Corporate Documentary: Share Your Brand Story

Design’s in my blood. So everywhere I go, I’m constantly looking. I just can’t help it. So if I notice signage on buses, on shop fronts, on billboards, that sort of thing, and it’s all part of, I guess, the culture of our business. All of our designers in our business do the same thing. So from that, we work out what’s working, what’s really current trend, and we just inject that into every design that we do.

I first started getting an interest in design when I was probably in year nine at school, and I realised I could draw, and that kind of evolved into airbrushing. I did an airbrushing course when I think I was in year 10, and then I started airbrushing people’s T-shirts and things like that at school. So we first started designing T-shirts for brands like Looney Tunes, Warner Brothers, and Disney, and all the Disney movies.

But then we started designing for fashion brands and surf wear brands. So because we had multiple levels of people that would give us feedback on our designs, it constantly taught us how to design on a commercial level to please those people. Once you see those designs printed on T-shirts and people wearing them in the street, it just gives you a sense of…

It’s quite humbling, really. The writing was on the wall because the whole clothing rag trade industry was going through a major shift, and that was that the retailers were going vertical and cutting out the middleman and the wholesaler. So now, at the time, I had an office full of full-time designers. We had a young family, and we had a mortgage, and we had bills, and I had to actually borrow money to stay in business, and it was quite a scary time.

I looked for a business coach that already had a successful online business. Then I just started learning everything I could from that business coach, and I learned about marketing funnels, and lead magnets, and conversions, and pretty much everything to do with growing an online business, growing a team, and all that sort of stuff. But this hasn’t been an easy journey for me in my business, so I understand the challenges that small businesses have, especially in the service industry.

And then gradually, we started getting known in the industry, and our name was spreading all around the world. And I realised that all of the marketing knowledge that I’d learnt over the years, we started applying to these websites, and people just started flocking to us because we married those two things together so well, marketing and really beautiful design. I was always an introvert and too scared to be on camera like this or too scared to be on stage.

And then the more I just pushed myself through that, raising my authority has attracted higher-level clients, and that in itself is so inspiring because we never thought we could reach that level of clients before. But now that we are, we’re seeing under the hood of their businesses, and we’re seeing their marketing funnels. And so that alone has given us even more ammunition to pour into every website that we design to get our clients a better result.

The problem I found with web design in general was that there were web designers out there that didn’t understand conversions or online marketing, and there seemed to be a big hole in the market, and that’s what a lot of clients say to us when they find us. It’s like, “Finally I found somebody that understands marketing and does really good-looking designs.” And now we’ve grown the team to over 20 people. I love the fact that we design for a lot of clients in the US and the UK and Europe, and pretty much everywhere in the world. And the whole reason for doing what we do is so that I can spend more time with my family, and that wouldn’t happen if we didn’t use our principles of website design, which is really leading with value, building trust, building your authority, having as much social proof on your website as possible, and attracting better quality businesses to you so that you essentially get leverage from your website, so you don’t have to do the hard sell ever. People are attracted to you like a magnet.

I remember my mum putting me to bed at night. I was around nine years old then. And then waking up to the loud sirens going off and seeing the fear in everybody else’s face. You could hear the missiles drop. And at that moment, you stop and think, “Thank God it wasn’t us this time.” I remember finally arriving to Australia, and I remember us being locked up in a detention centre and thinking, “Why? Why did it have to happen to us?”

I remember being outside and looking through fence, after fence, after fence, and thinking, “Why does freedom have to be so hard?” I remember going to school and being so different and not fitting in. And I remember going to university after and still struggling to work out what I wanted to do, not knowing where I wanted to be, what I wanted to really do.

And I remember being lost and just not being able to work out what it was that I was really passionate about. So I remember sitting in the car and thinking, “You know what? I’m actually going to do something about this. Enough is enough.” So I went and looked for a job, and I landed an interview in the city for a position in an IT company. And I remember it was only paying $7.50 an hour, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t about the money.

I was finally going to do something that I was passionate about. So after working there for a number of years, I thought, “You know what? There’s things that can be perhaps done better or in a different way.” But I had no say because I wasn’t in management. So I thought the only way I’m going to be able to do this is perhaps take a risk and do it on my own. I was fearful of having to step out of my comfort zone. That’s normal. We all are. But I thought, “You know what?

What have I got to lose?” Success is a funny thing. People see nice things and think, “You know what? It’s so easy.” But let me tell you, it’s not easy. I had to go through so many sleepless nights, so many long hours. When everybody finished work and went home, that’s when I started all over again at night. When you start to believe in yourself, you give out this energy, and people start to feel it.

And that’s when you know, “You know what? I think I’m going to be able to create something big.” People are fearful, fearful of change, fearful of doing something different. But at the end of the day, what’s there to be afraid of? It’s so easy to neglect yourself. We do everything for everybody else. The most important thing in life is investing in yourself, because if you invest in yourself, you become the best that you can become and learn to become fearless.

Time is one thing that you’re never, ever going to get back. So be wise, be smart, and do what you’re passionate about, because you’re never going to get that time back again. Your circumstances don’t define you. Your decisions and actions define you. Where you start doesn’t determine where you finish.