Aoifinn Devitt: What difference can a business coach make to a startup? And what is the secret to building a following of over 30,000 followers on LinkedIn? Let’s find out next. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to the Shifty Faces Focus Podcast, a podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of women in the tech and marketing sectors and beyond. I’m joined today by Charna Ambers, who is founder of CB Design New York, which specializes in corporate brand and marketing design for clients across a range of industries, including in particular healthcare, lifestyle, and real estate. Welcome, Charna. Thanks for joining me today.
Charna Ambers: Just a pleasure being here with you.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, let’s start with your background and career journey. So where did you grow up? What did you study? And how did you come to enter the world of branding and design?
Charna Ambers: So I grew up in upstate New York for the most part of my childhood and later years. I got married pretty young, pretty much straight outta school, got married at 19, started having a family, and I basically took, you know, just a local job in a local company wasn’t what, what was suited for me. And then after my fourth child was born, and actually she was fired from the babysitter for screaming too much, and the company around that time ended up moving away. So I took that as an opportunity to explore the world of design. I had taken a course in high school. I loved it. It’s really what I wanted to do. I’m artistic naturally, so it really spoke to me. And, you know, doing that initial job, just business, administrative stuff just wasn’t, you know, wasn’t in that design arena the way it was meant to be. And I was very excited to go into design full-time. And I ended up taking a course and launching my business right about then, taking on full-time work, working with multiple different types of industries and brands, of course, in the beginning. And, you know, building up my company from there.
Aoifinn Devitt: And would you say that you have any principles that you use to approach your work? You mentioned you were always artistic. Do you focus on simplicity? Do you have a certain vibe that you like to come through your design?
Charna Ambers: Yeah, so I’m pretty much known for my clean and modern design style. I believe in less is more. That’s always key to good design. Everything should have a purpose. Everything should have balance. Your design should be refreshing to look at and pleasing to the eye, not just pretty, but also functional. So, you know, I love organizing clutter into beautiful marketing pieces, things that are user-friendly, making it easier, you know, for the reader to view what they’re trying to read. And just, you know, creating that balance, that sophistication, clean contrast between color and design. You don’t want anything too much in either direction. You don’t want too much design that you can’t read the text, and you don’t want too much clutter that you can’t see what’s going on. So that very, very clean, striking balance between, you know, modern and sophisticated and refreshing, you know, and understanding what you’re designing for so that it’s specific to their needs. Like, you know, I do a lot of healthcare design. We’re designing for older people, for seniors, their caregivers, their loved ones, and their marketing material has to be appropriate for that industry. The marketing material has to be clear and easy to read. You know, we have anywhere from, you know, 50, 60, 70-year-olds reading, whether it’s a brochure or a website, and it has to be appropriate for them. It has to make sense and it has to be easy for them to find what they’re looking for. You know, not too much extra, you know, everything should have a purpose. Nothing extra is really the key.
Aoifinn Devitt: And when we think about branding, I spend a lot of time thinking about how short our attention spans are nowadays. We’re just, you know, scrolling through media, scrolling through social media. How do you think the concept of brand evolving today, especially with all of the bombardment we’re getting on social media?
Charna Ambers: So it’s a good question. I mean, people understand the importance of branding much more now because everything is online. The first thing you do when you check someone out is you check out their website, you check out their social media presence, and that says a lot about who they are, what they believe in, what they’ve accomplished, what you can rely on them for, you know, whether it’s their social media profile or their website. Both tell you a story. So branding is really important, whether it’s personal branding or corporate branding, but you want to make sure you’re projecting the right image. You want to make sure that people are reading your story right, and really that you’re conveying yourself properly to the world. And everything we do is pretty much recorded digitally. So, you know, whether it’s the type of stories you tell, the way you speak, the way you interact with others, All of that is picked up within seconds, and we want to make sure we’re making the right impression.
Aoifinn Devitt: And just as making the right impression is important, I would think it’s somewhat easy also to make the wrong impression and for a brand to be damaged. Have you seen that the current— has social media changed that as well?
Charna Ambers: It’s interesting. So, you know, people on social media like to talk big, and everyone seems to be an expert. Everyone seems to be at the top of their field, and people get stuck in that, you know. People feel inferior, people get nervous, maybe they’re not as good as, you know, some of the others. But at the end of the day, people see through it and it doesn’t hold up. Like, if you’re real, if you’re genuine, if you’re sincere, if you are real about what you believe in, people see it. People understand who, you know, people know how to filter out the real ones from the ones that are just trying and not there yet. But that’s also why it’s really important to, you know, to watch and to be aware of how you’re projecting yourself to everyone else, that projecting the right impression.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I’d love to speak now about your founder experience, because it seems like you from the very beginning started your own firm. So can you just talk a little bit about that decision and how you started to generate clients?
