Title: The Branding Iron: Forging a Thriving Design & Print Business with Lillyan Hendershot
Guest: Lillyan Hendershot
Peter: Today, I’m with Lillyan Hendershot. She is the art director of The Branding Iron. She’s also the founder and co owner of The Branding Iron. Hey, Lillianne. Thanks for joining me today.
Lillyan: Thanks for having me, Peter.
Peter: And I go way back, and this is an opportunity to share the origin stories of our businesses. When we got started at bizmarketing.com, we actually shared space with Lily at The Branding Iron. That was exciting.
Lillyan: Yes. I remember you helped us do the build out, everything from helping Tim with electrical and walls and painting. He
Peter: claims I tried to kill him.
Lillyan: Yes. I remember that.
Peter: And I think we copied that on another podcast as well. I think I threw a breaker and something was he was holding it or it was near him, and there was, some conduit that might have had a little electricity going through it. I don’t know.
Lillyan: Yes. It was a funny story to tell anyway.
Peter: Exactly. It it the origin of you and I working together goes back to probably around 2013
Lillyan: Yeah. Ish. Yep. That sounds about right. Around that time, I was still working at OfficeMax in the printing department.
And one of my customers, Meg Keogh, she had invited me to the chamber, and she kept nagging at me like, hey. You gotta go to the chamber. You’re going to get graphic design clients if you go there. And finally, I literally took the day off from work so that I could be there. And I went and met all these businesses, started getting connected.
Yep. And of course, you were there.
Peter: Right.
Lillyan: And I remember you asked me for a quote on postcards. Yeah. And so that was how we met. From that point on, I eventually ended up doing freelance graphic design as I was trying to exit working with OfficeMax. And I remember you helped me out in getting to that point because I needed to essentially have ten hours of work each week Right.
In order to equal out what I was getting pay wise working forty hours. Yeah. And so I remember those first couple months, you were giving me the clients I needed and
Peter: Yeah. That’s when you were, Naked by Design. Yep. That was the name of the company. It was funny when my accountant saw that on the check.
What the heck? Yeah. Yeah. So we’re talking about the Edmonds Chamber of Commerce. That was like the little breakfast meeting Mhmm.
Where you get to go meet with a lot of really friendly folks who have businesses and gosh, I can’t even imagine finding time to do that right now. Do you really?
Lillyan: Yeah. They so we used to meet every week. Yeah. And they’ve moved it now once a month, so it’s not as often, which is a little bit of a relief for the business owners that have gotten too busy to go every week.
Peter: Yeah.
Lillyan: And I’m in that same boat.
Peter: Right.
Lillyan: As you go along in business, your schedule does fill up, so it becomes more difficult. But yes, I still go. I really believe in networking business to business. Getting back to the origin story though.
Peter: Yeah.
Lillyan: So I remember, like, wanting to step out and get my own office at a certain point when I started getting enough clients because I thought it was really important to have an office where people can walk in
Peter: Right.
Lillyan: And you can actually have meetings rather than having to meet in coffee shops. It just felt more professional.
Peter: Mhmm.
Lillyan: And what kind of got us to jump off, I guess, and go into that
Peter: into the deep end.
Lillyan: Yes. Was that Mesfin was still working at OfficeMax, and he worked with me in the print department. And he one day, he said, Lily, we need to start our own business. He’s like, I’ve been looking into the cost of equipment, think that we could buy some printers. We can just do this grassroots, buy one thing at a time, put it in the garage.
Next month, we save up a little bit more, buy another piece of equipment. And so we started doing that. And over six months, we started having quite a bit of equipment. And then you were also looking for an office space at the same time. Yeah.
And that’s when we decided to go all in and basically build out the office, divide it up so that biz marketing was in one section, and the branding iron was in another one. And that’s also when we decided to do the business name change
Peter: Oh, right.
Lillyan: Because having naked by design on a sign was gonna be awkward. On the street. Mean, the whole concept was the tagline was nurturing growth in your business. Yeah. And so I had a little fetus on the logo.
Sure. It was it was a cool concept for graphic designer, but it wasn’t the right face for an office building.
