Personal branding expert and talented designer, Sarah Ancalmo Ashman is the guest for the 56th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. She shared with Kira and Rob (and you) how she became a brand expert—she started out as an ad agency designer working with personalities like Madonna, Jimmy Fallon and the rock group, RadioHead. In the podcast she talks about:

•  how she developed her unique design style and why she chose branding as her discipline

•  the first steps she took when she started her own agency

•  what branding is and why it is so important to have a strong brand

•  some of the more important elements that make up your brand

•  how to identify what make you (and your brand) unique

•  what you need to know or work on before you engage a designer

•  why copywriters shouldn’t shape their brand around their clients

•  her contrarian advice on which formulas you should use for your brand

•  how to create a brand for yourself when you don’t have the budget to work with a designer (hint: don’t use fiverr)

Rob and Kira also ask Sarah about the things that smart copywriters are starting to do with their brands, where copywriters who want to work in branding can get started and the the text books she recommends you should read if you want to learn branding. To hear it all, click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.

The people and stuff we mentioned on the show:

Sponsor: AirStory

Sarah Ashman, Public Persona

Sarah’s Pinterest

MirrorBrand

B School

Bluffworks

Lacy Boggs

Ash Ambirge

Building a Story Brand

The Brand Gap

Kira’s website

Rob’s website

The Copywriter Club Facebook Group

Intro: Content (for now)

Outro: Gravity

Full Transcript:

The Copywriter Club Podcast is sponsored by Airstory, the writing platform for professional writers who want to get more done in half the time. Learn more at Airstory.co/club.

Kira: What if you could hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes, and their habits, then steal and idea or two to inspire your own work? That’s what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast.

Rob: You’re invited to join the Club for episode 56, as we chat with branding expert and designer Sarah Ancalmo Ashman about working with entrepreneurs and creatives to create jaw-dropping brands, developing a brand strategy, how copywriters should approach their own brand development, and whether having a nice logo is enough.

Kira: Hi Sarah!

Rob: Hey Sarah.

Sarah: Hello, thanks for having me!

Kira: Thanks for being here. I think - I have such a big crush on you because you’ve worked with me on my website and my brand and that’s been one of the best investments I’ve made in my business so I’m glad we can finally have you on the show you can share your knowledge and expertise with everyone at large. I think a great place to start though, is with your story! How did you end up running your creative studio?

Sarah: As always, a meandering path, right? My background is actually in, you know, big brand advertising and you know, design studios in New York. And I worked doing that for about ten years and realized that the projects that resonated with me actually the most, were the ones that involved an individual. Clients that were sort of an individual that we were centering a brand around. I found that there were a lot of opportunities to bring out stories and you know, just really focus on their personality and what differentiates them as an individual. And so what I ended up doing was starting to kind of put my feelers out... and started to work with individuals, primarily entrepreneurs, who were either starting their business or wanting to uplevel, and applying some of the same techniques that I used to develop brands for the Fortune 500 for these private clients. And that ended up being viable enough for me to be able to kind of jump ship from the corp...