and we make art and messes and we use creativity and kindness as tools to help break down walls and build confidence and grow in self-awareness.

And finally…. once we’ve dealt with all the crazy introspective stuff…. we get to the design. Which takes all that hard and beautiful stuff, all the aha moments and breakthroughs and hope and renewed passion… and turns it into something real. Something that can exist in the real world and interact and grow and LIVE!! I don’t give people another outfit to wear, I work with them to create a brand that will grow WITH them, and continue to fuel their passion and JOY, for a LIFETIME.

So the question is: Is there something you do differently from the industry standard?

And the answer is a BIG yes. Because a brand isn’t about how it looks, it’s about how deeply connected you feel to it. The heartbeat of every brand is human because everyone who will ever interact with that brand (on the inside AND on the outside) is human. And human beings are messy and emotional and beautiful and irrational, so if all you’re doing is looking at numbers and statistics and trends and pretty colors to build a brand… you’re missing the point.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Meg Joyce and I am the human heartbeat inside of inKind Design inc.

I started inKind Design on a whim, as I think most of us do. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew I had something inside of me that was good and that I could use to help people. That thing was design. I spent my early years as a business owner focusing on graphic design and trying to be all things to all people and it WORKED!! And I loved it, at first… And then I loved it a little less. Because people would come into my life and ask me for a couple of things and then disappear. And I knew that I could do more.

I knew that I didn’t want to just design banners and logos and brochures. I wanted to help people redesign their lives and their worlds and their businesses for JOY.

In my work as a Brand Therapist, I get the best of ALL worlds. I get to REALLY know people, often times even better than they know themselves. I get to help and heal and allow people the space to breathe and feel pain and regret and hope, because being a business owner is HARD and it’s DEEPLY emotional and anyone who tells you it isn’t is either suffering more than they realize or they’re just lying to themselves.

And then I get to talk all of my experience in design and brand building and use those incredible tools and artistry to design powerful and empowering, passion-reigniting visuals and logos and ideas and concepts and colors and EVERYTHING a business owner needs to take on the world.

At the start of it all, I welcome people into inKind inkspace, my brand growth incubator (www.inkindinkspace.com). inkspace is jam packed with art therapy exercises, courses, events, fieldtrips and just a MILLION goodies that are all geared toward helping business owners and brand growers to grow in confidence and self-discovery. It’s fun and it’s meaningful and it’s a HUGELY empowering tool for any business owner who maybe isn’t feeling 100% happy on any given day.

From there, I welcome people into conversation. Because that’s where the real Brand Therapy stuff starts. That’s where we get to dive into private or group sessions and really figure out what’s happening inside your brand. Because I’m not here for the surface stuff (I need fresher colors, I don’t like my fonts, etc.) I’m here for the deeply meaningful stuff.

The “I don’t know why I don’t love what I do anymore.”

The “I’m so tired all the time and what used to feel exciting just feels like a chore. Like an endless to-do list that I can never work through.”

The “I know I should feel happier, but I just don’t. And I’m scared of what that means for the future of my business.”

The “I used to love this… I don’t know what happened…”

The “I want to grow, but I don’t know how. And I don’t trust myself to make decisions, because what if they’re wrong??”

THAT is what I’m here for. Because all of those are REAL questions that so many of us brand/business owners face ALL THE TIME. And each and every one of them points to a critical issue inside of your brand that we can talk about and work through in a safe and supportive environment.

And then…. once we’ve worked through all the dark, messy, painful stuff we get to remember what HOPE feels like. We get to work together to find INSPIRATION and JOY and LOVE!!! Because at some point there WAS love inside of your business, or else you wouldn’t be here.

And that joy and hope and love is what fuels our brand design conversations. Because, at the end of this whole crazy journey, there is an amazing, soul-filling brand waiting for you.

The whole process (play in inkspace, digging in Brand Therapy, healing in Design) it’s all steppingstones on a big, glorious journey that I call Empathetic Brand Building.

