Hello and welcome to the Smart Beauty podcast. I'm your host, Viola Levy, beauty journalist
and founder of copy-led branding agency, Smart Beauty Creative. We're here to create your
brand voice and craft the story behind it. Today I'm chatting with Becky Symes, a visionary
designer and a digital storyteller who helps women with personal brands bring their bold,
bright ideas to life. She previously worked with us here at Smart Beauty Creative and was
the artistic brains behind our beautiful visuals. So she really knows her stuff and I would personally
recommend her for anyone looking to build a personal brand and website. I'll leave all her
links in the show notes. I spoke to Becky about authenticity in personal branding and about
navigating the delicate balance of letting your personality shine through in a brand without
oversharing. This rings especially true for female founders who often feel pressured to be
quote unquote an authentic ambassador and influencer as well as CEO. That's the topic of our discussion
today and Becky has some really useful and interesting insights to share so I hope you
enjoy it. So thank you so much for being on the podcast. Firstly, it would be great to hear a bit
about what made you interested in personal branding. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I think
it's really evolved through the storytelling of my own career. So for the best part of about a decade
I've been building brands whether for myself or for other people. And then more so in the last five
years I've been supporting female founders with this. So my first love of it really came from
how do I make sense of all of the parts of my own career and how do I then tell people about this
to kind of connect the dots. And now yeah, we're working with female founders helping them to bring
their ideas to digital form. So whether it's brand identity, website design, or this kind of vision
strategy piece of really helping them to see how their story has informed where they're at now
and what they can offer based on that. And for those of you who don't know, Becky did the lovely
design of my website and all my branding. So I'll include all of the links to her website in
the show notes. Now I really like that on your Instagram you talk a lot about authenticity and
impersonal branding. And you sort of speak a lot about why you have an issue with the term being
authentic. Can you unpack that a little bit? Yeah, for sure. I think in the last few years we've kind
of seen these two ideas come into the zeitgeist, one of which being this piece around to be successful
you need to be authentic. And then the other one being, you know, everyone has a personal brand
regardless of whether you're in a traditional career or whether you're self-employed. And almost
the issue with these two being overlaid is that we're confusing authenticity with access because
a lot of the successful personal brands that we're looking to were at first influencers or content
creators whose style was very much that diary essence of like day in the life. And that's just
not relevant for a lot of personal brands which are service providers or product based, like the
figureheads of product based businesses because you sharing your day in the life can actually
confuse the audience. I mean, not always but can confuse the audience. They need to be really
clear on what they're associating you with what you're selling. And often to be sharing your kind
of every thought and feeling can create infusion, can create a lack of trust or trust around the
longevity of what you're doing, especially if you are going through those kind of like founder
moments of uncertainty. So I think really it's about redefining authenticity because I think,
yes, it should be aligned with your values, yes, trust and honesty, but also knowing that we can
be selective around what we share and always asking ourselves like, is it relevant? Is it going to
be relevant to our audience and does it make sense to them? And I feel like it's sort of a
predominantly female thing. It affects female founders a lot more. I think it's from my perspective,
it's because people kind of expect women to be automatically to be brand ambassadors if they
are founding a business in the way that men just aren't, they don't have that same pressure. And to
me, it feels like women need to prove themselves, they need to prove that they're genuine and
approachable, a little bit self-deprecating and authentic in order to be trustworthy. Would you
agree with that? Yeah, I think so. I think, I mean, I feel like this is going to be a recurrent
theme in today's episode of the disproportionate ways that things affect women. But absolutely,
I think that the standards to which we hold women and women in business too are so different. And
we expect them to be showcasing why their choice to pick a career, you know, the choice to pick a
career often looks like the choice to pick a career over a different kind of life. And I think
we're almost asking them to defend this in how they're showing up. Obviously, you do get women
who are doing both career and motherhood, but often, you know, them entering what we see as a
typically male arena as in business, as in, you know, anything entrepreneurial, there is a different
level of judgment, which we don't extend to men. We allow men to exist with their personality and
their business acumen being very separate. Whereas we find that very hard to do with women.
Yeah, that whole idea of expecting people to defend like women to defend themselves, especially if
they're mothers, and it's kind of look everyone, I'm juggling it all. I do have another life outside
of the business. It's that pressure. I think that seems very disproportionate. Yeah, absolutely.