Peter: Right.
Lillyan: And and so that’s why we needed to change the name to the branding.
Peter: So you came up with the branding iron. So what is the range of services that you guys offer now at the branding iron?
Lillyan: Okay. So in the graphic design realm, that’s everything from business branding with logo designs to website layouts that we will do, any kind of ads for online or print Yep. Posters, even like things like bookmarks and designing books that an author might write. Really anything that can be designed, signage. Yeah.
And then of course, the next natural progression is, okay, now that I have this thing designed, I need to print it somewhere.
Peter: Right.
Lillyan: Okay. We print in office anything that’s going up to, like, 13 by 19 in size Mhmm. For, like, posters, booklets, things of that nature. Yeah. We have a large format machine for any kind of engineering prints or full color if you’re doing yard signs
Peter: Right.
Lillyan: Those types of things. Basically, in terms of signage, it’s always temporary signage like Sure. Yeah. Lettering that goes on windows, for instance. And then anything we can’t do in store, we have vendors that we send out to.
Peter: Right.
Lillyan: That’s the realm of large quantities or logo merch Or offset or Yeah. Exactly.
Peter: Printing. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So you got a huge range of services.
What was the origin of the branding iron?
Lillyan: The concept of branding came from farmers that would brand their cattle. It also came from when people would sell pottery at the market, they would put their initials on the bottom so that someone couldn’t steal their pottery. The idea is to prevent theft. Right? Mhmm.
And but that’s where branding really came from. And I didn’t really want to have a cow on the sign because that’s not majestic.
Peter: So then your business certainly took off, and my business took off as well. It really was kind of a turning point in both of our businesses. Now we’re real, we’re legit, and we have rent to pay. Yeah. So it just kinda changes the equation a little bit.
Right?
Lillyan: Yeah. I was surprised at how quickly you outgrew the space. Mean, physically in the in the terms of needing more space for employees.
Peter: Yeah.
Lillyan: But then also just having lots of big clients and,
Peter: you know. It it took off. It it really surprised me. But I think what it said to potential clients just having a space Mhmm. Was that we were real and legit.
I remember meeting one client, probably one of the few times I ever met this client, they’re still our client today. Met them here. We had a brief meeting. I think after that, we never met in person, except maybe at their office a couple times, and that was it. But all it took was for them to see, oh, yeah.
This is like a real business
Lillyan: Right.
Peter: Real company. Right now, we’re virtual, but at the time, of course, that was ten years ago, so things were different as well. Right?
Lillyan: Right. Yeah. The pre COVID era when everything was in person still. And now it’s like you can work from anywhere, and it’s fine. But there was a different mentality pre COVID.
Peter: Well, in fact, when you say, do you wanna meet? I mean, in my case, a lot of people are like, yeah, sure. Send me the link. Yeah. Given that we’re gonna meet on Zoom.
Like, even for this meeting, I mean, I’m glad that we’re in person here, but I do a lot of these just Zoom. Right? So that was 2014. Doors get thrown open, and then let’s see.
Lillyan: Oh, we did the ribbon cutting with the chamber.
Peter: Oh, right.
Lillyan: Yeah. I remember we had a huge party. We had the harp player come and play her harp, and we had this huge spread of food. Yeah. It was a great welcome into the community.
We had lots of support right from the get go.
Peter: Yeah.
Lillyan: I feel like that was a jump start for it, and one of the biggest successes that helped us keep going is all of those connections that we made in the community.
Peter: We’re talking about Edmonds Chamber of Commerce. Yes. You’ve stayed pretty deeply involved in that organization, haven’t you?
Lillyan: So Yes. Yeah. For many years now, I’ve been, the president for the Edmonds Chamber Foundation, which is the fundraising arm of the chamber. Mhmm. So, yeah, I really enjoy volunteering with that group.
Peter: That’s cool. So the business our businesses take off 2014, 2015. So when you started, who were your customers back then?
Lillyan: Okay. I remember literally the first job that came through the door was Snow King Quality Cleaning.
Peter: Oh, yeah?
