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Hello and welcome to the Smart Beauty podcast. I'm your host, Viola Levy, beauty journalist

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and founder of copy-led branding agency, Smart Beauty Creative. We're here to create your

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brand voice and craft the story behind it. Today I'm chatting with Becky Symes, a visionary

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designer and a digital storyteller who helps women with personal brands bring their bold,

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bright ideas to life. She previously worked with us here at Smart Beauty Creative and was

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the artistic brains behind our beautiful visuals. So she really knows her stuff and I would personally

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recommend her for anyone looking to build a personal brand and website. I'll leave all her

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links in the show notes. I spoke to Becky about authenticity in personal branding and about

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navigating the delicate balance of letting your personality shine through in a brand without

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oversharing. This rings especially true for female founders who often feel pressured to be

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quote unquote an authentic ambassador and influencer as well as CEO. That's the topic of our discussion

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today and Becky has some really useful and interesting insights to share so I hope you

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enjoy it. So thank you so much for being on the podcast. Firstly, it would be great to hear a bit

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about what made you interested in personal branding. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I think

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it's really evolved through the storytelling of my own career. So for the best part of about a decade

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I've been building brands whether for myself or for other people. And then more so in the last five

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years I've been supporting female founders with this. So my first love of it really came from

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how do I make sense of all of the parts of my own career and how do I then tell people about this

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to kind of connect the dots. And now yeah, we're working with female founders helping them to bring

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their ideas to digital form. So whether it's brand identity, website design, or this kind of vision

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strategy piece of really helping them to see how their story has informed where they're at now

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and what they can offer based on that. And for those of you who don't know, Becky did the lovely

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design of my website and all my branding. So I'll include all of the links to her website in

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the show notes. Now I really like that on your Instagram you talk a lot about authenticity and

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impersonal branding. And you sort of speak a lot about why you have an issue with the term being

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authentic. Can you unpack that a little bit? Yeah, for sure. I think in the last few years we've kind

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of seen these two ideas come into the zeitgeist, one of which being this piece around to be successful

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you need to be authentic. And then the other one being, you know, everyone has a personal brand

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regardless of whether you're in a traditional career or whether you're self-employed. And almost

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the issue with these two being overlaid is that we're confusing authenticity with access because

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a lot of the successful personal brands that we're looking to were at first influencers or content

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creators whose style was very much that diary essence of like day in the life. And that's just

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not relevant for a lot of personal brands which are service providers or product based, like the

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figureheads of product based businesses because you sharing your day in the life can actually

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confuse the audience. I mean, not always but can confuse the audience. They need to be really

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clear on what they're associating you with what you're selling. And often to be sharing your kind

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of every thought and feeling can create infusion, can create a lack of trust or trust around the

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longevity of what you're doing, especially if you are going through those kind of like founder

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moments of uncertainty. So I think really it's about redefining authenticity because I think,

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yes, it should be aligned with your values, yes, trust and honesty, but also knowing that we can

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be selective around what we share and always asking ourselves like, is it relevant? Is it going to

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be relevant to our audience and does it make sense to them? And I feel like it's sort of a

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predominantly female thing. It affects female founders a lot more. I think it's from my perspective,

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it's because people kind of expect women to be automatically to be brand ambassadors if they

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are founding a business in the way that men just aren't, they don't have that same pressure. And to

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me, it feels like women need to prove themselves, they need to prove that they're genuine and

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approachable, a little bit self-deprecating and authentic in order to be trustworthy. Would you

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agree with that? Yeah, I think so. I think, I mean, I feel like this is going to be a recurrent

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theme in today's episode of the disproportionate ways that things affect women. But absolutely,

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I think that the standards to which we hold women and women in business too are so different. And

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we expect them to be showcasing why their choice to pick a career, you know, the choice to pick a

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career often looks like the choice to pick a career over a different kind of life. And I think

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we're almost asking them to defend this in how they're showing up. Obviously, you do get women

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who are doing both career and motherhood, but often, you know, them entering what we see as a

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typically male arena as in business, as in, you know, anything entrepreneurial, there is a different

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level of judgment, which we don't extend to men. We allow men to exist with their personality and

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their business acumen being very separate. Whereas we find that very hard to do with women.

