Don't Let a Boring Brand Sabotage Your Success with Fifa Tran

Jennie Wright [00:00:02]:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Acquire podcast where we talk about list building and lead generation, branding, sales, scaling, and a lot of stuff in between. And I’m excited because I have another fellow on Torontonian here to join me, and I’m excited. And if you’ve ever looked at, a brand and thought, wow, that looks like that looks really good. That looks like money. That looks really elevated. Then there’s a good chance that somebody just like FIFA Tran is behind it or FIFA’s behind it. Okay? As a self taught designer turned brand elevation expert, FIFA doesn’t just create really pretty websites.

Jennie Wright [00:00:38]:
I find that she builds strategic and high converting brand experiences that make businesses stand out and seem to scale effortlessly. And, you know, over time, just like the rest of us, FIFA’s had to invest in herself, learn from the best, and now she helps coaches and entrepreneurs craft sophisticated and easy to update WordPress websites that aren’t just digital placeholders. They’re actually designed to grow with you and your business. So, FIFA, thank you so much for doing this.

Fifa Tran [00:01:06]:
I appreciate you for having me. I’m so excited for our conversation today.

Jennie Wright [00:01:10]:
Yeah. Me too. Me too. So at the time that we’re recording this, we’re expecting a big snowstorm in Toronto. I think we’re gonna get, what, like, 30 centimeters in the next couple of days. Are you ready?

Fifa Tran [00:01:20]:
Oh, I am not ready for that. I’m just gonna continue to

Jennie Wright [00:01:23]:
stay indoors. Me too. So I love talking to another like, somebody local. It’s super, it’s super fun because then we can actually talk about real things, but let’s kind of dive in a little bit about your career and, and how you got into this space, like getting into creating elevated brands, and being a self taught designer yourself. What are the biggest lessons that you were sort of figuring out along the way that helped you kinda discover those hard truths and improve what you do?

Fifa Tran [00:01:51]:
Yeah. It wasn’t, I mean, I I didn’t at all study anything that I’m doing right now. So I I was actually in business management, and graduated from Concordia University in that. So, yeah, it’s, it’s been a very interesting journey, and I did not expect to at all do web design, but it kinda just started I mean, I knew that I had an in it creative ability, which everybody honestly does. Like, everybody’s creative. They just have to work on that skill. Right? But I feel like I just, I was always drawing when I was younger. I was always geeky.

Fifa Tran [00:02:32]:
I was that geeky little kid back then who was

Jennie Wright [00:02:35]:
like wrong with geeks. Okay? We’re in our we’re in our geek phase. We’re all good.

Fifa Tran [00:02:39]:
Yeah. Like, I was a gamer girl. Like, yeah. I really love to just geek out on those things and and just go on the web. And I don’t know if you remember GeoCities websites. Of course. But, yeah, that was the time where I learned about web design. I learned about how to implement codes and embed them into a website.

Fifa Tran [00:03:00]:
And I was really young at the time. I was probably, like, 10 years old, nine years old, and I was playing around with that stuff. So

Jennie Wright [00:03:08]:
Darn. You started early. Oh my gosh. Okay. So from business management at Concordia to website design and brand elevation sounds like a bit of a windy path.

Fifa Tran [00:03:18]:
Yes.

Jennie Wright [00:03:18]:
A little bit of an accidental entrepreneur, would you say?

Fifa Tran [00:03:23]:
I guess so. Yeah. I mean, honestly, yeah, I I didn’t realize that at the time. I just, you know, I was just playing around with things. I and as I grew older, you know how Asian parents are? They’re always like, yeah. You need to get into something that’s more lucrative. Don’t do anything artsy. So

Jennie Wright [00:03:42]:
We’ve chosen three different, you know, three different, careers for you. Which one would you like?

Fifa Tran [00:03:48]:
Yeah. Exactly. They they thought they had it all laid out for me, but, yeah, I just ended up going to business management, went into it, didn’t really felt like I enjoyed it much. I mean, I learned business basics, which did help me, even now just, like, just understanding how business works and everything. But at the end of the day, experience is really what trumps everything. I didn’t even get a job in the field. So, yeah, and I just I

Jennie Wright [00:04:16]:
get it.

