I Changed My Name: My Brand Story

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Table of Contents

Podcast Description

After almost two years of pivoting my business, I’ve finally changed my name. My brand name that is. So let me officially introduce you to Cheers to Productivity!

In this episode, I’m taking you on a quick journey on how I ended up here, why this change is so special and what this means for you as a Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast listener.

Links Referenced in this Episode:

▶ Ep. 43: Answering the Question: What If I Started My Business Over?

▶ Graphic Designer: Deanna Seymour

▶ Submit a question or topic for the podcast

Connect with me:

Website | Instagram

Episode Transcript

(Note: This is a formatted AI-generated transcript to make it easier for you to read through, but is not an optimized blog post. Please excuse any spelling or grammar errors and filler words – it’s just how I speak LOL)

Episode Intro

After almost two years of pivoting my business, I finally changed my name. My brand name that is, not my actual name. So, let me officially introduce you to Cheers to Productivity.

In this episode, I’m taking you on a quick journey on how I ended up here, why this change is so special and what it means for you as a Cheerful Productive Chats podcast listener. Are you ready? Let’s dive in!

Hey, I’m Lucy Reyes, your host of the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast, where I’m on a mission to help online entrepreneurs like you focus on all the right things and kiss overwhelm goodbye. Here, you’re going to learn strategies that will boost your productivity so that you can scale your online biz and impact lives sooner. It’s your time to shine so let’s get started!

My Brand Story

Hey, Hey, welcome back to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast. I’m so excited because I have changed my name and I am so excited that I get to operate under this new name.

I think this is the first episode that I’ve released after my domain name has changed and I’m talking about my domain name and I’m not talking about my actual name.

The Pivot

But my domain name has changed from Cheers to Blogging, to Cheers to Productivity, which is probably not surprising because you’re here listening to this productive, productivity, uh, podcast.

And if you’re a follower, if you’ve been following me for a while, then you know, that is actually what I do to teach right now. But if you’ve stuck around for years, then, you know that my name is, that’s not where I started.

I started helping bloggers get started with blogging. I started out as a blogger myself with my mom blog, which is still alive to this day, I still have my email list over there. I don’t write as many blog posts as I would like to, but that brand is still living and breathing and generating passive income.

And so I have transitioned into this space. I went into the helping bloggers niche. a while after that. And then I went on a really long break.

So I got pregnant with my daughter and I had, that was after I quit my corporate job. And I could not work while I was pregnant. She sucked every ounce of energy out of me, which I was not expecting because when I was pregnant with my son, that was a whole different experience. And I thought I had this one in the bag and I didn’t.

So I ended up taking a long break, like at eight months, a break from the business before actually came back and didn’t feel aligned with what I was teaching previously, it just didn’t feel right.

And so for a long time, you know, I was just thinking like, well, I don’t know what it is that I’m supposed to be talking about or teaching or whatever. Like I just don’t know, but all I do know is that I don’t feel aligned.

And so that is when I pivoted, when I finally figured it out that what I love and have been teaching on my mom blog is time management. And now I wanted to help productivity and organization and systems and everything to business owners. And so I made the pivot. I made the change.

Changing My Brand Name

I changed my branding, my messaging everywhere, except for the name. The name was like too big of a deal to change for me.

I was really scared to pull the plug because changing the name means a whole bunch of other things, right? Like it’s causing so many things to break, which I’m still in the process of updating and fixing all of the stuff that hasn’t been redirected, that I have to like manually go and update, like my Instagram handle, which has changed now as well.

So be sure to follow my new Instagram handle. It’s @cheerstoproductivity. If you go to @cheerstoblogging at the time of recording this, it is still not working. I am trying to recreate a new account to redirect people to my new one, but that hasn’t happened yet.

So there’s like so many things that would happen if I changed my name. And so I just kept operating under the Cheers to Blogging name. But that didn’t feel right either. That didn’t feel aligned either.

And I knew it for, I think I’ve been doing this for over two years now and I didn’t feel that it was a big deal in the beginning. And then I felt like, okay, like, I can feel how it is probably turning some of my, uh, potential clients and students away because they think I only help bloggers.

But it still didn’t feel like a big enough deal for me to actually change it. And then, you know, in the past few episodes, I’m talking about the Make Your Mark Live conference that I went to.

And in the previous episode, I teased about my brand changing in some way. And that is kind of where it really, like there was a little light bulb in my hand that I was like, oh my gosh, like this is actually holding me back more than I know, more than I realized.

I didn’t realize how much my old name was holding me back from doing certain things.

The Story Behind My Brand Name

And that is really kind of what I want to talk about today, along with giving you an intro of like this brand of mine, because like I’ve never actually talked about how I even came up with the name because the name change isn’t that big of a difference.

I went from Cheers to Blogging, to Cheers to Productivity, and I always knew that was going to be the name. I’ve had this domain name for a while. I’ve re-directed it to my old site name.

And I realize I haven’t even shared publicly, like why everything I do is centered around this “cheers to” notion, which if you’re a longtime listener, or even if you’re brand new to me, then it might start to become obvious, right?