Charna Ambers: So when I started my business about 10 years ago almost, I basically started from the ground up. You know, I was starting design. I didn’t know anything about the business world. I just knew that I loved the design part of it. And I started taking on clients. A couple of my first clients were very full-time that I had to hire shortly after just to keep up with the work. I had like two, you know, full-time, very full-time clients in two completely different spaces. One was a marketing company in healthcare, which is how I fell into healthcare. And the other one was actually an educational company. And we were doing, I don’t know, 40 to 60 hours a week pumping out work. I was basically completely running the healthcare marketing company and taking care of all of his clients as well as taking care of my other clients on the side. And, you know, I saw myself as a freelancer. I saw myself as just a designer who happens to have a lot of work. And then as I grew, you know, a few years later, and I’m seeing that things had to change, like I wasn’t just a freelancer anymore. I had to change my mindset to business owner and I had to do things differently. I had to figure out how to, you know, price correctly and improve our processes, how to streamline things. And, and also, you know, I had these employees on the side, so So I really had to figure out how to take the next step and how to do it better. I hired a business coach that was amazing. She really helped me reposition myself, figure out how I’m different than everyone else, because there are tons of designers out there, tons of marketing agencies out there. And I say I’m completely different than everyone else. I’m not a marketing agency. I’m not a do-all type of, you know, one-stop shop. I’m very specific about what I do and what I don’t do. You So, know, I specialize in brand and marketing design, website design. I’m very focused on the design aspect. Are not, you know, the do-it-all agencies are more focused on doing everything under their umbrella. They’ll do the copywriting, they’ll do the strategy, they’ll do the development, they’ll do the social media, you know, even video, everything, photography. There are marketing agencies that do everything. So I’m very specific that our focus is on the design because I very much believe in doing the best, being the best at what you do and hiring the right people for each piece. So you get the most for your investment. So that’s basically how I started my journey. I basically started as a freelancer and it just got pretty busy and I realized I had to take the next step and rethink how I was running my business through the— with the business coach.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m really interested in that, the use of a business coach. Was this business coach somebody who was particularly experienced in brand and design, or is it just somebody who can maybe just take a kind of a helicopter view of any type of business? And help you think about your positioning, etc.?
Charna Ambers: So she actually— I think she’s amazing at everything. I use SB Rand, actually. She’s in LA. Shout out to her. And she really changed the way I do business. She really changed the way I do things and even the way I see myself and even my, you know, my own personal mindset has evolved. So she works with many different businesses, small businesses, large businesses, multimillion-dollar brands. Her expertise is really taking I’m like you said, helicopter view, but she really sees everything and gets down to the bottom line, like the core issues. And, you know, she cuts out all the fluff and she really nails down on what needs to be done. She’s very focused on the solution. She’s very solution-based. She actually taught me how to do that. You know, always focus on the solution and look forward, you know, and she definitely understands business, like the business mind very, very well. She’s also just really smart in this, you know, in this respect. So she deals with a lot of spaces, different a lot of different industries. If she’s specific to branding and marketing, she actually does a lot of branding, marketing, and sales strategy on her end. That’s actually her expertise, but she works with a lot of different kind of companies and really does take them to the next level.
Aoifinn Devitt: And the other aspect which I think has been really impressive about your business and how it’s evolved is your social media following. You have over 29,000 followers on LinkedIn, and that was actually how I found you, with some of the very motivating and interesting posts you put up there. Can I ask you how you went about that and what approaches you found has generated the most traction in building your following?
Charna Ambers: So I’ve been on LinkedIn quite a while. I think I signed up for LinkedIn about 7 years ago. So when I started, it wasn’t the cool thing to do. It was definitely way back when, when it was earlier, it was more about only a few big people posting content and then the rest of everyone was kind of following along. That’s actually where I got my first clients from. Actually, my first big healthcare marketing company client was through LinkedIn. I had just messaged him at the So I time. I understood the power of messaging from the beginning, which is a huge part of LinkedIn. It’s, you know, a lot about posting consistently and whether consistently means 3 times a week or once a week or once a month. It’s about being real, being genuine, really posting what’s important to you and also creating value. So, you know, people use that word very loosely. You know, some people are busy keeping people entertained, but really it’s about Putting out content that people appreciate, teaching them something new, teaching them something about the space or the industry, you know, and they remember you as the expert in your field. Like, people remember who you are. They know when, you know, what to expect from you and not falling into the trap of like just following the leader, following what everyone else is doing, following what everyone else is posting. And on the other side, even if everyone else is posting about a certain concept or a certain topic, you always have your own spin in it. You always have your own expertise. Is intertwined with your content. So, you know, it’s really about finding a good balance, posting pieces that will create value for people, you know, and then you stick in people’s minds. People remember you when they need someone in your industry, you know, and always trying to stay positive. Like, I try to keep things positive. It’s less about going viral, more about creating content that people appreciate. And, you know, and I keep my personal life pretty much out of it. I know pictures of kids and babies and all that go viral and it’s cute and people like it, but I just, for my personal, you know, parameters, I feel