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Yeah, that whole idea of expecting people to defend like women to defend themselves, especially if

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they're mothers, and it's kind of look everyone, I'm juggling it all. I do have another life outside

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of the business. It's that pressure. I think that seems very disproportionate. Yeah, absolutely.

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Very damned if you do damned if you don't, because we would never expect men to answer to their roles

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and responsibilities around fatherhood under the same guys. No, definitely not. And I also think

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that I get a lot of TikTok bros on my feed, kind of making videos about how it's important to be

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authentic, because authenticity is polarizing. People should either love you or hate you. And I

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have a real issue with that, because I feel that it doesn't apply. I think if you're a woman or a

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minority, you have to adapt to fit certain situations, you have to code switch and just to

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get ahead. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. A lot of us can't afford to be

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polarizing. And I feel like that doesn't mean necessarily diluting yourself or being fake. I

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think it's about just showing different aspects of yourself. Would you agree with that? Yeah,

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absolutely. I mean, I don't think women really have the liberty of being hated and being successful.

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So I feel like a lot of the advice that I give my clients is kind of this 80 20. So 80% your

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content and your brand expression should be your audience really clearly understanding who you are

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and what you sell, whether you can do that in creative ways. But that 20% is where you get to

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align with trends or try new things, see what your audience resonate with, which might be a little

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bit outside of your usual remit. And then you can use that as information to see what's resonating

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and how you can maybe incorporate elements of that into your work or into your expression,

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your content. So the very doing your very mindful thing is a really great example. Like you can

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play with that with the context of your own work, but it doesn't mean that it now needs to become

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like a whole slogan that you incorporate and do a series on, you know, you're just kind of trying

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to reach new eyes by using different trends and it's not and they won't all work for every brand.

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But you being able to discern which ones you might experiment with is a really like important

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and valuable exercise when it comes to personal running and content creation.

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And I think it's good to also have boundaries like where you end in your personal, like your

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business begins or your personal brand begins. Because I've seen a lot of influencers that have

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either started their own beauty brands or collaborated. And then the brands have done

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quite badly because the influencer has been embroiled in some kind of controversy or they've

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fallen out favour. And I think there is a risk with that with being authentic is you can kind of run

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the risk of upsetting people and then alienating people and then that doesn't bode well for your

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business. Absolutely. I feel like we always need to be asking like what's the longevity with the

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actions that we're taking. And like is the shape that I'm taking up, is that leaving enough space

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for me to shape shift later down the line? Because some people will choose only to really make

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micro shifts. But if you're kind of pigeonholing yourself into a shape, which is going to be

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quite clearly at odds with something you might want to do in the future, then you're going to

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find yourself with an issue because the internet is this continuous archive, you know, everything

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we put out will at some point be in a findable. So it's not, it's not to kind of stop us from

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ever expressing ourselves, but really to think about in five, 10, 20 years, what might I want to do

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that my actions now might be decreasing the likelihood of my ability. You know, we don't want

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to find ourselves in a situation where we've kind of outed ourselves of an arena because of

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small decision that we made. Yeah, I think it's because of maybe the rise of like reality

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styles and influences that everyone now feels this pressure to be beryl and be very kind of open

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and vulnerable. What do you think the main drawbacks of that are? I know you've mentioned a few of

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them, but are there any other kind of major pitfalls that you think people should be aware of when

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going down that route? Yeah, totally. I feel like, you know, almost once we release something, we don't

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get to control the narrative of it. And it's so important that we just accept that there'll always

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be someone who thinks that what we did was great, and someone will think it's awful. And if we can

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accept that, then we can decide, okay, let's be as intentional as we can around what people

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associate us with, whether that brand we work with, themes we talk about, you know, to some degree,

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it's also the people we associate with. And what's really important here is like we determine what

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people expect from us. So mainly in these three areas of like access, privacy and advocacy.