Like my brand name is Cheers to Productivity. The podcast name is Cheerful Productive Chats.

Um, I host a summit every year, every two years now. Well, I’m actually hosting my second one. Okay. But I plan on hosting it annually and that one is called the Cheers to Planning Summit.

I also hosted a bundle last year was the Cheerful Content Marketing Bundle. I have my mom blog, which is like the actual original brand of mine. That’s where I started and that one is Cheers to Life Blogging.

And this “cheers to” has a very significant story for me, and it’s why my whole brand is centered around it. It’s the story behind the logo and that’s kind of what I want to share about. So, “cheers” is very special to us. We cheers every night in our household.

Since my son was little, we go around the table, like we eat dinner together as a family and before we get our own dinner, we’ll all cheers to something good that happened in the day. And we do this because we’re trying to show gratitude.

Like our days could have gone amazing or our days could have been pretty crappy, but either way, we are alive and that’s how the original name came from, like cheers to life. Right? Like even if we had the worst day possible, well, we’re still alive, right?

So we would cheers to life. Like if we had a bad day, then we would cheers to life. So that was kind of how that original name came from. And then every other brand I’ve had stemmed from that.

So we would go around the table, each one of us would cheers with our, you know, my son would cheers with his cup, my husband, and I would choose with like, whatever we’re drinking too, which is usually like juice or tea.

And now my daughter who’s two, she also cheers. So she cheers with her little sippy cup and she learned the word “cheers” very, very early, because that is what we do.

The Logo

And so I also never really liked my logo. I created it in Canva. I’m like, it was just something that he put together quickly years ago. And it was two wine glasses clinking cause that’s, you know what you think about when you cheers, but I mean, I love wine, but I rarely drink it.

What I’m always drinking from is my tumbler. I don’t really even drink from like The coffee mugs that are open because the coffee gets cold really fast. And so I usually have my tumbler, like that is what I have every single day. And that is really what I wanted. I knew I wanted it to be a tumbler instead of a wine glass.

And then I just didn’t know what I wanted to be cheers, like cheering too. And so I was stuck on that for a really long time, and I didn’t realize that that is what was keeping me stuck from actually changing my name. And I think it was because, well, it’s like, if I’m going to change my domain name, I might as well change my logo.

Right. Like, I didn’t like my logo. Like I said, I created it really fast in Canva years ago. And now I’m really excited that it’s like, it feels really good.

So I felt like it deserved its own podcast episode to really explain the name, the reasoning behind the name, and just give you an inside, you know, backstory of how this brand even came about because I haven’t done that yet.

And I think that if you do have some sort of special story behind your brand name, It really helps you stay excited and stay really passionate about your brand and feel aligned with it because I was trying to figure out, like, do I want Cheers to Productivity, or do I want to go with my name or something else?

And I just, it always came back to that story, like, well, I have an actual story of why it’s cheers to something. And so I, this is what I came up with. I was like, Nope, we’re sticking to the Cheers to Productivity.

The thing that I didn’t realize though, was how the staying with the Cheers to Blogging name for so long was holding me back from doing so many things that I didn’t know, it was actually holding me back from.

So I kind of started realizing that, well, my name is actually not attracting all of the types of people that I can help. Like I can help bloggers, but I help way more than bloggers. And I actually did an audience survey recently where I had the multiple choice, like “which one do you resonate with the most? Are you a blogger? Are you a content creator? Are you a course creator? Small digital products creator? Service provider?”

And the majority of my audience is actually not a blogger, which I was surprised by, but not too surprised by because that’s not all who I help.

But I did start asking some of my past students and say, Hey, did my brand name of Cheers to Blogging, and I know they weren’t bloggers, did it actually hold you back from purchasing from me? And some of them said yes, in the beginning. And then they realized like, oh no, she actually helps.

Right, but that takes a little bit more nurturing. Like that’s, it takes a little bit more for someone to get comfortable and realize like, oh, like you actually can help me. I thought you just helped bloggers. And I started realizing that a couple months ago and I’m like, hmm, I should probably really like get working on this.

And I still didn’t do anything. I still didn’t do it because I was really stuck on the logo. Like I did not know what I wanted for the logo. And I had tried working with a graphic designer previously and trying to brainstorm and we couldn’t figure it out. So I just scrapped the whole project.

And then out of nowhere, like after this event, my husband gave me the greatest idea and I was like, you should cheers to an hourglass with time at the top. And I was like, oh my goodness. Like, we have talked about this before. Like, where was this idea before? And I rode with it.

I knew exactly who I wanted as my graphic designer. I booked the call and she got started on it the week after. And here we are. So it is. It is amazing. I absolutely love my logo.

If you are listening to this, like while driving or anything, like later, go to the show notes and click the link to go look at this beautiful logo by this amazing graphic designer, Deanna Seymour, who I’m going to link to as well, because I highly, highly recommend.

But it is a beautiful message all captured into this logo where it’s the tumbler cheering with the hourglass. Most of the time is at the top of the hour glass. And there is a dollar sign at the top because something that I always say is that I want to help you give you more time in your day, and with more time in your day, you can earn more profits. Time is money. We’ve heard this before.