Lillyan: Of course, their name was a little bit different back then. It was a big postcard order that was going to be going out, and I remember that was literally the first run on the machines. We did a lot of business orders in the beginning where it was like business cards, your basics like marketing materials, brochures of that nature.
Peter: That was
Lillyan: Yeah. Logo design. But it was everything from the graphic design point to the final printed project. Right. And then as we started to get more and more requests for website design and development, then we had Tim join us Yeah.
Reluctantly.
Peter: Tim is Lily’s husband who is gainfully employed with Lily’s organization and my organization. So we kinda share him. Yes. I mean, Lily obviously gets first dibs, but, you know, just in case you’re listening, Tim, we love you. You’re your first customer.
So at the time, you were doing a lot of smaller type businesses. Do you remember when you branched out and started getting other types of clients, like maybe government?
Lillyan: I will say that we got a client of large scale.
Peter: Mhmm.
Lillyan: And it was a government contract that’s been going up until today, and it’s pretty nice because it is frequent work that comes in. But that particular client, we did have to go through a lot of in person meeting at their facility. There was a lot of paperwork involved. And when you’re getting government contracts, sometimes you have to go through and give them assurances that the quality of work is going to be consistent.
Peter: Mhmm.
Lillyan: And if there’s any kind of delays, how is that going to be resolved? But once we did get that one big contract Yeah. Then it showed me how to get other contracts. And today, we do work with like city of Edmonds, city of Lynnwoods, city of Shoreline, as well as lots of nonprofits and different areas in the community. But it’s like once you get one or two of those types of clients, then word spreads.
Sure. Because if you’re doing a good job, they’re gonna tell. Like, for instance, one of our big clients is the Edmunds Waterfront Center. Mhmm. And Daniel, the CEO there, he works with other senior centers and community centers in the area.
And word spreads quickly.
Peter: Yeah.
Lillyan: Same thing has happened in the, like, senior care facilities. We got Sure. Rosewood Court be came on as one of our clients many years ago.
Peter: Mhmm.
Lillyan: And they were happy with our work, so they started having us do stuff for Dungeness Court because they it’s one company that owns several. Yeah. And then as people would move from one job to another job, then we were introduced to other senior care facilities that were different ownership. And so it’s like it branches out. The same thing has happened with the real estate industry where I had one client that would go back and forth from here to Boston.
Peter: Mhmm.
Lillyan: And so then all of a sudden, their other businesses that they worked with in Boston, they wanted a graphic designer. Hence, I’ve had client relationships with with people in other states because what happens is someone maybe lives here half the year and in New York half the year. So then you get introduced to companies in other states. It’s amazing how that works.
Peter: It seems like you had a just a varied opportunity here to do the graphic work
Lillyan: Mhmm.
Peter: The print work. I know you have a partner, Messfin Mhmm. That does a lot of the day to day printing. I’m I’m sure you’re involved with that as well. But Yep.
So what what got you started in graphic design? Like, how did you how did we get here, Lily?
Lillyan: Okay. It’s actually interesting because I remember when I was younger, people would say, oh, you’re so great at art. You should be a graphic designer. And I’d always look at them and go, I don’t wanna do that. Yeah.
Peter: Sounds like work.
Lillyan: Yeah. So I wanted to be an oil painter, and that’s what I went to school for. Got my bachelor’s degree in fine arts oil painting. And when I graduated, it was right at the beginning of the recession. Oh.
And so I went ahead and started showing my artwork in galleries and at festivals, and I quickly realized that it would be like making minimum wage to be an artist and do that full time. Yeah. Because if you have your artwork in a gallery, the reality of it is that for having your artwork up for an entire month, you’re gonna sell like one painting, and it’s gonna be about $2,000. Well, for at the time. Right.
Now artwork is gonna sell a little bit more than And so at the time, that didn’t make sense to me to do it that way. And I had already been doing graphic design while I was in college because I was always working in print departments.
Peter: Oh, okay.
Lillyan: Alright. Alright. I was I was in the UW printing department. I was at OfficeMax up in Bellingham, Burlington, and Shoreline. Mhmm.