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So in terms of access, like we were talking about before, we're determining how much they feel like

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they have access to our lives, to communications with us, how public our communications will be

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with them, our privacy, like what we're willing to share, and then our advocacy. So in this like

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changing landscape of chaos that we live in, if you speak to one thing, just know that you probably

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will be called on or demanded to speak on another thing. And you might have been able to form a

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very nuanced opinion on that one thing. And if you're now kind of creating this situation where

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people are expecting you to talk on everything, you're not necessarily always going to be able

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to give the same level of attention to educate yourself on what your point of view of is on

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that other topic. And so I feel like while there is this great case for people with a platform

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having responsibility to speak to things, I would urge us to have more space between the time in

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which it took us to speak out or to voice our own opinion, because we have a great responsibility,

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but we don't necessarily have the expertise to speak on all things. And it can be so damaging.

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I think with brands as well, there's this pressure to sort of take a stand on things and to call

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certain things out. But like you say, if you don't have the expertise to back it up, some people

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are rightly taking a step back from those discussions, because it's not relevant to their business.

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And it might even be seen as kind of insensitive if they have like a beauty brand, say, and then

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they start talking about sort of serious political issues, it can feel quite jarring. Even though

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it's like you say, it's important to talk about those things. But I feel like there's a time in a

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place and I don't necessarily think your professional platform is always the way to do it.

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I think it's an incredibly difficult one, especially when things get louder and louder. And like,

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like we said, there's no right or wrong way here. I think there is a lot of responsibility on brands

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to say something, especially when the noise gets louder. But unless they're doing that in a very

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informed way, I feel like it can be just as damaging. Although I think that often a lot of the

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reason why they don't is probably more bottom line related. I think that there's a case for just

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being educated before we speak on anything. Definitely. Or working with people that are

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experts on the topic or collaborating with experts that can actually advise you and kind of

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steer you in the right direction. For sure. And also knowing that like, sometimes people go to

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brands, not well, oftentimes people go to brands for a safe as in, if we turn everything into

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a commentary on the world, not that there doesn't need to be more noise around certain things,

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but we kind of risk just like losing some of those places where people go to so kind of decompress,

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which I think over a longer term can have a negative effect as well.

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Yeah, definitely. It's nice to have those kind of neutral spaces where you know you're not going to

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be embroiled in a heated discussion. It's kind of like having those friends that just talk about

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politics all the time. And obviously, you know, politics is an important subject. It's good to

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discuss it, but it can get very draining. Every time you meet up, you're on news night.

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And like you say, I feel like there's something to be said for just having those kind of neutral

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spaces where you can go and decompress. And I think it's a reminder that who we are online,

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it's not necessarily who we are offline. And just because we're not shouting about doing something

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as a brand or as the leader of a brand, that doesn't mean that we're not, you know, activists in our

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own world. The way celebrities choose to be authentic and choose to sort of reveal certain

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facets of themselves is quite interesting, especially those like Rihanna who have beauty brands.

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And then also Taylor Swift is often cited as this example of having an authentic brand,

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which some people kind of disagree with. Because I don't feel that her brand is particularly

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tell all in a sense that she doesn't talk about her personal life, her private life. And I think

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that's very admirable. Are you sort of a fan of the way that people like Rihanna and Taylor Swift

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kind of conduct themselves in terms of how much they choose to reveal and the sort of personal

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brand that they put out there? Yeah, I feel like they're both really good examples of using authenticity

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to leverage a brand in a way that really easily kind of disguise the fact that there is a lot

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of strategy behind it. You know, in very different ways, Rihanna is giving like a very like fucking

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the trends, like very fully expressed version of everybody's beautiful, everybody's allowed to

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speak their mind kind of version. Whereas I think, and that which gives you this idea that she's

