Birthing Brands That Are Whatever You Want Them To Be with BWB
EXPERT INTERVIEW
I have the biggest LOVE for BWB.
Their team is full of warm, glowing, powerful examples of embodied leadership and care that I just haven’t seen very many places. Casey and Cait have been my colleagues and friends for years and every project we work on together is full of passion and next level powerful clients who are brining a new perspective to their industries and creating a new kind of leadership that is inclusive, full of rest and impactful (stay tuned for some of these projects coming to the gallery in a few months).
I’m so excited for this interview to inspire you in how you can lead your business differently, especially if you lead an agency or a larger team. These women are next level space holders and retreat hosts as well so I couldn’t recommend their experiences enough!
And now let’s get to the interview (yay!):
Tell us about what you do through your business:
BWB doesn’t manufacture brands, we midwife them. We offer a holistic, transformational branding approach to unpack and apply feminist principles in your marketing and business development. Our services include brand development, storytelling, visibility, thought leadership, and visual branding. We offer custom packages, group programs, and creative experiences.
BWB is owned and founded by two women, Casey Carroll and Caitlin Fitzpatrick, committed to advancing female-led and equity-focused businesses.
What's happening in your business that you're excited about?
We are excited about launching our new group program, The Midwifery Experience. It has long been a dream of ours to combine our most potent strategic exercises and intentional creative practices into a group container of super high value and an approachable price point.
We are celebrating that our first cohort kicks off on October 5th, with an interesting list already growing for our 2023 cohort dates!
Rooted in our belief in the power of immersive group experiences to drive change, we designed a program with enough critical inquiry, creative fire, loving community, and anti-patriarchy venom to truly midwife new possibilities for your business.
In a supportive group of peers, we'll call ourselves and each other into greater alignment by investigating the conscious, and unconscious, ways our brands are showing up. Together, we’ll take a holistic look at our brand's image, communications, business practices, and marketing efforts as active areas for re-imagining “business as usual.” We’ll explore feminist principles and alternative pathways to achieve business results without compromising our values, or reinforcing the status quo.
We will be holding space for discussion and discovery, and DOING THE WORK. At BWB, process and product are not mutually exclusive. In addition to the bonds you’ll form and insights you’ll gain, you’ll walk away with a crystal clear 2023 growth plan and map to further integrate your vision for change and impact.
What do you do as an agency to help your clients find clarity?
We call ourselves an agency not because we’re a typical agency, but because we explicitly center personal agency in our client relationships and creative processes. We have found that approaching our work through this lens, sets up a baseline of clarity due to the way it honors the client, decentralizes the power dynamic, and cultivates an environment of choice. Beyond this, we have many different tools to cultivate clarity, ranging from improv exercises to customized rituals and visual note taking.
Our Questions to Hold practice is one of our most powerful contemplative tools for increasing clarity. Rather than tell clients what to do as a way to deliver clarity, we guide them to their own clarity through the practice of holding questions - questions that can open us to curiosity, deeper thought, new possibilities and realities, and our own truths.
We created a Questions to Hold deck to serve as a companion on the journey for many of our clients, and are excited to be expanding this project in 2023. You can learn more about the practice and buy the deck here.
What do you do as an agency when you need to find clarity?
Rest, go for a walk, or spend time in nature.
What is your favorite way to celebrate accomplishments?
As a remote team, it is really important for us to get together for in-person team meet ups to celebrate accomplishments, support one another, and simply be together.
To celebrate the accomplishments of our clients, we love sending meaningful gifts and also identifying ways to uplift and honor them, whether that is a special celebration phone call, a love blast email, or a simple postcard in the mail.
How do you know when you are clear?
It is a felt sense, a way our body lets us know that we are clear. Our spine feels straight, our shoulders back, our mind calm, and energy expansive.
Do you have any tools you love that support you in finding clarity in moments of uncertainty?
Yes! We love helpful tools like budget trackers and financial reports or project management software, such as monday.com. These operational tools can provide lots of clarity in moments of uncertainty.
We also love tools like taking deep breaths, going for long walks, turning off screens, and spending a week listening to nature.
Then there are also tools like Marco Polo that we love to use to stay connected with folks that help anchor us, and as a way to record and listen to ourselves.
We love bringing in partners and collaborating with others who can help facilitate clarity when we’re in moments of uncertainty.
What do you want most people to know about Branding and Messaging?
That is can be whatever the fuck you want it to be!
How do you make/find ease when you need it?
We find ease by staying in alignment with our values.
Where do most people get stuck when it comes to building an authentic brand?
We find a lot of people get stuck in the “shoulds,” “right” way to do things, or comparisons to others. Permission and self trust is huge here, and so is what we call the “unpacking to package up” part of the process. If we don’t take time to unpack our identities and understand how they intersect with our brand, then we stay stuck in the conditioning and continue to perpetuate systems and beliefs that make us all stuck.
What is inspiring you right now?
The surrender of the season. Hello, Fall!
What are you looking forward to changing in your industry?
BWB is not here to follow the leader. We are here to lead. We believe that business can be a force for exponential good, and has the potential for large scale, radical change. This is why we chose to become business owners.
We are changing the approach to branding and marketing to consider, include, and care about people and the collective.
Formulas and status quo strategies are the drivers of growth in today’s marketing communications landscape. It is time to take a critical look at the repercussions, and understand why the industry continues to replicate dominant ideologies. BWB was formed to do exactly that, unpacking the social and cultural impacts of branding and marketing, and liberating our ideas, and each other.
We Are BWB
If you want to chat more with BWB’s team about this article you can connect with them on Instagram at:
https://www.instagram.com/we.are.bwb/
And you can visit their website: https://www.wearebwb.com
If you’re interested in the midwifery program that starts in a few days you can learn more at this link
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