And so part of the job was that they needed me to design business cards, posters, design logos. And the interesting thing about it was that there was no formal training. They literally gave me the Adobe books and said, read this and figure it out. And I already knew how to do the job because I had been doing the job. Yeah.
And since I wasn’t going to make enough money as an artist, I decided to go back to school. So I got my master’s in media design, and that’s when I decided, okay. That’s it. Graphic design. That’s what I’m doing.
And the funny thing is I enjoyed the work I was doing while I was at OfficeMax, but I didn’t enjoy the environment that I was doing it
Peter: in. Oh, yeah.
Lillyan: Yeah. It was, like, fast paced. You never had enough time to to get the job done, and the equipment was subpar.
Peter: Right. So you’re still obviously an oil painter. I’ve seen you work. Right? Yep.
So now you’re doing that more for pleasure. Right?
Lillyan: Yes. I’m actually teaching my daughter how to oil paint right now. Oh. So she just did her first self portrait. Of course, it’s a painting of herself as a baby, and it’s really cute so far.
But
Peter: She’s still very young as well. Yeah. So just mentioning, that’s cute. That’s awesome. So that was sort of your origin into and so, obviously, it’s a perfect segue.
You’ve got the skills. You’re working in a commercial environment. Mhmm. You didn’t like the environment. Right.
So you’ve met. It’s another story. And and then you decided to, of course, go off and do this. So I’m curious what you see these days with ten years. A lot’s changed in ten years
Lillyan: Mhmm.
Peter: With respect to business, but then a lot hasn’t as well. Right? Like, ten years ago, people needed a website. People needed a business card, people needed a logo, people needed postcards.
Lillyan: Yeah. The biggest thing that I’ve seen post COVID, and that’s like the timeline market, is this huge increase in events. And all throughout the year Uh-huh. I am now producing lots of things for events. So galas, comedy shows, I mean, different music and theater, and just everything in between.
So every weekend, there is something happening in Edmonds, and I’m usually the first to know about it because I’m probably designing the program
Peter: Right.
Lillyan: Or printing off the posters for it or doing something for the events. Right. I mean, like, anytime graphite has an art sale, I know about it because I’m involved in it.
Peter: Oh,
Lillyan: yeah. And so it’s it’s interesting. Whereas, like, when we first started this business, I feel like we didn’t do as much event related work. Mhmm. It was more like businesses marketing themselves, but now a lot of businesses are they’re doing sponsorships on these events, and that’s one of the biggest ways they’re getting the word out because there’s nothing like showing that you’re involved in your community and that you care about something to get other people to care about your business.
Peter: Right. Right. Especially in a community like Edmonds. Edmonds, for those who don’t know, it’s I guess it’s a city of 40,000 perhaps. We’re, we’re sitting right next to the water.
There’s a view of the, Puget Sound, the Olympic Mountains. There’s a ferry that comes in here every thirty minutes or so, depending on if they have enough workers, and that goes over to the Kitsap Peninsula. It’s a pretty idyllic little spot.
Lillyan: Mhmm.
Peter: Right? I mean, I would say, and a lot it’s very desirable. A lot of people wanna be here, and kind of the arts community flourish. I mean, it’s all it was always there, but I think maybe nonetheless.
Lillyan: We’re actually the first creative district in Washington State.
Peter: Okay. What does that mean? Do you know what it means?
Lillyan: Yes. I do.
Peter: Okay.
Lillyan: Because when it first happened, I was serving on the committee for that. So basically, Washington State saw that there were other states that were having these creative districts. And those particular states that were doing it, they would have either a town or a city that’s been selected as a creative district
Peter: Mhmm.
Lillyan: Where they have a huge amount of music, art, theater, like all the different arts are there. You can basically find it thriving there.
Peter: Okay.
Lillyan: And basically, like, if I walk downtown, I can literally hop from one art thing to another Sure. Within walking distance. Yeah. And that’s basically what it means is Mhmm. We are really thriving as an art community.
There’s always something going on.
Peter: Right. And you work with a lot of artists Mhmm. I recall.