like it’s, you know, not to mix the two. I feel like personal, personal space is out of LinkedIn. And so I don’t post about family much. I definitely don’t post about pictures. I also don’t, family pictures, and I also don’t post client stories that I feel will just— are just for the story. Like we all have our client stories, we all have our issues we have to work out with them. I just don’t feel social media is the place to broadcast these, you know, hang your dirty laundry in public type of thing. I just, I try to keep to certain moral standards with posting and try to keep everything respectful and positive. And at the end of the day, you know, contributing my part and also interacting with people. So like I said, messaging is really important. It’s not just about the posting, it’s also keeping a relationship with people that you’re connected with. So it’s 29,000 followers. It’s pretty hard to keep a close relationship with everyone, but I do try every so often to reach out, you know, just check out how people are doing, let them know what I do, you know, stay involved, stay connected in the messaging, in the direct messaging. And I’ve gotten plenty of clients through that also, just, you know, reaching out to people and they realize what you do, they realize you need your services, or even reaching out to people who viewed my profile. You can see, you know, if you have the premium, you can see who’s viewed your profile and I’ll try to reach out to those people. Like, hey, you know, I noticed you looked at my profile, is there anything I can help you with? And I’ve gotten clients relationships that way also. And there’s, I mean, there’s an amazing community on LinkedIn, like, you know, finding vendors and service providers you need and finding people to collaborate with, whether it’s copywriters, because I’m a designer, many times we need copywriters or anyone in the marketing space. I see Rand, my business coach, I actually found through LinkedIn as well. So it’s just, it’s amazing. It’s a very robust community of like-minded professional people. And when used right, it can really advance your business to the next level.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s so interesting. I think you’re absolutely right. I feel LinkedIn has got a lot more personal to maybe the last year, and maybe it’s that kind of the blurring of the lines between our work and our home lives, and perhaps also the increased vulnerability that all of this time and in odd circumstances and in lockdown or work from home have created. Sure. But what I also noticed about your posts is you give, you give away quite a lot in terms of tips and value-add without expecting anything in return, which I think probably then makes that developing relationships easier because there’s a kind of a— there has been something given up, which is of value. And the other thing I noticed about your post is you seem to have quite a large group of supporters who will you know, actually, will chime in on your posts, will comment, will be supportive, and really keep the conversation going. So it is very impressive to watch. So one of the issues that new businesses face sometimes is pricing their services appropriately. Can you tell us a little bit about your approach to pricing your services?
Charna Ambers: Sure. So I work through this quite a bit and we’re always changing, we’re always evolving. And I find that it’s, it’s, you know, something that I’d like to revisit on a yearly basis. But basically, we have worked out how many hours a project should take us, you know, and we work out pricing based on that, you know, your hourly rate times the, you know, amount of hours a project should take. And then you always want to add in some buffer because things always take longer. At the end of the day, don’t be afraid to charge what you’re worth. This took a lot of time to gain the confidence to do. And also, you know, my business coach definitely helped with that aspect, but really like charge what you’re worth and charge what you’re investing anyway. For so many years I was creating the value and delivering on the value that was way beyond what I was charging. And I was always afraid to charge more, you know, because will people pay it? Will there be clients ready to pay those prices? At the end of the day, we were delivering way beyond what what they were paying for. And those types of clients won’t even, you know, the ones that are not paying the higher prices, so they don’t appreciate the higher amount of value. So when your pricing aligns with the value, you get the type of clients you’re looking for. So that has been a game changer, you know, pricing yourself right. I am known to be higher end. We just, you know, absolutely invest way more into our projects than, you know, than some other lower end companies might. For example, you know, we’ll spend 80 hours on a logo. Some other people might spend 10, you know, and we’ll spend, you know, 150 hours just on the design side of a website, forget about the development and everything else. So, you know, we really give it our all. We have a certain level of attention to detail and, you know, thank God talent that we just really throw ourselves into each project. And so pricing our projects accordingly was a big game changer. And I started to get a different type of clientele as well. Like the clients that I’m getting now, obviously have to be willing to pay the higher prices and have to be willing to put in the time. And it’s also about their commitment to the project. So, you know, there are companies that charge more than me. People like to come to us for our, you know, extra layer of service, our attention to detail, you know, specifically not a huge marketing company with 25 employees. I do stay small because I like to give that attention to detail and I like to give that extra layer of service to the clients and the projects. And I like to be very involved in everything that’s going on. And my clients appreciate that. So, you know, it’s a two-way street, it’s a give and take, but definitely when you price for the value, you get the clients that appreciate it. And, you know, my clients are coming to me for my expertise, for that extra, you know, talent and attention to detail. So when they’re paying these prices, they know they can expect another level of service and, you know, a more comprehensive package and process for their projects.
Aoifinn Devitt: It’s so interesting because I think pricing and knowing one’s worth is a problem that women in particular face, and certainly startups of all kinds face, but it transcends the industry you’re in. And of course, our mutual friend Michal Izykowicz, she has posted a lot on LinkedIn about pricing and how to do it appropriately and you getting, know, about return on investment and couching it that way. And I’ve taken a lot of tips from her posts. So, so yeah, very interesting.