Very damned if you do damned if you don't, because we would never expect men to answer to their roles
and responsibilities around fatherhood under the same guys. No, definitely not. And I also think
that I get a lot of TikTok bros on my feed, kind of making videos about how it's important to be
authentic, because authenticity is polarizing. People should either love you or hate you. And I
have a real issue with that, because I feel that it doesn't apply. I think if you're a woman or a
minority, you have to adapt to fit certain situations, you have to code switch and just to
get ahead. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. A lot of us can't afford to be
polarizing. And I feel like that doesn't mean necessarily diluting yourself or being fake. I
think it's about just showing different aspects of yourself. Would you agree with that? Yeah,
absolutely. I mean, I don't think women really have the liberty of being hated and being successful.
So I feel like a lot of the advice that I give my clients is kind of this 80 20. So 80% your
content and your brand expression should be your audience really clearly understanding who you are
and what you sell, whether you can do that in creative ways. But that 20% is where you get to
align with trends or try new things, see what your audience resonate with, which might be a little
bit outside of your usual remit. And then you can use that as information to see what's resonating
and how you can maybe incorporate elements of that into your work or into your expression,
your content. So the very doing your very mindful thing is a really great example. Like you can
play with that with the context of your own work, but it doesn't mean that it now needs to become
like a whole slogan that you incorporate and do a series on, you know, you're just kind of trying
to reach new eyes by using different trends and it's not and they won't all work for every brand.
But you being able to discern which ones you might experiment with is a really like important
and valuable exercise when it comes to personal running and content creation.
And I think it's good to also have boundaries like where you end in your personal, like your
business begins or your personal brand begins. Because I've seen a lot of influencers that have
either started their own beauty brands or collaborated. And then the brands have done
quite badly because the influencer has been embroiled in some kind of controversy or they've
fallen out favour. And I think there is a risk with that with being authentic is you can kind of run
the risk of upsetting people and then alienating people and then that doesn't bode well for your
business. Absolutely. I feel like we always need to be asking like what's the longevity with the
actions that we're taking. And like is the shape that I'm taking up, is that leaving enough space
for me to shape shift later down the line? Because some people will choose only to really make
micro shifts. But if you're kind of pigeonholing yourself into a shape, which is going to be
quite clearly at odds with something you might want to do in the future, then you're going to
find yourself with an issue because the internet is this continuous archive, you know, everything
we put out will at some point be in a findable. So it's not, it's not to kind of stop us from
ever expressing ourselves, but really to think about in five, 10, 20 years, what might I want to do
that my actions now might be decreasing the likelihood of my ability. You know, we don't want
to find ourselves in a situation where we've kind of outed ourselves of an arena because of
small decision that we made. Yeah, I think it's because of maybe the rise of like reality
styles and influences that everyone now feels this pressure to be beryl and be very kind of open
and vulnerable. What do you think the main drawbacks of that are? I know you've mentioned a few of
them, but are there any other kind of major pitfalls that you think people should be aware of when
going down that route? Yeah, totally. I feel like, you know, almost once we release something, we don't
get to control the narrative of it. And it's so important that we just accept that there'll always
be someone who thinks that what we did was great, and someone will think it's awful. And if we can
accept that, then we can decide, okay, let's be as intentional as we can around what people
associate us with, whether that brand we work with, themes we talk about, you know, to some degree,
it's also the people we associate with. And what's really important here is like we determine what
people expect from us. So mainly in these three areas of like access, privacy and advocacy.
So in terms of access, like we were talking about before, we're determining how much they feel like
they have access to our lives, to communications with us, how public our communications will be
with them, our privacy, like what we're willing to share, and then our advocacy. So in this like
changing landscape of chaos that we live in, if you speak to one thing, just know that you probably
will be called on or demanded to speak on another thing. And you might have been able to form a
very nuanced opinion on that one thing. And if you're now kind of creating this situation where
people are expecting you to talk on everything, you're not necessarily always going to be able
to give the same level of attention to educate yourself on what your point of view of is on
that other topic. And so I feel like while there is this great case for people with a platform
having responsibility to speak to things, I would urge us to have more space between the time in
which it took us to speak out or to voice our own opinion, because we have a great responsibility,
but we don't necessarily have the expertise to speak on all things. And it can be so damaging.
I think with brands as well, there's this pressure to sort of take a stand on things and to call
certain things out. But like you say, if you don't have the expertise to back it up, some people
are rightly taking a step back from those discussions, because it's not relevant to their business.
And it might even be seen as kind of insensitive if they have like a beauty brand, say, and then
they start talking about sort of serious political issues, it can feel quite jarring. Even though
it's like you say, it's important to talk about those things. But I feel like there's a time in a
place and I don't necessarily think your professional platform is always the way to do it.