Fifa Tran [00:04:17]:
Yeah. I did a whole bunch of, like, administration jobs, honestly. It was a it was something that I just ended up moving towards because I was in Montreal at the time, and you had to know French. And it’s very hard. If you don’t know French, you’re in Quebec. And, yeah, people are not gonna hire you because you have no experience. So, yeah, that kind of just led me down to figuring out different side hustles, trying to figure out what what I like, what I’m actually good at, and kind of relearn a bit about myself again, tapping myself. And that’s where it came to be, where I decided, you know what? Like, I’m just gonna play around with different things, see what I’m good at.

Fifa Tran [00:04:58]:
And web design was was ended up being one of them. Branding ended up being one of them because I worked with my very first coach, and she helped me to figure out my zone of genius, which led to now what I do, branding, web design. And I work with particularly coaches because of the impact that they had in my life.

Jennie Wright [00:05:19]:
That’s fantastic. I love that you work with them and sort of that foundational journey that changed. I mean, I think a lot of people who are entrepreneurs, I, you’ve heard this a lot, I’m sure, but like accidental entrepreneurship, we don’t mean to be here, but, we end up here and we love it. And we can’t imagine going back to, you know, the regular day to day or the corporate or whatever it was that was the before life. Right? The JOB life. And now we have our businesses. And I mean, I know I could never go back to the JOB life just forever, ever. So, yeah, it’s I’m really cool.

Jennie Wright [00:05:53]:
It’s really cool to hear about your journey. We’ll have to have a completely different conversation you and I about being in Montreal and not speaking French. I’m the I’m the product of French immersion.

Fifa Tran [00:06:03]:
Oh, okay.

Jennie Wright [00:06:05]:
And I went to university in French, but we’ll have a totally different conversation. This is like so unrelated, but we’ll get there. I’d love to kind of dive in and talk about branding because a lot of people talk about branding. A lot of people say they’re brand experts. A lot of people think that they know a lot about branding, but a lot of people I think get it wrong. And so instead of what people think it is, what do you think people should be focusing in on when it comes to branding?

Fifa Tran [00:06:30]:
So the mistake that I see a lot of people do is they think branding is just like logos, colors, like what you see to the eye. Right? And this is something that I personally I thought it was bad too when I first started because, like, at the time, I was building my own personal brand without realizing it. I was just kind of doing microblogs at the time. One of my side hustles, one of the 13 side hustles I did, is just trying to you know, when I was getting into entrepreneurship, I would just write about my personal stories and, like, you know, trying to get people to learn more about me, connect with me, build a community. And this happened first through a blog at the time, a secret blog, which I eventually ended up having the courage to share on social media on Instagram at the time. And then that’s where afterwards, I started to build a community and people started to get to know me. So at the time, I was actually building a personal brand without realizing it. And so that made me slowly understand a little bit more about what else branding is it like, branding evolve it evolves.

Fifa Tran [00:07:37]:
And it’s not just about, like, your favorite colors or, you know, your favorite fonts and putting together something that just looks nice. But in actually the foundational piece, which is the part where you have to figure out what your vision is, your mission, the values that you bring. Like, people were following me because of the stories that I shared. And through these stories, you could see what are my values. Like, I really love to inspire people. I love to build community. But you learn a little bits bits and pieces of me through follow me on Instagram and just continuously showing the messaging, sharing the messaging, and all these things around that. And that is what branding is.

Fifa Tran [00:08:17]:
It’s really the foundational piece, messaging, voice, tone, all these other things that really dive deeper that people do not like to spend time crafting.

Jennie Wright [00:08:30]:
It takes time. If there’s a lot of effort building a brand from scratch or even redefining a brand that maybe you’ve got lost along the way, there’s a lot to do there and not everybody has the patience to do it. But the I’m gonna I bet you’re gonna agree with me that the outcome or the result is so much more favorable if you spend that time, you know, kind of figuring it out and going deep.

Fifa Tran [00:08:54]:
Yeah. Yeah. It makes you it actually makes marketing and everything else so much easier once you have that down. Once you just take some time to create that foundational piece of your brand, then you just have everything is just so much more clear. You know who your audience is. You know how to speak to them, and everything else comes after. You know? And it just makes things it saves you so much time and makes your messaging very, very clear to be able to attract the right type of people you wanna work with.

Jennie Wright [00:09:23]:
Okay. So we’ve established what a brand is. We’ve established sort of how we have to go deeper to figure out what that brand is. That’s perfect. How do we now create an elevated brand? What is that deeper step or that next step that most people aren’t taking that gets you to an elevated brand?