Charna Ambers: And when you look back, you’ve been amazing at that.
Aoifinn Devitt: Exactly. When you look back at your, your business journey, were there any particular challenges that you faced and what did you learn from them?
Charna Ambers: So, you know, going back a few years, I actually, once I merged from running that healthcare marketing company, it’s taking on my own clients. So I did have one very full-time client who was keeping us going for the most part. And I had employees at the time that, you know, we had to pay. And then they sort of kept lowering their need and they ended up fizzling out. So then I really had to find my own clients and I really had to do it all on my own. LinkedIn LinkedIn was a huge part of that. LinkedIn was very important, standing out in the crowd and putting my brand forward and really doing it on my own. And that’s also kind of when I morphed into, you know, from freelancer to business owner and realized that I really am running a business. I have the clients, I have the employees, we were working out the processes. And that’s really when, you know, the mindset changed and that shift happened that, you know, going from relying on full-time clients to actually finding clients on a steady basis, because usually with branding and marketing, you know, you have a client for a few months, you develop a website for them, you develop a brand for them, and then they move on unless you have them on as a constant retainer. But so, you know, every so often you do need to find new clients and you do need to put yourself out there. So definitely finding the right balance of focusing on the clients that, that we had then, and as well as, you know, putting myself out there on LinkedIn, building up more of a digital presence, you know, social media presence, and creating that pipeline for new clients. That was definitely a big shift there.
Aoifinn Devitt: And when you look at any people you’ve met in your circles, or whether on LinkedIn or in person, has there been any kind of key words of wisdom or advice that you have kind of kept with you, or any creed or motto that you live by in your professional and personal life?
Charna Ambers: Sure. So I believe everything has a solution. So going back to Esther Rand, she showed me how important it is to be So solution-based. Like, you know, whether you have issues with clients or you’re working on a project and you’re not sure the way forward, instead of getting lost in all the small nitty-gritty details or the what-ifs or the he said, she said, focus on the solution. This has been an amazing transformation for me. Focus on the solution, be solution-based. Like, Don’t go back and forth on the small pieces that don’t matter. Just what is the way forward? What is the solution? What can I offer you? You want this, I say this, how can we meet in the middle? And just knowing that everything has a solution. If something is not working out right, if something isn’t where it needs to be, there’s always a solution. There’s always something that can be done to make it easier. Even in terms of, let’s say my own business and I was working too much on the backend, too much on the admin stuff. And this year I finally hired an admin and a service assistant, which has been amazing, taken that completely off my plate. You know, every— there’s always a solution for everything. If you look hard enough, you’ll find it. There’s always a better way. And that’s just like really important. You know, when you’re moving forward, you’re growing your business and there are always pieces that need to fall into place and, you know, work themselves out. Out, but knowing who to ask, knowing where to find that solution, that’s, that’s the biggest part of everything.
Aoifinn Devitt: Yeah, that’s really encouraging, certainly for small business owners who can sometimes seem, I think, quite overwhelmed by the enormity of what they’re working on. And now if you were to look back to your younger self, you mentioned that you started in the field of design at a young age, but your business has grown very much since then. If you were to look back perhaps to your late teens or early 20s, is there anything you know now, any wisdom that you wish you had known then?
Charna Ambers: I would’ve hired a business coach earlier on. It’s definitely a game changer. And you know, the first few years going through things yourself, figuring things out, making those mistakes, there’s nothing better than learning on your own and learning from experience. But at the same time, you know, avoiding the mistakes that are possible to avoid through guidance and through a business coach. I would’ve definitely hired a business coach much, much earlier. And also just Just believing in yourself, believing that you can grow something big and you don’t have to be the biggest out there to make a statement. Like, you know, you don’t have to be the biggest designer, the biggest company, the biggest agency, the most outspoken, you know, you have to just be the best of yourself and create that brand around that, you know, your sincerity, your being genuine, being real, and just really keep going forward. People figure things out. No one knows everything. Like it could be very intimidating when you first start out. Out, everyone seems to be better, everyone seems to have it all figured out and know everything. At the end of the day, they also don’t know everything, and they also have a business coach, and they also are figuring things out along the way. So, you know, just be real, hire the right people, look for the right resources, look for the right support, and then just push forward and you’ll get there. That definitely would have been something that I would have appreciated hearing a few years back.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, thank you so much, Charna. It’s been a real pleasure to speak with you here. I, I think I think just as in life, in business there are givers and takers. And I think you came to my attention because you are very much a giver, whether it be the tidbits of information on LinkedIn, this, the advice you’ve given us here. And you said, you you said may be a smaller business, but you have made a huge impact, I think, already. And your following on LinkedIn is testament to that. So thank you for coming here and for sharing some of your wisdom with us.
Charna Ambers: Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Focus Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring women and their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organization. And affiliations of the host or any guest.