I think it's an incredibly difficult one, especially when things get louder and louder. And like,
like we said, there's no right or wrong way here. I think there is a lot of responsibility on brands
to say something, especially when the noise gets louder. But unless they're doing that in a very
informed way, I feel like it can be just as damaging. Although I think that often a lot of the
reason why they don't is probably more bottom line related. I think that there's a case for just
being educated before we speak on anything. Definitely. Or working with people that are
experts on the topic or collaborating with experts that can actually advise you and kind of
steer you in the right direction. For sure. And also knowing that like, sometimes people go to
brands, not well, oftentimes people go to brands for a safe as in, if we turn everything into
a commentary on the world, not that there doesn't need to be more noise around certain things,
but we kind of risk just like losing some of those places where people go to so kind of decompress,
which I think over a longer term can have a negative effect as well.
Yeah, definitely. It's nice to have those kind of neutral spaces where you know you're not going to
be embroiled in a heated discussion. It's kind of like having those friends that just talk about
politics all the time. And obviously, you know, politics is an important subject. It's good to
discuss it, but it can get very draining. Every time you meet up, you're on news night.
And like you say, I feel like there's something to be said for just having those kind of neutral
spaces where you can go and decompress. And I think it's a reminder that who we are online,
it's not necessarily who we are offline. And just because we're not shouting about doing something
as a brand or as the leader of a brand, that doesn't mean that we're not, you know, activists in our
own world. The way celebrities choose to be authentic and choose to sort of reveal certain
facets of themselves is quite interesting, especially those like Rihanna who have beauty brands.
And then also Taylor Swift is often cited as this example of having an authentic brand,
which some people kind of disagree with. Because I don't feel that her brand is particularly
tell all in a sense that she doesn't talk about her personal life, her private life. And I think
that's very admirable. Are you sort of a fan of the way that people like Rihanna and Taylor Swift
kind of conduct themselves in terms of how much they choose to reveal and the sort of personal
brand that they put out there? Yeah, I feel like they're both really good examples of using authenticity
to leverage a brand in a way that really easily kind of disguise the fact that there is a lot
of strategy behind it. You know, in very different ways, Rihanna is giving like a very like fucking
the trends, like very fully expressed version of everybody's beautiful, everybody's allowed to
speak their mind kind of version. Whereas I think, and that which gives you this idea that she's
completely being herself. And she's commodified that too. Whereas like, Taylor's different because
she's giving you this idea, because she's giving you these pieces of vulnerability,
where we've got Rihanna on a bit of a cool girl pedestal. Taylor Swift isn't really on the cool
girl pedestal, she's very clearly trying to not be on that pedestal to make you feel like she's
relatable. And so it kind of hoodwinked you into thinking that she's just like, uh, so,
whereas actually like there's a whole team of people that are kind of back behind the scenes
for both of these people. So I feel like it's, there's a really like interesting way of looking
at it, which is like, if authenticity is just being your messy little self, the kind of intentional
version of that is choosing which pieces you're going to trade on in order to get the customer to
be in a certain way. Where they think your authenticity is actually authenticity and your
personality, but actually it's like a very careful game. Not to deceive anyone, but more just to like
no, to align with an end goal. Yeah. And being strategic and focusing on your kind of
business objectives, as opposed to just kind of putting it out there for the sake of putting it
out there. 100%. And I think it's interesting as well with the rise of these little celebrity
document documentaries, like taking back the narrative. I think that kind of speaks to your
point very, very well, because I was watching one the other night and I was like, oh, this person
seems so relatable and she seems really lovely. And it's like, she could be, but I think it's more
that they've put this documentary together specifically to make her appear like that. I mean,
she could well be like that, but I think it's just very clever how they kind of draw you in. I mean,
all documentaries that have a celebrity at the core are designed to make that celebrity look good.
So authentic they are, there's always that kind of stuff going on behind the scenes to sort of
make them appear to their audience in a certain way. So I think it's always important to kind of
bear that in mind. Having said that, I feel that when it comes to kind of differentiating yourself
in a crowded market with a personal brand, I'm always a fan of focusing on how you're different,
not how you're better. And I feel like you do have to kind of mine your own personal stuff
for that in a way, like how am I different? What do I have to offer that's slightly different
than what everyone else is? And I guess it's a careful balance, isn't it? It's kind of showing
sort of aspects of yourself that are quite personal to set yourself apart. But then it's,
yeah, not being too personal, but it just feels like you've got no mystery there.