Fifa Tran [00:09:41]:
So the elevated part is where I love to, create. It’s it’s branding is really, you know, marrying your personality, but also with the audience you’re trying to attract. Right? So in infusing both of them and trying to figure out that that element that brings everything together and makes you stand out and become the expert that you want to portray yourself as, that is one elevated brand and really making an impact. So in my what I love to do with my clients and what I always, always try to work with in terms of building brands for my clients is, you know, a lot of people want to make an impact, but they don’t work a lot in their branding. They don’t or they don’t under understand it. So what I do is I love to dive deeper into my clients’ brands, really draw out what it is that their superpower is and really hone in on that. And that really understanding what that superpower is and building the visuals and building everything around it and just elevating it in a way where it’s more sophisticated, it makes you look professional, it makes you look more credible, and make an impact on those you serve. That, in my opinion, is what an elevated brand is.

Jennie Wright [00:11:00]:
It sounds like it’s not an a b c one two three. It’s more it sounds a little bit more intrinsic, a little bit more the again, we’re gonna you know, going deeper into, like you said, their superpower, but it doesn’t sound formulaic. So I’m guessing that every client elevation is a it looks different.

Fifa Tran [00:11:20]:
Yeah. Definitely. It’s very different for every type of client. Yeah.

Jennie Wright [00:11:24]:
Okay. I wanted to understand that because a lot of people create, as you know, you know, my one two three a b c formula to get from a to b to z. And I’ve I find sometimes when I try and explain what a high converting landing page or sales page is, people I don’t have a one, two, three, a, b, c. I have, you know, it it’s a, it’s a bunch of different steps. And And some of those steps have one piece, and then some of those steps have, like, five or 10 pieces. And it depends on what the client needs and where they’re at. And so I find, it’s almost like a muscle memory.

Fifa Tran [00:11:56]:
Right?

Jennie Wright [00:11:56]:
And I and I think when you’re looking at Elevation, you’re because you’ve been doing it at this level for such a time, you in, you innately see it, you know, you innately see the opportunities and the gap, and then you know how to fill that gap or get them from, you know, where they are to where they could be. And I think that’s a it’s a really deep skill that people learn. And this is how you can differentiate really clearly with entrepreneurs who have gone through the, like, one branding process with themselves, and all of a sudden they’re a branding expert and people who’ve done it for years and understand, I love that with summits, you know, I’ve done like over four fifty summits and then one person does like one and all of a sudden they’re calling themselves the summit queen, like seriously. Can we sit and talk, compare notes, but that makes me laugh. So let’s talk to something. Let’s talk about DIYing our brand because not everybody can afford to have somebody like yourself come in. And although I wish everybody could, some people have to DIY it a little bit. What is one small tweak that people can do completely on their own and they could do it right now that would instantly level up their brand experience? And I know we just talked about individuality and it’s intrinsic and so on, but what’s what if you could put your thumb on it, what would be one thing?

Fifa Tran [00:13:16]:
Well, in terms of the DIY piece, like, for sure, I would say there is a big part of it is just taking time to look and think within what what the your unique superpower is. I feel like that just nailing that down and just being able to understand what makes you unique and stand out in in in the industry and just focusing on that and everything else coming, like, in terms of, having guiding questions to draw that out. I feel like that is going to be what will set you apart and what everybody can can kind of, have a starting point on. And then over time, it starts to evolve. Right? So I a lot of the times, like, even though people go straight into their favorite colors and all those stuff, which which is a whole other thing, I always tell them, you know, there is if you can just sit down and go through, specific questions, like, I usually provide people with, questions even as online where it’s like a little workbook where they can just sit down and work on that and just answer questions about their brand that helps them be more clear on their messaging. That in itself is already a really huge step in you getting ahead because a lot of people don’t even wanna do that work.

Jennie Wright [00:14:45]:
No. A lot of people don’t wanna do that work. And I think that’s a defining difference between the elevation of a brand or being able to even DIY it. I think it’s that time. So if you’re able to self guide through the process of figuring out your superpower, your, you know, the thing that makes you different, the thing that makes you stand out. Right? So, you know, a lot of people build websites, but not everybody builds a website like you, and you build it specifically differently than anybody else. And so that’s your your one of your superpowers. Right? And so I think if people, take the time to work on their brand and it can feel a little overwhelming and sure.