Aoifinn Devitt: What difference can a business coach make to a startup? And what is the secret to building a following of over 30,000 followers on LinkedIn? Let’s find out next. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to the Shifty Faces Focus Podcast, a podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of women in the tech and marketing sectors and beyond. I’m joined today by Charna Ambers, who is founder of CB Design New York, which specializes in corporate brand and marketing design for clients across a range of industries, including in particular healthcare, lifestyle, and real estate. Welcome, Charna. Thanks for joining me today.
Charna Ambers: Just a pleasure being here with you.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, let’s start with your background and career journey. So where did you grow up? What did you study? And how did you come to enter the world of branding and design?
Charna Ambers: So I grew up in upstate New York for the most part of my childhood and later years. I got married pretty young, pretty much straight outta school, got married at 19, started having a family, and I basically took, you know, just a local job in a local company wasn’t what, what was suited for me. And then after my fourth child was born, and actually she was fired from the babysitter for screaming too much, and the company around that time ended up moving away. So I took that as an opportunity to explore the world of design. I had taken a course in high school. I loved it. It’s really what I wanted to do. I’m artistic naturally, so it really spoke to me. And, you know, doing that initial job, just business, administrative stuff just wasn’t, you know, wasn’t in that design arena the way it was meant to be. And I was very excited to go into design full-time. And I ended up taking a course and launching my business right about then, taking on full-time work, working with multiple different types of industries and brands, of course, in the beginning. And, you know, building up my company from there.
Aoifinn Devitt: And would you say that you have any principles that you use to approach your work? You mentioned you were always artistic. Do you focus on simplicity? Do you have a certain vibe that you like to come through your design?
Charna Ambers: Yeah, so I’m pretty much known for my clean and modern design style. I believe in less is more. That’s always key to good design. Everything should have a purpose. Everything should have balance. Your design should be refreshing to look at and pleasing to the eye, not just pretty, but also functional. So, you know, I love organizing clutter into beautiful marketing pieces, things that are user-friendly, making it easier, you know, for the reader to view what they’re trying to read. And just, you know, creating that balance, that sophistication, clean contrast between color and design. You don’t want anything too much in either direction. You don’t want too much design that you can’t read the text, and you don’t want too much clutter that you can’t see what’s going on. So that very, very clean, striking balance between, you know, modern and sophisticated and refreshing, you know, and understanding what you’re designing for so that it’s specific to their needs. Like, you know, I do a lot of healthcare design. We’re designing for older people, for seniors, their caregivers, their loved ones, and their marketing material has to be appropriate for that industry. The marketing material has to be clear and easy to read. You know, we have anywhere from, you know, 50, 60, 70-year-olds reading, whether it’s a brochure or a website, and it has to be appropriate for them. It has to make sense and it has to be easy for them to find what they’re looking for. You know, not too much extra, you know, everything should have a purpose. Nothing extra is really the key.
Aoifinn Devitt: And when we think about branding, I spend a lot of time thinking about how short our attention spans are nowadays. We’re just, you know, scrolling through media, scrolling through social media. How do you think the concept of brand evolving today, especially with all of the bombardment we’re getting on social media?
Charna Ambers: So it’s a good question. I mean, people understand the importance of branding much more now because everything is online. The first thing you do when you check someone out is you check out their website, you check out their social media presence, and that says a lot about who they are, what they believe in, what they’ve accomplished, what you can rely on them for, you know, whether it’s their social media profile or their website. Both tell you a story. So branding is really important, whether it’s personal branding or corporate branding, but you want to make sure you’re projecting the right image. You want to make sure that people are reading your story right, and really that you’re conveying yourself properly to the world. And everything we do is pretty much recorded digitally. So, you know, whether it’s the type of stories you tell, the way you speak, the way you interact with others, All of that is picked up within seconds, and we want to make sure we’re making the right impression.
Aoifinn Devitt: And just as making the right impression is important, I would think it’s somewhat easy also to make the wrong impression and for a brand to be damaged. Have you seen that the current— has social media changed that as well?
Charna Ambers: It’s interesting. So, you know, people on social media like to talk big, and everyone seems to be an expert. Everyone seems to be at the top of their field, and people get stuck in that, you know. People feel inferior, people get nervous, maybe they’re not as good as, you know, some of the others. But at the end of the day, people see through it and it doesn’t hold up. Like, if you’re real, if you’re genuine, if you’re sincere, if you are real about what you believe in, people see it. People understand who, you know, people know how to filter out the real ones from the ones that are just trying and not there yet. But that’s also why it’s really important to, you know, to watch and to be aware of how you’re projecting yourself to everyone else, that projecting the right impression.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I’d love to speak now about your founder experience, because it seems like you from the very beginning started your own firm. So can you just talk a little bit about that decision and how you started to generate clients?