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completely being herself. And she's commodified that too. Whereas like, Taylor's different because

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she's giving you this idea, because she's giving you these pieces of vulnerability,

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where we've got Rihanna on a bit of a cool girl pedestal. Taylor Swift isn't really on the cool

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girl pedestal, she's very clearly trying to not be on that pedestal to make you feel like she's

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relatable. And so it kind of hoodwinked you into thinking that she's just like, uh, so,

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whereas actually like there's a whole team of people that are kind of back behind the scenes

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for both of these people. So I feel like it's, there's a really like interesting way of looking

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at it, which is like, if authenticity is just being your messy little self, the kind of intentional

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version of that is choosing which pieces you're going to trade on in order to get the customer to

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be in a certain way. Where they think your authenticity is actually authenticity and your

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personality, but actually it's like a very careful game. Not to deceive anyone, but more just to like

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no, to align with an end goal. Yeah. And being strategic and focusing on your kind of

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business objectives, as opposed to just kind of putting it out there for the sake of putting it

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out there. 100%. And I think it's interesting as well with the rise of these little celebrity

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document documentaries, like taking back the narrative. I think that kind of speaks to your

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point very, very well, because I was watching one the other night and I was like, oh, this person

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seems so relatable and she seems really lovely. And it's like, she could be, but I think it's more

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that they've put this documentary together specifically to make her appear like that. I mean,

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she could well be like that, but I think it's just very clever how they kind of draw you in. I mean,

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all documentaries that have a celebrity at the core are designed to make that celebrity look good.

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So authentic they are, there's always that kind of stuff going on behind the scenes to sort of

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make them appear to their audience in a certain way. So I think it's always important to kind of

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bear that in mind. Having said that, I feel that when it comes to kind of differentiating yourself

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in a crowded market with a personal brand, I'm always a fan of focusing on how you're different,

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not how you're better. And I feel like you do have to kind of mine your own personal stuff

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for that in a way, like how am I different? What do I have to offer that's slightly different

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than what everyone else is? And I guess it's a careful balance, isn't it? It's kind of showing

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sort of aspects of yourself that are quite personal to set yourself apart. But then it's,

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yeah, not being too personal, but it just feels like you've got no mystery there.

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Yeah, completely. I feel like there's something, there is a real sweet spot between having the

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audience or the customer, potential customer feel like you can really understand them or you can

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really add something to them. And yeah, a lot of the time that might look like the stories that you

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have to offer or the experience you have to offer. But I feel like if we only go down the route of

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experience, often it can end up like, well, what's standing? What's, what's, why do I stand differently

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to somebody who's had exactly the same university experience as me? Or, you know, I didn't go to

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university. So not that, but you know, someone who's had the exact same credentials. And the parts of

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your personality and your journey and the certain decisions that you made are really important in

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cementing what additional pieces you can bring to somebody that, you know, the different flavour

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that you carry. My work, for example, I work on brand and web design, as you know, but a big part of

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I feel like what sets me apart is this vision strategy piece that no matter how hard I try,

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that ends up in most of my brand and web projects anyway. You know, I end up talking to people

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about their idea and how they can execute their idea at the same time as talking about what

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decisions, design decisions they might make on their site. And that's, I guess, as you would say,

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like one of my USPs. And I don't think I could take that out of the way I work, whereas there are a

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lot of brand and web designers who could, and that's, and that's purely because that's the way my

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brain works. But there are a lot of brand and web designers who will meet you in the visuals, but

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don't necessarily want to bring that piece. And that's why you'd go with them if you already knew

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what strategy, you know, you were really sure on your strategy. So I feel like it's just like

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finding the people that offer you the kind of flavour you're interested in.

