A Conversation with Fiona Humberstone - The Brand Stylist

Welcome back to this week's episode of The Courage to Be. I am very excited to share with you a conversation with the best selling author and visionary entrepreneur Fiona Humberstone, also known as The Brand Stylist.

She's the author and publisher of the bestselling books How to Style your Brand and Brand Brilliance. She is passionate about inspiring entrepreneurs to create incredible brands. 

But, as always, on The Courage to Be Podcast, our conversation is little bit more than everyday business. I was inspired to invite Fiona onto the show after she shared a post entitled "Feeling Vulnerable".

On reading her post I was incredibly moved by her honestly, her vulnerability and her strength. We explore this experience in more detail and Fiona concludes "you're going to have times, like I do, when it's tougher than normal. But I think what that post [that vulnerable post] showed me, was actually it probably wasn't really things that I had got wrong. There was bigger stuff going on out there in the market."

Fiona's capacity to reflect and learn from past experiences is very apparent throughout this conversation "I think I probably always look for the learning in everything" Fiona explains. 

We talk about competence and confidence "when you feel inspired and creative and confident in yourself, you produce your best work and when you're producing your best work, that gives you this vitality."

Fiona believes in letting brilliance lead the way "as entrepreneurs, we've got two choices, you can either put all of your energy into learning algorithms, learning how to write direct sales copy, creating elaborate sales funnels or you can put your energy into being really good at what you do and you cannot do both."

Fiona shares her thoughts on branding, specifically for small businesses, explaining "I think our expectations as consumers are that we don't make any concessions for the fact that you're small in terms of your brand. You know, if you're making soaps, they need to look just as beautiful, if not more so than the stuff we can get on the high street."

Fiona emphasises the importance of Brand Clarity "it requires you to be quite brave, because to have clarity, you have to accept that you're not going to be all things to everybody. You can't appeal to everyone. You've got to really focus on what it is that sets you apart and what makes you different."

As always on The Courage to Be we talk about the critics and Fiona, in the wonderful way that she does explains "I don't not care. I really care about what people think, really deeply care and that can massively get in the way sometimes"

To connect with Fiona head over to thebrand-stylist.com where you can also connect with Fiona across her social media platforms.