Charna Ambers: So when I started my business about 10 years ago almost, I basically started from the ground up. You know, I was starting design. I didn’t know anything about the business world. I just knew that I loved the design part of it. And I started taking on clients. A couple of my first clients were very full-time that I had to hire shortly after just to keep up with the work. I had like two, you know, full-time, very full-time clients in two completely different spaces. One was a marketing company in healthcare, which is how I fell into healthcare. And the other one was actually an educational company. And we were doing, I don’t know, 40 to 60 hours a week pumping out work. I was basically completely running the healthcare marketing company and taking care of all of his clients as well as taking care of my other clients on the side. And, you know, I saw myself as a freelancer. I saw myself as just a designer who happens to have a lot of work. And then as I grew, you know, a few years later, and I’m seeing that things had to change, like I wasn’t just a freelancer anymore. I had to change my mindset to business owner and I had to do things differently. I had to figure out how to, you know, price correctly and improve our processes, how to streamline things. And, and also, you know, I had these employees on the side, so So I really had to figure out how to take the next step and how to do it better. I hired a business coach that was amazing. She really helped me reposition myself, figure out how I’m different than everyone else, because there are tons of designers out there, tons of marketing agencies out there. And I say I’m completely different than everyone else. I’m not a marketing agency. I’m not a do-all type of, you know, one-stop shop. I’m very specific about what I do and what I don’t do. You So, know, I specialize in brand and marketing design, website design. I’m very focused on the design aspect. Are not, you know, the do-it-all agencies are more focused on doing everything under their umbrella. They’ll do the copywriting, they’ll do the strategy, they’ll do the development, they’ll do the social media, you know, even video, everything, photography. There are marketing agencies that do everything. So I’m very specific that our focus is on the design because I very much believe in doing the best, being the best at what you do and hiring the right people for each piece. So you get the most for your investment. So that’s basically how I started my journey. I basically started as a freelancer and it just got pretty busy and I realized I had to take the next step and rethink how I was running my business through the— with the business coach.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m really interested in that, the use of a business coach. Was this business coach somebody who was particularly experienced in brand and design, or is it just somebody who can maybe just take a kind of a helicopter view of any type of business? And help you think about your positioning, etc.?
Charna Ambers: So she actually— I think she’s amazing at everything. I use SB Rand, actually. She’s in LA. Shout out to her. And she really changed the way I do business. She really changed the way I do things and even the way I see myself and even my, you know, my own personal mindset has evolved. So she works with many different businesses, small businesses, large businesses, multimillion-dollar brands. Her expertise is really taking I’m like you said, helicopter view, but she really sees everything and gets down to the bottom line, like the core issues. And, you know, she cuts out all the fluff and she really nails down on what needs to be done. She’s very focused on the solution. She’s very solution-based. She actually taught me how to do that. You know, always focus on the solution and look forward, you know, and she definitely understands business, like the business mind very, very well. She’s also just really smart in this, you know, in this respect. So she deals with a lot of spaces, different a lot of different industries. If she’s specific to branding and marketing, she actually does a lot of branding, marketing, and sales strategy on her end. That’s actually her expertise, but she works with a lot of different kind of companies and really does take them to the next level.
Aoifinn Devitt: And the other aspect which I think has been really impressive about your business and how it’s evolved is your social media following. You have over 29,000 followers on LinkedIn, and that was actually how I found you, with some of the very motivating and interesting posts you put up there. Can I ask you how you went about that and what approaches you found has generated the most traction in building your following?
Charna Ambers: So I’ve been on LinkedIn quite a while. I think I signed up for LinkedIn about 7 years ago. So when I started, it wasn’t the cool thing to do. It was definitely way back when, when it was earlier, it was more about only a few big people posting content and then the rest of everyone was kind of following along. That’s actually where I got my first clients from. Actually, my first big healthcare marketing company client was through LinkedIn. I had just messaged him at the So I time. I understood the power of messaging from the beginning, which is a huge part of LinkedIn. It’s, you know, a lot about posting consistently and whether consistently means 3 times a week or once a week or once a month. It’s about being real, being genuine, really posting what’s important to you and also creating value. So, you know, people use that word very loosely. You know, some people are busy keeping people entertained, but really it’s about Putting out content that people appreciate, teaching them something new, teaching them something about the space or the industry, you know, and they remember you as the expert in your field. Like, people remember who you are. They know when, you know, what to expect from you and not falling into the trap of like just following the leader, following what everyone else is doing, following what everyone else is posting. And on the other side, even if everyone else is posting about a certain concept or a certain topic, you always have your own spin in it. You always have your own expertise. Is intertwined with your content. So, you know, it’s really about finding a good balance, posting pieces that will create value for people, you know, and then you stick in people’s minds. People remember you when they need someone in your industry, you know, and always trying to stay positive. Like, I try to keep things positive. It’s less about going viral, more about creating content that people appreciate. And, you know, and I keep my personal life pretty much out of it. I know pictures of kids and babies and all that go viral and it’s cute and people like it, but I just, for my personal, you know, parameters, I feel