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Definitely. And is that why you kind of chose to work within the sort of personal brand

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space? Because you like taking that holistic approach and getting to know the person and

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what they're about and then creating the brand around that as opposed to just like you say,

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meeting them in the visuals? Yeah, definitely. I feel a lot more personal

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fulfillment working one-on-one with people. I do work with people with teams. Sometimes there might

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be like two or three collaborators. I find it more, yeah, more fulfilling to work with one person,

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especially with one of the main reasons I work with women specifically is because I feel like

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we exist in this really interesting landscape of being required to be seen, but being scared of

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being seen. And a lot of the reason we're scared or have apprehension about being seen is because

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the environment that we land in when we are seen is like really heavily judgmental or

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scrupulized in a different way. And so I feel like there is like this additional piece of work of

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helping somebody to see the magic that they can offer and helping them to ensure that they are

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weaving that through their site where it just feels slightly different in brands that don't have a

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either a personal brand element or kind of one main person making the decisions.

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Because it is a very emotional thing sort of starting your own brand, starting your own business

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that I think a lot of people don't really talk about, but it's a lot of emotional upheaval.

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And I think it can signify you kind of closing a chapter and sort of leaving a part of your

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old self behind. So I think 100%. It's like a huge identity piece. It's almost like

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you learn so much about yourself, even just going through the process. I mean,

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you'll know going through the process of like figuring out the brand and website,

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even before you press launch, you've learned so many things about yourself. And I feel like that is

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it's partly based on this like career purpose thing, you know, the real interconnection between

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the two and how we find so much. So many others find so much of our self worth in our career and

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our purpose. But yeah, it's so deeply personal because you're making decisions on yourself

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without really being able to be that subjective about yourself, especially when you are the

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product. So it's incredibly revealing. It's been a rollercoaster for me at least. And what would

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be the key elements, would you say, for brand longevity? So if you don't want to just be a

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flush in the pan, like what would you say the main kind of tenants are? Because I know you

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spoke on your stories about sort of evolving with the seasons. Can you talk a little bit more

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about? Yeah, absolutely. I feel like this looks slightly different for brands versus personal

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brands for sure. But I think, you know, in that 80-20 piece of 80% being your consistency and 20%

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being your experimentation, that 20% can really be informing what people want you to do more of.

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And you might get to a place where, you know, that 20% is the thing that lights you up the most,

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and you're finding a lot of that 80% is just either not landing or it doesn't feel accurate for you

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anymore. And we'll see a lot of, for example, with beauty brands, we'll see, you know, every three,

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five, 10 years, they might do a rebrand. Some of that will depend on the age of their customer.

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But they'll be shifting their visuals and their product suite dependently on what they want to

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do. And they'll be shifting their vision on the changing world and the changing customer

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age of their customer, for example. Whereas with personal brands, I do think this happens a little

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bit more frequently. And a lot of that is because as a personal brand, you yourself are a big piece

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of informing what you want to bring to the world, what you want to offer, and your experience changes,

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your enjoyment of things changes, your preferences, the customers you enjoy working with.

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So I feel like the kind of seasonal approach to that is allowing the 80 and 20 to happen, the 20%

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can be your experimentation. And then reviewing when it feels like that 80, 20, like wants to be

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switched up in a more dramatic way. So for example, like, you might keep smart beauty exactly as it

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is for the next two years. And you might review in two years and see that 80% of your brands are

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fragrance brands. And you're really loving that. And actually, yes, you can still do what you're

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doing under smart beauty. But you want to make sense more of a big part of the story. And that's

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when you choose to do a rebrand and you choose to like really get, you know, fragrance landed in the

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coffee more like strongly. It's not that you couldn't do it previously. It's just like what shape can I

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change this brand to so that it resonates more deeply with the people and the places that I'm

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being pulled to. And I think with a personal brand, they are just more malleable, as long as you can

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make sure that your audience still know what you're doing. Definitely. And that's really relevant

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to a conversation I was having the other day where someone I was speaking to who's like a

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branding expert, I was telling them about smart beauty and everything that we stand for and why

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I sort of started it up. And she said, well, it sounds like you're kind of a feminist agency. I was

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like, she's like, yeah, I think you should make that central to your story and what you're about.

