Me & Talia
Talia Loderick is a money coach and a dear friend to us.
Last year we designed and built Talia’s money coaching website. We wanted to ask Talia how she felt about the design process and find out more about her business. She is an absolute delight!
Tell us a bit about yourself Talia...
Hi, I’m Talia Loderick. I’m a money coach and financial education consultant. I’m from Bristol but Cardiff is my adopted hometown. I call my money coaching practice TLC because when I realised the acronym for Tender Loving Care also stood for Talia Loderick Coaching I almost swooned with joy. Because who doesn’t need a dose of TLC from time to time? Rhetorical question – we all do. I help women understand the beliefs and emotions that really drives their behaviour with money – so they can feel better and be better with money. I also work with The Money Charity to deliver financial education workshops in secondary schools, helping young people build lifelong money-management skills.
Do you think personal branding and online presence is important? And why?
I think you can get started without it but I do think personal branding and online presence is important, especially for small business owners. Just remember: no-one can tell your story better than you can. So, if you’re a business owner, it’s important to make sure you tell the story of what you do and why you do it well. Nailing your personal brand and having an online presence will help you tell your story – sometimes literally, as having a professional business website means that people sometimes know my story and want to work with me without me saying a word. Effortless marketing for the win!
Visual communication is a key part of branding. From the colours you use to the fonts you choose, you can influence the way people feel when they see your brand. This in turn can help you attract your dream clients and repel the wrong ones. I’m not saying it’s easy to think of yourself as a brand, especially when you’re a one-woman business, as I am. It’s not. I’m outwardly very confident but I am inherently an introvert. I’m not a big or showy person. But I realised I had to stop standing in my own way because if people didn’t know who I was or what I did, then how could they possibly want to work with me? And I really wanted to give my money coaching practice the best chance for success. This realisation focussed me on finally getting my personal brand and online presence in order in 2019. And it’s not done. It’s a work in progress. But that’s life as it should be, right? As we – and our businesses – are ever-evolving. What works for me in 2020 may not work for me in 2023 and that’s okay. But better to get started and put something out there rather than procrastinating about it.
How did you find the design process for your website and branding?
I’m fortunate to have great friends who are talented designers. Lowri Howells did my branding and Melin and Esma of ME Design designed my website. I found it especially beneficial that we all live in Cardiff too as I was able to meet with them all face-to-face to talk through what I was after.
In terms of branding, I focussed on communicating four things: who I am; what I do, why I do it; how I want people to feel when they visit my website and social media channels. I had an initial meeting with Lowri about this, then wrote it all down for her on a client questionnaire and she produced two designs for me. One of the designs spoke to me immediately and that’s the one we went with.
I was then able to share my branding assets and guidelines with Melin and Esma. Again, we had an initial meeting to discuss what I was after, then I followed up in writing so they could really understand the look and feel I was going for on my website. Melin and Esma presented me with three designs and again, one spoke to me more than the others so that’s what we went with.
Melin and Esma came to my rescue in terms of photos. I had none when we started but they did a photoshoot with me, around Cardiff Bay, which produced the right set of images for my website.
My background is as a journalist and writer so I wrote all of the copy for my website. I knew what copy I wanted on each page and sent this over to Melin and Esma. A few weeks later we spent an afternoon together in person perfecting the final design and copy on each page of my website. Et voilà – the next day my website was published!
My advice to any small business owners working with design professionals on their branding and website is: make sure there are deadlines; ensure you know what you’re paying for and how much everything is going to cost; and decide how you’re going to communicate with each other, whether that’s face-to-face (in-person or by video call), by phone, email, text, messaging apps or a mixture of all of these. This approach really helps to manage everyone’s expectations.
As a money coach what is your most asked question? And how do you feel about that? honestly…
As a money coach, my most asked question is ‘oh a money coach, so what does that mean then?’ My answer: We can know all the practical things we should be doing with money, such as saving for the future and paying down debt, but many of us simply struggle to do this. I know, because I’ve been that person. What I realised was that unless we understand why we do what we do, we’re going to keep standing in our own way and, to be honest, feeling kinda crap about it. That’s where I come in. As a money coach, I help women understand their relationship with money so they can improve their behaviour with money and ultimately, achieve their life goals. Because when you’re in control of money, you’re in control of your life.
Honestly, I don’t mind answering this question as it almost always leads to interesting conversations with the question-asker about their relationship with money. Talking about money is still so taboo in the UK that I think people simply like being able to talk to me about it without feeling judged. That’s the TLC I offer my clients.
Thank you Talia!
Check out Talia’s website here to learn more about what TLC offers.