like it’s, you know, not to mix the two. I feel like personal, personal space is out of LinkedIn. And so I don’t post about family much. I definitely don’t post about pictures. I also don’t, family pictures, and I also don’t post client stories that I feel will just— are just for the story. Like we all have our client stories, we all have our issues we have to work out with them. I just don’t feel social media is the place to broadcast these, you know, hang your dirty laundry in public type of thing. I just, I try to keep to certain moral standards with posting and try to keep everything respectful and positive. And at the end of the day, you know, contributing my part and also interacting with people. So like I said, messaging is really important. It’s not just about the posting, it’s also keeping a relationship with people that you’re connected with. So it’s 29,000 followers. It’s pretty hard to keep a close relationship with everyone, but I do try every so often to reach out, you know, just check out how people are doing, let them know what I do, you know, stay involved, stay connected in the messaging, in the direct messaging. And I’ve gotten plenty of clients through that also, just, you know, reaching out to people and they realize what you do, they realize you need your services, or even reaching out to people who viewed my profile. You can see, you know, if you have the premium, you can see who’s viewed your profile and I’ll try to reach out to those people. Like, hey, you know, I noticed you looked at my profile, is there anything I can help you with? And I’ve gotten clients relationships that way also. And there’s, I mean, there’s an amazing community on LinkedIn, like, you know, finding vendors and service providers you need and finding people to collaborate with, whether it’s copywriters, because I’m a designer, many times we need copywriters or anyone in the marketing space. I see Rand, my business coach, I actually found through LinkedIn as well. So it’s just, it’s amazing. It’s a very robust community of like-minded professional people. And when used right, it can really advance your business to the next level.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s so interesting. I think you’re absolutely right. I feel LinkedIn has got a lot more personal to maybe the last year, and maybe it’s that kind of the blurring of the lines between our work and our home lives, and perhaps also the increased vulnerability that all of this time and in odd circumstances and in lockdown or work from home have created. Sure. But what I also noticed about your posts is you give, you give away quite a lot in terms of tips and value-add without expecting anything in return, which I think probably then makes that developing relationships easier because there’s a kind of a— there has been something given up, which is of value. And the other thing I noticed about your post is you seem to have quite a large group of supporters who will you know, actually, will chime in on your posts, will comment, will be supportive, and really keep the conversation going. So it is very impressive to watch. So one of the issues that new businesses face sometimes is pricing their services appropriately. Can you tell us a little bit about your approach to pricing your services?
Charna Ambers: Sure. So I work through this quite a bit and we’re always changing, we’re always evolving. And I find that it’s, it’s, you know, something that I’d like to revisit on a yearly basis. But basically, we have worked out how many hours a project should take us, you know, and we work out pricing based on that, you know, your hourly rate times the, you know, amount of hours a project should take. And then you always want to add in some buffer because things always take longer. At the end of the day, don’t be afraid to charge what you’re worth. This took a lot of time to gain the confidence to do. And also, you know, my business coach definitely helped with that aspect, but really like charge what you’re worth and charge what you’re investing anyway. For so many years I was creating the value and delivering on the value that was way beyond what I was charging. And I was always afraid to charge more, you know, because will people pay it? Will there be clients ready to pay those prices? At the end of the day, we were delivering way beyond what what they were paying for. And those types of clients won’t even, you know, the ones that are not paying the higher prices, so they don’t appreciate the higher amount of value. So when your pricing aligns with the value, you get the type of clients you’re looking for. So that has been a game changer, you know, pricing yourself right. I am known to be higher end. We just, you know, absolutely invest way more into our projects than, you know, than some other lower end companies might. For example, you know, we’ll spend 80 hours on a logo. Some other people might spend 10, you know, and we’ll spend, you know, 150 hours just on the design side of a website, forget about the development and everything else. So, you know, we really give it our all. We have a certain level of attention to detail and, you know, thank God talent that we just really throw ourselves into each project. And so pricing our projects accordingly was a big game changer. And I started to get a different type of clientele as well. Like the clients that I’m getting now, obviously have to be willing to pay the higher prices and have to be willing to put in the time. And it’s also about their commitment to the project. So, you know, there are companies that charge more than me. People like to come to us for our, you know, extra layer of service, our attention to detail, you know, specifically not a huge marketing company with 25 employees. I do stay small because I like to give that attention to detail and I like to give that extra layer of service to the clients and the projects. And I like to be very involved in everything that’s going on. And my clients appreciate that. So, you know, it’s a two-way street, it’s a give and take, but definitely when you price for the value, you get the clients that appreciate it. And, you know, my clients are coming to me for my expertise, for that extra, you know, talent and attention to detail. So when they’re paying these prices, they know they can expect another level of service and, you know, a more comprehensive package and process for their projects.
Aoifinn Devitt: It’s so interesting because I think pricing and knowing one’s worth is a problem that women in particular face, and certainly startups of all kinds face, but it transcends the industry you’re in. And of course, our mutual friend Michal Izykowicz, she has posted a lot on LinkedIn about pricing and how to do it appropriately and you getting, know, about return on investment and couching it that way. And I’ve taken a lot of tips from her posts. So, so yeah, very interesting.
