I closed a $33,000 brand project without “selling”

I recently signed the biggest brand project of my career.

For $33,000.

It feels surreal in retrospect, but it was so natural in the process.

The founder of a Food & Beverage business found me through Instagram.

Part of their enquiry was basically comparing every other designer’s work against mine.

They’d already worked with two agencies before and had been trying to rebrand since 2024, but nothing had really clicked for them.

When asked why they specifically wanted to work with me, the Project Manager wrote:

Once the founder saw my content, he started to understand what strategy in branding actually looked like, which is why he decided to reach out. And the call went on as smoothly as it could.

We connected once and closed on the project for later this year.

It’s safe to say…

A lot of heavy lifting was already done by the content I’ve put out over the years

Now, I’ve always been conscious that I have 2 audiences:

• Designers who want to learn from someone a few steps ahead

• Potential clients who need to understand why strategic branding matters in business.

Those two groups are looking for completely different things when they land on my content, and mixing them is where a lot of designers go wrong.

The through-line in my content that resonates with both the groups, is the strategic approach behind my designs. It educates not only fellow designers, but also leaves a strong impression on any potential customer who comes across my socials.

Especially for business owners, my design videos help them see how I think.

When I break down a brand project:

• the strategy behind it,

• competitor research,

• reasoning behind why certain decisions were made and others weren’t

… I am showcasing what it actually looks like to work with a designer who understands the problem of a business before opening Illustrator.

That’s a very different experience from looking at a “before-and-after”, or trend breakdowns, or speed processes, or lifestyle content.

But I have made that kind of content too as it has its place.

For example, if you want views, shares and engagement, these types of content can work

well.

But as is famously said by JK Molina, “likes ain’t cash”.

If you want content to help you grow your business, you have to be deliberate about who you’re talking to.

When talking to potential customers, don’t just think about showcasing your design skills.

Clients at a certain level aren’t just looking for someone who can execute.

By showing my thinking publicly and consistently, potential clients started to see it before they even talk to me.

They saw how I approached problems and found solutions in relation to brand strategy and design.

And that is why they began to benchmark other designers’ work against mine, exactly like this founder did.

It’s not simply about 1-2 videos, or a short series.

What I’ve built is a library of content that has helped me build authority, get eyeballs, and receive signals from the right prospects.

And it’s the same energy that I take to my calls

Now, a few days before I hopped on the call with the founder and project manager, they’d sent over previous presentations from other agencies, along with a brief they wanted me to work from.

So I spent time beforehand properly going through everything and putting my thoughts together.

When we got on the call, I came in with my perspective.

I was able to show up with authority and explain where I personally thought the project had been going wrong. I’ve seen that when you can give clients an insight they haven’t thought about before, it immediately changes how they see you.

It creates trust because they start thinking, “okay, she actually understands this.”

The main issue I could see was that they’d been trying to balance 2 qualities that sit at opposite ends of the visual spectrum.

They wanted the brand to feel premium, but also highly accessible and approachable.

Which was self-contradicting.

Two agencies had already heard those same two words and produced work that missed, not because they were bad designers, but because nobody had stopped to define what those words actually meant to this client.

So I stayed with them on the call and asked them to clarify what they meant when they said “premium” and “accessible”.

When they said they wanted the brand to feel “premium”, they didn’t mean luxury in the way people think of brands like Rolex.

They meant high quality, trustworthy and well-made.

They referenced The Ordinary as the kind of feeling they liked as they were minimal and clean but still approachable as an identity.

When they said “accessible”, they didn’t mean cheap. They meant they wanted people to instantly understand the brand and not get intimidated by it.

Nobody had defined those words before.

One designer hears “premium” and pushes the brand too far into luxury. Another hears “accessible” and makes it feel cheap, which is why the previous work hadn’t landed right with the client.

That conversation helped massively because we were then able to align on expectations, direction, and what would realistically work for the brand.

On the other side, they already understood what I did.

So the call was really just about deciding whether we were the right fit. I wasn’t trying to sell anything. I just shared some insights, the same way I would with a founder-friend I was trying to help.

And that felt completely different from any client call I remember from my earlier years.

When I first started doing sales calls, I was quite timid.

• I’d prepare a list of questions and work through them one by one, gathering information rather than actually listening.

• The clients coming in had no sense of how I approach a brief, nothing to benchmark me against.

• Every call was about convincing someone who had no real frame of reference for the work.

This one was the opposite.

And I think that the call went the way it did because of what had already happened before it.

All of that groundwork, the trust, the context, the understanding, came from the content.

This is the type of content I’d encourage any designer to think about building.

Content that attracts clients who already understand your value, so every call feels less

like selling and more like deciding.

The foundation for all of it is being able to show up with genuine strategic depth both in your content and in your sales calls.

If you’re still figuring out what that looks like in practice, the Strategic Brand Identity Lab is where I’d start.

If you have any questions on creating content that attracts opportunities, reply to this email and tell me. I am happy to share more actionable insights in the future newsletters!

That’s all for now.

Have a great week!

Abi 😊