Yeah, completely. I feel like there's something, there is a real sweet spot between having the
audience or the customer, potential customer feel like you can really understand them or you can
really add something to them. And yeah, a lot of the time that might look like the stories that you
have to offer or the experience you have to offer. But I feel like if we only go down the route of
experience, often it can end up like, well, what's standing? What's, what's, why do I stand differently
to somebody who's had exactly the same university experience as me? Or, you know, I didn't go to
university. So not that, but you know, someone who's had the exact same credentials. And the parts of
your personality and your journey and the certain decisions that you made are really important in
cementing what additional pieces you can bring to somebody that, you know, the different flavour
that you carry. My work, for example, I work on brand and web design, as you know, but a big part of
I feel like what sets me apart is this vision strategy piece that no matter how hard I try,
that ends up in most of my brand and web projects anyway. You know, I end up talking to people
about their idea and how they can execute their idea at the same time as talking about what
decisions, design decisions they might make on their site. And that's, I guess, as you would say,
like one of my USPs. And I don't think I could take that out of the way I work, whereas there are a
lot of brand and web designers who could, and that's, and that's purely because that's the way my
brain works. But there are a lot of brand and web designers who will meet you in the visuals, but
don't necessarily want to bring that piece. And that's why you'd go with them if you already knew
what strategy, you know, you were really sure on your strategy. So I feel like it's just like
finding the people that offer you the kind of flavour you're interested in.
Definitely. And is that why you kind of chose to work within the sort of personal brand
space? Because you like taking that holistic approach and getting to know the person and
what they're about and then creating the brand around that as opposed to just like you say,
meeting them in the visuals? Yeah, definitely. I feel a lot more personal
fulfillment working one-on-one with people. I do work with people with teams. Sometimes there might
be like two or three collaborators. I find it more, yeah, more fulfilling to work with one person,
especially with one of the main reasons I work with women specifically is because I feel like
we exist in this really interesting landscape of being required to be seen, but being scared of
being seen. And a lot of the reason we're scared or have apprehension about being seen is because
the environment that we land in when we are seen is like really heavily judgmental or
scrupulized in a different way. And so I feel like there is like this additional piece of work of
helping somebody to see the magic that they can offer and helping them to ensure that they are
weaving that through their site where it just feels slightly different in brands that don't have a
either a personal brand element or kind of one main person making the decisions.
Because it is a very emotional thing sort of starting your own brand, starting your own business
that I think a lot of people don't really talk about, but it's a lot of emotional upheaval.
And I think it can signify you kind of closing a chapter and sort of leaving a part of your
old self behind. So I think 100%. It's like a huge identity piece. It's almost like
you learn so much about yourself, even just going through the process. I mean,
you'll know going through the process of like figuring out the brand and website,
even before you press launch, you've learned so many things about yourself. And I feel like that is
it's partly based on this like career purpose thing, you know, the real interconnection between
the two and how we find so much. So many others find so much of our self worth in our career and
our purpose. But yeah, it's so deeply personal because you're making decisions on yourself
without really being able to be that subjective about yourself, especially when you are the
product. So it's incredibly revealing. It's been a rollercoaster for me at least. And what would
be the key elements, would you say, for brand longevity? So if you don't want to just be a
flush in the pan, like what would you say the main kind of tenants are? Because I know you
spoke on your stories about sort of evolving with the seasons. Can you talk a little bit more
about? Yeah, absolutely. I feel like this looks slightly different for brands versus personal
brands for sure. But I think, you know, in that 80-20 piece of 80% being your consistency and 20%
being your experimentation, that 20% can really be informing what people want you to do more of.
And you might get to a place where, you know, that 20% is the thing that lights you up the most,
and you're finding a lot of that 80% is just either not landing or it doesn't feel accurate for you
anymore. And we'll see a lot of, for example, with beauty brands, we'll see, you know, every three,
five, 10 years, they might do a rebrand. Some of that will depend on the age of their customer.
But they'll be shifting their visuals and their product suite dependently on what they want to
do. And they'll be shifting their vision on the changing world and the changing customer
age of their customer, for example. Whereas with personal brands, I do think this happens a little
bit more frequently. And a lot of that is because as a personal brand, you yourself are a big piece
of informing what you want to bring to the world, what you want to offer, and your experience changes,
your enjoyment of things changes, your preferences, the customers you enjoy working with.