Charna Ambers: And when you look back, you’ve been amazing at that.
Aoifinn Devitt: Exactly. When you look back at your, your business journey, were there any particular challenges that you faced and what did you learn from them?
Charna Ambers: So, you know, going back a few years, I actually, once I merged from running that healthcare marketing company, it’s taking on my own clients. So I did have one very full-time client who was keeping us going for the most part. And I had employees at the time that, you know, we had to pay. And then they sort of kept lowering their need and they ended up fizzling out. So then I really had to find my own clients and I really had to do it all on my own. LinkedIn LinkedIn was a huge part of that. LinkedIn was very important, standing out in the crowd and putting my brand forward and really doing it on my own. And that’s also kind of when I morphed into, you know, from freelancer to business owner and realized that I really am running a business. I have the clients, I have the employees, we were working out the processes. And that’s really when, you know, the mindset changed and that shift happened that, you know, going from relying on full-time clients to actually finding clients on a steady basis, because usually with branding and marketing, you know, you have a client for a few months, you develop a website for them, you develop a brand for them, and then they move on unless you have them on as a constant retainer. But so, you know, every so often you do need to find new clients and you do need to put yourself out there. So definitely finding the right balance of focusing on the clients that, that we had then, and as well as, you know, putting myself out there on LinkedIn, building up more of a digital presence, you know, social media presence, and creating that pipeline for new clients. That was definitely a big shift there.
Aoifinn Devitt: And when you look at any people you’ve met in your circles, or whether on LinkedIn or in person, has there been any kind of key words of wisdom or advice that you have kind of kept with you, or any creed or motto that you live by in your professional and personal life?
Charna Ambers: Sure. So I believe everything has a solution. So going back to Esther Rand, she showed me how important it is to be So solution-based. Like, you know, whether you have issues with clients or you’re working on a project and you’re not sure the way forward, instead of getting lost in all the small nitty-gritty details or the what-ifs or the he said, she said, focus on the solution. This has been an amazing transformation for me. Focus on the solution, be solution-based. Like, Don’t go back and forth on the small pieces that don’t matter. Just what is the way forward? What is the solution? What can I offer you? You want this, I say this, how can we meet in the middle? And just knowing that everything has a solution. If something is not working out right, if something isn’t where it needs to be, there’s always a solution. There’s always something that can be done to make it easier. Even in terms of, let’s say my own business and I was working too much on the backend, too much on the admin stuff. And this year I finally hired an admin and a service assistant, which has been amazing, taken that completely off my plate. You know, every— there’s always a solution for everything. If you look hard enough, you’ll find it. There’s always a better way. And that’s just like really important. You know, when you’re moving forward, you’re growing your business and there are always pieces that need to fall into place and, you know, work themselves out. Out, but knowing who to ask, knowing where to find that solution, that’s, that’s the biggest part of everything.
Aoifinn Devitt: Yeah, that’s really encouraging, certainly for small business owners who can sometimes seem, I think, quite overwhelmed by the enormity of what they’re working on. And now if you were to look back to your younger self, you mentioned that you started in the field of design at a young age, but your business has grown very much since then. If you were to look back perhaps to your late teens or early 20s, is there anything you know now, any wisdom that you wish you had known then?
Charna Ambers: I would’ve hired a business coach earlier on. It’s definitely a game changer. And you know, the first few years going through things yourself, figuring things out, making those mistakes, there’s nothing better than learning on your own and learning from experience. But at the same time, you know, avoiding the mistakes that are possible to avoid through guidance and through a business coach. I would’ve definitely hired a business coach much, much earlier. And also just Just believing in yourself, believing that you can grow something big and you don’t have to be the biggest out there to make a statement. Like, you know, you don’t have to be the biggest designer, the biggest company, the biggest agency, the most outspoken, you know, you have to just be the best of yourself and create that brand around that, you know, your sincerity, your being genuine, being real, and just really keep going forward. People figure things out. No one knows everything. Like it could be very intimidating when you first start out. Out, everyone seems to be better, everyone seems to have it all figured out and know everything. At the end of the day, they also don’t know everything, and they also have a business coach, and they also are figuring things out along the way. So, you know, just be real, hire the right people, look for the right resources, look for the right support, and then just push forward and you’ll get there. That definitely would have been something that I would have appreciated hearing a few years back.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, thank you so much, Charna. It’s been a real pleasure to speak with you here. I, I think I think just as in life, in business there are givers and takers. And I think you came to my attention because you are very much a giver, whether it be the tidbits of information on LinkedIn, this, the advice you’ve given us here. And you said, you you said may be a smaller business, but you have made a huge impact, I think, already. And your following on LinkedIn is testament to that. So thank you for coming here and for sharing some of your wisdom with us.
Charna Ambers: Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Focus Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring women and their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organization. And affiliations of the host or any guest.