Brand design and growth through empathy. THAT is what I’m here for.

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

Ooooof…. this is a big one. Because the lesson that I learned, and that I repeated to myself over and over again, every time I started to feel a little bit brave…. was that I wasn’t allowed to have love in my brand.

And the hardest part of this is that the person who TOLD me that… was actually me. I didn’t realize it until recently, but I had misinterpreted and internalized a “lesson” from a coach who didn’t actually SAY what I heard. Because we, as humans, do that. We expect that we understand the things that people are telling us and trust our own interpretations implicitly, even though what we’re hearing may have NOTHING to do with the intention behind what was actually said.

I spend a decade thinking that I needed to not have LOVE in my brand.

Which is NUTS and SO counter to who I am.

As a human being, and as a Brand Therapist, I am ALL THINGS LOVE. I love my clients deeply, which helps them to feel safe opening up and being completely honest with me. Love is THE key ingredient in what I do because love creates space for trust, understanding, patience, and growth.

Love IS who I am.

And for so many years I hid that love behind a sleek and modern, white-space website. Behind comprehensive service packages and a voice in my brand messaging that didn’t sound anything like me. Behind “we” and “our”, when what I really wanted to say was “me” and “my”, because what if someone thought I was trying to make this all about me? What if I didn’t have “the work” to hide behind and justify my right to exist as a business owner?

For years, I built my brand with the sole purpose of hiding all those parts of me that I thought felt unprofessional or small or like I should apologize for them. Because what if people didn’t take me seriously? What if no one thought I was worthy or good?

Now? I’ve literally built my website to feel like a hug.

Now? I tell my clients and prospects (and everyone, really) that I LOVE them. And I mean it!!

Now? I get to show up as ME inside of my brand. Fun and colorful and warm and kind and squishy and safe. Because my brand IS me. My brand IS love. My brand is all the GOOD and KIND and WONDERFUL things about me that I spent so many years trying to hide.

And you know what? People love it.

People trust the authenticity behind all of the creativity and passion that comes oozing out of everything I do.

Yeah, some people are going to look at my brand and look at me and say “no thanks”, but that’s GREAT!!! Because I’m not for them. And that leaves space for SO MANY PEOPLE who WILL love me for who I am and who DO trust me and want to work with me BECAUSE of how I show up.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

People. People are how I’ve grown my clientele.

Real, meaningful, deep and loving relationships built on trust and generosity in all directions. That’s how I grow my network and, when it comes to finding clients, my network does the work for me.

Because what I do is SO POWERFUL, and so emotional, and… so hard to explain if you haven’t experienced it, my absolute number one best way to find clients is by letting the people who DO know me, and HAVE felt how amazing this is, do the talking.

When I show up and say “I am magical and I make magically beautiful things and help people to rediscover happiness inside of their brands”…. maybe I get some bonus points for confidence… but mostly I just sound a bit wild. But when clients and colleagues say it for me, and about me, that’s a TOTALLY different story. Because at that point they’re not just talking about ethereal, theoretical stuff, they’re telling the REAL stories about REAL things that happened to them, and they’re telling those stories to people who already know and trust them.

My job, in all of this, is to show up. My job is to be here, ready for anyone who needs my help. And showing up on platforms like social media and my website and getting the word out through podcasts and interviews so that when people are ready for a change, when business owners and brand owners are ready to feel happiness in their work again… I’m here. And I’m here with a wealth of resources and nurturing content and warmth and caring so that they can dip their toe in without feeling scared. Like stepping into a warm bath and feeling embraced and able to relax for the first time in too long…

And then, when they’re REALLY ready… we get to work.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.inkind-design.com
• Instagram: @inkinddesign
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inkinddesign/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meg-joyce/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-OG8_4sqdZCSCRqXlIPnpw
• Other: https://www.behance.net/inkinddesign