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I was like, Oh, really? Like, obviously, I am a feminist. It's quite scary when you think about

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sort of delving into politics and putting your stall out and saying, this is what we are.

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But I do think that that's what we are. We do provide a feminist edge when we talk about

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the beauty industry, because that's the way that the beauty world is going. So

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Especially like the more and more niche brands or the more and more founder led brands, because

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we're kind of stepping out of that muggle of, all the big dogs in beauty were like very patriarchal,

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were very kind of, you know, men in the boardroom who didn't actually know much about those products.

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Whereas now with indie brands coming to the forefront and indie brands, bringing the women who

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actually like have their ear to the ground in terms of what is required, what is requested,

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you get, we're seeing a whole new face of beauty and more industry, the industry landscape changing

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and it's like so exciting. I just think you can't take some of those values out of the industry

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anymore because the customer is demanding differently. 100% that has to be like the blueprint

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of your brand from the get go if you're a new startup. And you can't be seen as kind of patting

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yourself on the back and being like, oh look, we're doing we're doing X, Y and Z now, aren't we great?

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Because Yeah, exactly. It's like the consumer is just doesn't expect or expects you to speak very

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openly about things and not accept less. And so almost like, especially with the younger audiences

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of like Gen Z, like, there's just there's no way that you would get brands doing really well if

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their ethics or their values weren't aligned in some way. Or if they were doing something that was,

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you know, something that we might have accepted from the big brands a long time ago, because we

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just didn't know there's no lack of information now. And we live in such cancel culture that

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like, we're just demanding differently. No, for sure. So I think that making the point that we

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are a feminist beauty brand, I don't think it necessarily detracts from what we're doing,

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but it just gives a bit of a flavor of what we're about without being too revealing, without being

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too overly political or being too hard hitting. Because I think that's what alienates people.

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Yeah, definitely. And I think it's it's similar to that point we said about, yes, be aligned with

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your values, but it doesn't mean that you need to speak about all your values all at once in order

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to kind of like make a point. It's like you're allowed to as a brand embody certain values and

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then to speak into them when they're relevant without it needing to be, yeah, this completely

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like let me take you on every turn of my brain all the time. No, exactly, because I can get a bit

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tedious, I think if I was, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what's the future for you? Like, where do you like

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to take your own business? And would you like to work with different kinds of businesses? Or are

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you do you feel like working with female founders is where you're meant to be? I feel like speaking,

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I feel like working with women and female founders is probably still where I'd like to be. I'd also

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like to put some more time towards, you know, my strap line is like supporting the big old and

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bright. So very much like women and ideas. So I want to put some more of that towards ideas of my

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own as well, but kind of like still inside of my own personal brand. And also I'm finding it really

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interesting to be working with brands. It was that I used to just work with wellness and beauty

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and spirituality. And now I'm working with people that sometimes like a little bit outside of that.

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And I always learn so much about both about their industry, but also about what I'm capable of when

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the creative constraints change a bit. So I'm just like in this real experimental phase, which I'm

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really enjoying. And yeah, having more time to use some of my other projects as well. I think

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you and Giselle should team up and do like offering like Giselle upon more is one of you. I think

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she's a former client of yours and a very good friend. Yeah, you know, what she does is really

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amazing. And she's worked on spirituality and spiritual healing. And I think that you guys,

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if you teamed up, you'd make formidable duo, I'd say. That's nice of you to say. I saw her last

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week, actually, and we were talking about doing something together. So yeah, watch this phase.

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Yeah, sign me up. Thank you so much for chatting with me, Becky. I really appreciate it.

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And enjoy. Thank you for having me. I hope you enjoyed that episode. All links will be in the

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show notes and feel free to visit smartbeautycreative.com or visit us over on Instagram to find out

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more about what we do. And if you enjoyed listening, please don't forget to rate and review

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smart beauty on iTunes as it helps people find us. See you next time.