Lillyan: Yes. Yes. Artists are always coming in because they need prints of their artwork will go on folded cards, greeting cards that they then turn around and sell. They also do just regular art prints. Anytime they’re doing a gallery showing, they might need little art cards printed off for the titles and pricing for their artwork.
Right. There’s all kinds of things that we do for artists.
Peter: Yeah. And of course, you have an affinity for them.
Lillyan: Yes.
Peter: Since you are one as well. Mhmm. So businesses today, do you get a lot of new biz like startups? I’m guessing you get a lot of people that are like, hey, we just started a business.
Lillyan: Believe it or not, it’s a seasonal thing. That’s what I’ve noticed over the years.
Peter: Tell me more. January
Lillyan: is gonna be the biggest month out of the year for new businesses to start up. It’s kinda like the whole New Year’s resolution. Yeah.
Peter: Yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna lose 100 pounds
Lillyan: and Exactly.
Peter: Yeah.
Lillyan: And but the thing is about business startups is you’re a lot more likely to have a successful business than you are to do a New Year’s resolution that actually carries through. I mean, usually what happens is I’ll get a phone call in December when we’re in our crazy busy season. Yeah. And they’re like, hey, I need to schedule a meeting because I’m starting a new business, and I’m probably gonna need a website and a logo. So then I sit down with them, and I usually walk them through, okay, this is these are all the steps that you wanna go through, and I usually have the talk about networking with them too.
Peter: Yeah. You mean you’re not just gonna use digital marketing to grow your business?
Lillyan: Well, digital marketing is awesome, But you do have to actually do some footwork too.
Peter: Amen. Absolutely. Yeah. So so you get this huge bulk of January startups and Yes.
Lillyan: And that does continue through the first couple months of the year. Yeah. And you do see other startups happening throughout the year too.
Peter: Sure.
Lillyan: Yeah. But January is the huge one. Yeah. That’s like every client coming in is starting a new business. Mhmm.
Yeah. So
Peter: what are you just seeing across the board, like restaurants and painting companies and construction?
Lillyan: I know that this past January, I was helping one client that’s starting up a food truck for Edmonds. Oh, okay. He’s literally in the process right now of getting it built out.
Peter: Oh, wow.
Lillyan: Yeah. Cool. This is gonna be pretty awesome, and it should be opening probably around July. Okay. Well It’s something exciting.
Peter: Look out for that one. Yeah. That sounds good. And then you obviously have just businesses that have been around forever as well. I’m guessing that you still help out just like I’m guessing you do Christmas cards or Mhmm.
Stuff like that.
Lillyan: Yes. Yeah. There is a lot of seasonal work like Christmas cards. That usually starts up right around some it’s usually around Thanksgiving, but this year actually started in October.
Peter: Oh.
Lillyan: Yeah. Wow. I should say last year,
Peter: not this Yeah. Yeah. Of course. So let me ask you this. What is of all the types of businesses you work with, like, what’s your favorite type of organization or favorite type of work that you do get to do?
Or do you just like at all?
Lillyan: I like oh, man. This is a hard question. Because there are things I like about different types of things.
Peter: Tell me more.
Lillyan: So my favorite thing is gonna be designing logos, because then you get to try out all these different combinations of fonts and colors and like, okay, what is it gonna look like if I draw this on over here versus that over there? And so I feel like I get to be my most creative when I’m doing something like a logo design Mhmm. Or if I’m doing something for a business that, you know, they’re they need a branded look. Like, they don’t already have branding in place. That’s what I like is being able to establish the brand of a company.
Peter: So maybe some colors.
Lillyan: Mhmm. Textures. What type of imagery are we using? Exactly.
Peter: Is it modern, retro?
Lillyan: Yeah. That’s the kind of stuff that I love doing. Now with that being said, I also do a lot of booklet type work where you’re doing a lot of pages where everything has similar formatting, yet you wanna discover something new on each page. Right? And sometimes those types of projects can be pretty fun too.
Peter: Yeah. That sounds pretty involved. Sounds expensive.
Lillyan: Yeah. Can be.