And so the more time you have the more money you can make, and that is really what I want to help you with this brand. And so I really, really love the logo. The little clink at the top. There’s five lines. And so that’s another like little personal message thrown in there.

That was my husband’s idea where the original draft had four little lines for the clink, and then he was like, can she make it five? Because we know eventually we want to have another child. I’m not quite there yet. My daughter is a handful, but it’s in the plan. Like we want to have one more. And so that would be like the whole family. So I was like, okay, cool.

So it’s like this whole beautiful, like story just captured in this one image. And so if you whenever you can, like, I definitely like want to brag about it. And go look at it is amazing, but that is like the message behind this logo.

My Old Branding Was Holding Me Back

And what, I just didn’t realize what it was holding me back from as I started putting the idea together and reaching out to the graphic designer, and attending this conference in Dallas, I realized I didn’t even want to print out like business cards.

Because I didn’t want the people at the conference to associate with me as someone who teaches bloggers, just bloggers and not like who they were, who their audience was, which is, a variety of different types of online business owners.

And so I didn’t realize it was going to do have that effect on me. I also haven’t gone On other people’s podcasts to like guest on. And I feel like part of it was because, you know, at the end you get to say, yeah, Where they can find you. And it’s like, well, where can you find me? Oh, well you can find me at @cheerstoblogging and then that would instantly tell someone like, oh, she’s just for bloggers. Right.

And so I felt like it wouldn’t be the best use of my time because they would instantly think that I can’t help them.

And so I didn’t realize it was holding me back from doing that. And another thing was, I know that I can probably expand onto LinkedIn. It’s something that I haven’t really thought about, because again, I was like, I don’t want to go and create a profile on LinkedIn to help bloggers like Cheers to Blogging. Like they’re not going to head over to that.

You know, there’s a whole different type of audience on LinkedIn. And so it held me back from doing that even though, I know that a lot of my audience actually does hang out on LinkedIn. And so it all started coming together where I was like, I really need to get the ball rolling on this. And so here I am.

What This Means For You

This episode is going out literally just a few days after I received the logo back and I have made the change. I am still working on some backend changes. All of the links from the previous podcast episodes are redirecting to the new domain.

So there’s nothing really that you need to do, except if you go back and listen to a previous episode and I, you know, say to follow me or tag me on Instagram, @cheerstoblogging, well, that is not the case.

Everything has changed to Cheers to Productivity. And if you do find anywhere like on an email or on a website or something where it’s still directing you to my old brand, then definitely reach out to me and let me know, because I am sure that I’m going to miss a couple of places.

Like this was a, not a spur of the moment type of thing, but it kind of was where it’s like, okay, I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do this now. I got the logo back and I made the change.

And I didn’t really like draft my plan like I normally do. Like I made a little plan, but I didn’t take as much time to like think through but I was just too excited to like, hold on to the logo and not change.

And then also, because at the conference, I made so many connections. So many guests that are going to be coming onto the podcast in the next few weeks and months. And I really wanted to have my new brand name so that way their audience can also resonate with it. And so I was like, it was, it just needed to be done fast.

And that is why I also love and teach flexible planning, because you don’t always have to get super rigid. You don’t always have to get super nitty gritty with everything and you have to take action. Right? You have to do the thing.

And so that’s kind of what I want to end this episode here with you today, because it’s really different than my other episodes, where I’m usually sharing, like takeaways and tips and advice and everything in this one is a very much about the change and why he did it.

So hopefully you’re still finding it valuable. But it’s really one of those where it’s like, I wanted to share the news, share why I did it. And come on and tell you a little bit more of like the backstory of how it all came about.

And so, yeah, like that is what I’m going to end up with here. What this means for you is that my new handle has changed. That’s basically it.

Everything else has been redirected. So if you find me on Pinterest, then all of those links have been redirected. My older show notes links have been redirected. I will be changing some links in some places as I can. It’s not a priority to be honest because they are redirecting at least to the right place.

But if you do hear anywhere where I say, come follow me at cheerstoblogging or whatever, just know that I has changed to, Cheers to Productivity. And if you do find anything that’s broken, then please let me know.

Like I said, I probably, have not fixed it yet. Like, I am still working through my list of where to look at things and I’m sure I’m going to miss some places. So if you find anything, then just come, let me know.

Episode Wrap-Up

But definitely come follow me on Instagram, especially if you haven’t yet. Come give the algorithm vibes, good vibes, after my name change, I think that will definitely help it know like, okay, she’s still relevant. It’s still fine. So come follow me @cheerstoproductivity and send me a dm and let me know what you thought about this episode. I would absolutely love it to hear from you.

Thank you so much for listening to the Cheerful Productive Chats with me at Lucy Reyes. To view the transcript and all the links mentioned in today’s episode, visit the link in the show notes. And before you go, make sure you follow or subscribe wherever you’re listening so you know once the next productive chat is released. Talk soon and cheers to your productivity and success!