Jennie Wright [00:15:22]:
AI can help. You can definitely use AI and, and everybody is these days. But I also think that talking to somebody like yourself, where you can have the sort of bouncing around conversation, what does that brand mean? What makes you different? I know like you probably have a list of 50 questions. You could probably ask somebody at any given moment. Right. And probably figure out their brand, which I love. So, I kind of want to shift a little bit and talk about the business side of design. Right.

Jennie Wright [00:15:50]:
So I know that you’ve heavily invested in coaching and courses and mentorship and whatnot. How has that approach sort of shaped you as a designer and also an entrepreneur?

Fifa Tran [00:16:03]:
I’ve oh, man. Yeah. I’ve I’ve invested a lot of money into coaches over the years, but it’s it’s it’s helped me really, really understand the coaching industry just by working with all these different types of coaches. So I can see that the, like, from

Jennie Wright [00:16:21]:
there,

Fifa Tran [00:16:21]:
you know, just working how they create their own programs and what they do as well, for to be able to market their programs and all that stuff and and really just being able to put themselves out there in a way that resonates enough for me to go and make that investment. Right? So in me being able to work with so many different coaches, like, I’ve I’ve kind of figured out the types of people that I I resonate with. But in doing that, in in being able to understand this, I can apply it also to my clients. I can see what is that unique superpower or what is that vibe that, you know, that they’re trying to attract more of and really translate that into their brand vision and creating the identity and everything and so forth. So I feel like that it was really that that crucial. Just being able to work with so many people, I can see how they run their business and also really getting involved in the coaching community and different memberships and stuff too. Not just coaching, but memberships, people who are coaches in this community. They talk they have a lot of different conversations.

Fifa Tran [00:17:30]:
So just understanding what’s going on in the coaching industry and staying updated with it has really shaped how I work with my clients and the types of I guess you can say I’m kind of coaching people too. Like, I do brand I used to do brand clarity coaching in terms of, like I mean, I tried to do it one time with, my client, and I realized, you know, I it’s hard to switch between coaching and then web design. So I have my team now that can help with that, who’s really, really good in terms of the the clarity coaching. But, yeah, it’s honestly been a really big part of what I do and how I’m able to see what makes somebody really, really special.

Jennie Wright [00:18:12]:
Completely. And, having a team is, like, integral to get you to stop doing the things that you shouldn’t be doing and the and focus on the things you should. I really you you sparked a bit of interest, and I and I kinda wanna go down a little bit of a rabbit hole with you. And that has to do with the fact that you and I both run service based businesses. And it’s tricky growing a service based business because it can literally be trading dollars for hours. And there’s only so many hours in a week and there’s only like only so much energy in a day. And I don’t know about you, but as I get older, that is less endless and it isn’t fun. So I kind of want to talk about that for a second.

Jennie Wright [00:18:48]:
Cause there’s a lot of service based businesses out there. How are you structuring your offers? Not only to grow, but to scale without burning out, if you feel like you could share.

Fifa Tran [00:19:00]:
Yeah, of course. Honestly, you know, I’ve, I’ve been burnt out before, and it’s not fun. Definitely, takes a long time to recover from that. So that is why I’ve especially in the past couple of months, I’ve really shifted my business offers to be more intensely focused in a shorter time frame by getting clients quicker results and just more efficient use of their time. Because, honestly, everybody’s busy. You know? Everybody has a million things to do, and people just want results. If they wanna outsource something and they want their whole design task list to get done, that’s where I’ve created now VIP days and, like, a website in a weeks where we schedule time together, and we work on the stuff that you have to get done. And that doesn’t draw out projects for months, which really caused the burnout for me.

Fifa Tran [00:19:55]:
It’s just having these clients drag them out because they’re busy or because I was people pleasing, and I was just too nice to to charge late fees. There was also learning how to set boundaries and just being able to be really, really firm in what it is that I offer, what is expected, and just being able to know who is going to be that type of person who you wanna work with that will not burn you out.

Jennie Wright [00:20:25]:
That’s the nice way of saying no nightmare clients. Right? Yeah. I’m sure you’ve had a few. I have a few. Honestly, we need a support group, just for nightmare clients because I think we all as people pleasers. Okay? I recognize the people pleaser in you. And as service based business owners, we’re mostly people pleasers. We love to make people happy because that’s what we deliver.