Peter: That’s cool. That’s cool. So is there one customer that just kinda stands out in your mind that you feel like the work you did with them just really had an impact on them? And Yes. You just saw them?
Lillyan: Edmunds Food Bank. Yeah. So we love the Edmunds Food Bank.
Peter: Sure. Absolutely.
Lillyan: Yes. Watched them grow. So they had a huge transitioning period where Okay. When COVID hit and, like, everything went to, oh, now you have to have your website perfect, and they had ordering on the website, and then they would fulfill the orders when you drive up. And became this whole process where we had to streamline everything very quickly.
They had already been our client for many years. Sure.
Peter: Prior to
Lillyan: that, we’ve helped them with several logo designs for like their the toy collection part.
Peter: Mhmm.
Lillyan: There’s been different projects that we’ve done, but we love the Edmunds Food Bank. Mhmm. I mean, they do the empty bowl event every year Yeah. And we always sponsor doing in kind work for them. Yeah.
But
Peter: That’s awesome.
Lillyan: They’re a great nonprofit.
Peter: Yeah. And with COVID, as I recall, like, pre COVID, they were like a drive up and you could and their clients could sort of shop or they could get what they needed, but then during COVID or then you had to have it where it was completely contact free.
Lillyan: Right. Right. They’ve had to basically, like, reinvent themselves several times now because of the changes and policies and all that stuff. And like right now, they’re actually working on a campaign to raise enough funds to build a new building.
Peter: Oh, wow. Yeah. So right now, they’re at the United Methodist Mhmm. Church in Edmonds. Yeah.
Yeah. Wow. That’s cool. That’s a great story. I’m that’s really glad to hear that.
Yeah. You you just see it’s fun when you see when we’ve been in business as long as we have. We just blinked it now. Here it is ten years later or more. Little businesses, we’ve worked with a couple clients since 2012.
Lillyan: Mhmm.
Peter: And here we are twelve years later, before I had an office working out of my home. Twelve years later, they’ve grown from employees to like three x and two locations. Right? It’s like, wow. You kinda feel like you’ve had a little part of it
Lillyan: Mhmm.
Peter: Which kinda makes you feel good as well. Right? Even though Yeah. You’re sort of behind the scenes and.
Lillyan: Yeah. I’ve seen the same thing with some of my clients where I’ve started out working with them when they’re with one company. Yeah. And then they sometimes will hop to a bigger company.
Peter: Oh, yeah.
Lillyan: And then all of a sudden, they’re raising up in the ranks, and now they’re overseeing several locations. Yeah. And it’s like just watching my clients grow Yeah. It’s great to see that happen.
Peter: Totally. I get it. I really agree with you there. So what what’s next for the branding iron?
Lillyan: Oh, that’s a hard question. I mean, we’re just gonna keep doing what we’re doing and
Peter: Yeah. Isn’t print gonna die? Just kidding.
Lillyan: You know, it’s funny because when we were first opening our business Yeah. I actually worried about that. Like, with the digital age, are we going to be a business that can sustain this? Yeah. And now the longer we’ve been in business, the more I’ve realized that no, it’s never gonna die.
People are always going to need things printed. Yeah. And as technology changes, I mean, we’re we’re it’s we’re just gonna be a part of that.
Peter: It’s all about communicating and marketing and branding. Yeah.
Lillyan: And it’s also important to diversify yourself too.
Peter: Mhmm. Hear hear.
Lillyan: Yeah. Being able to go into the online world and
Peter: Yeah.
Lillyan: Do the online ads and the Yeah. Website work and Alright.
Peter: Yeah. So you’re gonna start doing TikTok ads?
Lillyan: Nope. Just I stay away from social media.
Peter: Okay.
Lillyan: I will create ads that people can post on their social media, but I do not manage social media accounts. Yeah. I stay away from that because I don’t wanna go there.
Peter: Right. Yeah. Biz marketing. Yep. Look us up.
Lily, this has been amazing. Thank you for the conversation today. I’m sure we missed a whole bunch. At least this was a good start, so thanks a lot. Thanks for listening to this episode of Biz and Life Done Well with Peter Wilson.
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