So I feel like the kind of seasonal approach to that is allowing the 80 and 20 to happen, the 20%
can be your experimentation. And then reviewing when it feels like that 80, 20, like wants to be
switched up in a more dramatic way. So for example, like, you might keep smart beauty exactly as it
is for the next two years. And you might review in two years and see that 80% of your brands are
fragrance brands. And you're really loving that. And actually, yes, you can still do what you're
doing under smart beauty. But you want to make sense more of a big part of the story. And that's
when you choose to do a rebrand and you choose to like really get, you know, fragrance landed in the
coffee more like strongly. It's not that you couldn't do it previously. It's just like what shape can I
change this brand to so that it resonates more deeply with the people and the places that I'm
being pulled to. And I think with a personal brand, they are just more malleable, as long as you can
make sure that your audience still know what you're doing. Definitely. And that's really relevant
to a conversation I was having the other day where someone I was speaking to who's like a
branding expert, I was telling them about smart beauty and everything that we stand for and why
I sort of started it up. And she said, well, it sounds like you're kind of a feminist agency. I was
like, she's like, yeah, I think you should make that central to your story and what you're about.
I was like, Oh, really? Like, obviously, I am a feminist. It's quite scary when you think about
sort of delving into politics and putting your stall out and saying, this is what we are.
But I do think that that's what we are. We do provide a feminist edge when we talk about
the beauty industry, because that's the way that the beauty world is going. So
Especially like the more and more niche brands or the more and more founder led brands, because
we're kind of stepping out of that muggle of, all the big dogs in beauty were like very patriarchal,
were very kind of, you know, men in the boardroom who didn't actually know much about those products.
Whereas now with indie brands coming to the forefront and indie brands, bringing the women who
actually like have their ear to the ground in terms of what is required, what is requested,
you get, we're seeing a whole new face of beauty and more industry, the industry landscape changing
and it's like so exciting. I just think you can't take some of those values out of the industry
anymore because the customer is demanding differently. 100% that has to be like the blueprint
of your brand from the get go if you're a new startup. And you can't be seen as kind of patting
yourself on the back and being like, oh look, we're doing we're doing X, Y and Z now, aren't we great?
Because Yeah, exactly. It's like the consumer is just doesn't expect or expects you to speak very
openly about things and not accept less. And so almost like, especially with the younger audiences
of like Gen Z, like, there's just there's no way that you would get brands doing really well if
their ethics or their values weren't aligned in some way. Or if they were doing something that was,
you know, something that we might have accepted from the big brands a long time ago, because we
just didn't know there's no lack of information now. And we live in such cancel culture that
like, we're just demanding differently. No, for sure. So I think that making the point that we
are a feminist beauty brand, I don't think it necessarily detracts from what we're doing,
but it just gives a bit of a flavor of what we're about without being too revealing, without being
too overly political or being too hard hitting. Because I think that's what alienates people.
Yeah, definitely. And I think it's it's similar to that point we said about, yes, be aligned with
your values, but it doesn't mean that you need to speak about all your values all at once in order
to kind of like make a point. It's like you're allowed to as a brand embody certain values and
then to speak into them when they're relevant without it needing to be, yeah, this completely
like let me take you on every turn of my brain all the time. No, exactly, because I can get a bit
tedious, I think if I was, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what's the future for you? Like, where do you like
to take your own business? And would you like to work with different kinds of businesses? Or are
you do you feel like working with female founders is where you're meant to be? I feel like speaking,
I feel like working with women and female founders is probably still where I'd like to be. I'd also
like to put some more time towards, you know, my strap line is like supporting the big old and
bright. So very much like women and ideas. So I want to put some more of that towards ideas of my
own as well, but kind of like still inside of my own personal brand. And also I'm finding it really
interesting to be working with brands. It was that I used to just work with wellness and beauty
and spirituality. And now I'm working with people that sometimes like a little bit outside of that.
And I always learn so much about both about their industry, but also about what I'm capable of when
the creative constraints change a bit. So I'm just like in this real experimental phase, which I'm
really enjoying. And yeah, having more time to use some of my other projects as well. I think
you and Giselle should team up and do like offering like Giselle upon more is one of you. I think
she's a former client of yours and a very good friend. Yeah, you know, what she does is really
amazing. And she's worked on spirituality and spiritual healing. And I think that you guys,
if you teamed up, you'd make formidable duo, I'd say. That's nice of you to say. I saw her last
week, actually, and we were talking about doing something together. So yeah, watch this phase.
Yeah, sign me up. Thank you so much for chatting with me, Becky. I really appreciate it.
And enjoy. Thank you for having me. I hope you enjoyed that episode. All links will be in the
show notes and feel free to visit smartbeautycreative.com or visit us over on Instagram to find out
more about what we do. And if you enjoyed listening, please don't forget to rate and review
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