Jennie Wright [00:20:45]:
Right? We deliver results and and make people feel good. And I find that, that’s that can attack attract, I think, the wrong type of client sometimes. Somebody who’s, like, maybe not on purpose, but is quite okay with pushing, like, scope creep and so on. Right. And, I mean, it’s hard to get to the point where you’re like, you know what, that, that extra time is actually gonna cost you something. And now I’m really good at it, but there was a time where I wasn’t and it causes resentment. Right. Which I think also is like it it adds to that burnout.

Jennie Wright [00:21:20]:
And so what you said is really great because it’ll help you avoid it. Learn that lesson from FIFA early because Jenny learned it late, and you don’t want to do that. Right. I kind of want to, I kind of want to just before we sort of wrap up here, I want to talk about the future of brand strategy. I think it’s shifting. I mean, we are in, I don’t want to say unprecedented times, but we are in chaos. We are in absolute chaos. And how are we going to trust brands going forward? What do you see kind of happening and evolving in the next couple of years if you could pull out your crystal ball for a second?

Fifa Tran [00:21:57]:
Well, the way I see it right now and it’s it’s starting to get there where people are really honing in on the power of storytelling and building their personal brand. So, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, no matter if you have a big company or what, you still need to build a personal brand as the founder. So I feel like that is something that will really still differentiate you you in years to come down the road to just be able to be different from all the other all the noise that’s out there. You really need to learn how to story tell and learn how to share your own personal story because at the end of the day, that is what is gonna differentiate you from everybody else that’s doing the same thing that you are. So storytelling, building that skill to be able to put that out there and not be afraid to be vulnerable as well in your journey is going to is what I feel is going to even be good down the line years to come.

Jennie Wright [00:23:01]:
Yeah. For sure. There’s I think I think the only thing that is gonna stand out right now is your ability to connect, and that definitely is through storytelling. And so I find it, comforting that you feel the same. Because I know, I just know that being able to connect to your, to people, it builds that trust quicker than anything. And hiding behind your logo or hiding behind your business name and pretending that you’re a big entity and not the person that created it or not the team that created it doesn’t allow people to get to know you. And, I mean, literally, it’s you or the, you know, the team or whatever that’s built the company. And I think it’s important that people know the the people behind it, and a lot of people wanna know the people behind it these days.

Jennie Wright [00:23:47]:
Right? So hiding is over.

Fifa Tran [00:23:51]:
Yeah. You can’t have these I mean, you can have some face those reels, but it can’t be your your own your entire strategy.

Jennie Wright [00:23:59]:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And please stay far, far away from too many AI created videos and all that wonderful stuff. Right?

Fifa Tran [00:24:06]:
That’s a whole other topic in itself.

Jennie Wright [00:24:09]:
Yep. Absolutely. And we can definitely go there. I’m definitely gonna have to have you back on the podcast. FIFA. You’re awesome. Thank you so much for doing this. Really appreciate it.

Jennie Wright [00:24:17]:
Where can people connect with you and find you?

Fifa Tran [00:24:20]:
So I am most active on LinkedIn. So yeah. Just search FIFA Trend on LinkedIn. There’s I don’t know of any other FIFA. And when I search, I don’t see any other FIFA. So it’s like the World Cup. So F I F A. And, and then Instagram is Faye Modern, my company name.

Jennie Wright [00:24:38]:
Amazing. And we’ll have that in the show notes for everybody. So if you’ve made it to the end of the podcast, thank you so much for listening. I love creating these conversations, and I hope that you’re finding them to be interesting and valuable. And if you are, please let me know, leave a review, on apple podcasts or wherever it is that you’re listening and connect with me at jenny wright dot com so that I can give you more information like this. We got some really great guests coming up in the next couple of weeks. And, FIFA was just one of a really great amount of interviews that I’ve been doing so far in this year. And I’m super pleased.

Jennie Wright [00:25:10]:
FIFA and I have had the opportunity to meet in public in person more than once, twice. Right?

Fifa Tran [00:25:15]:
Yeah. That’s

Jennie Wright [00:25:16]:
right. That’s twice. It was great. And, definitely making plans to hang out this, this coming summer. So thank you so much.

Fifa Tran [00:25:23]:
Thank you. I appreciate you.

Jennie Wright [00:25:25]:
Absolutely. And thank you so much for everybody listening. And if you like this, make sure you are following and thanks again. We’ll see you all soon. Take care.