The Brand Story of Sweaty Sisters

Meet my gorgeous and inspirational client, Bron Hadley, from Sweaty Sisters. Bron is a certified Personal Trainer, Life Coach & MP Nutrition and Strength/Conditioning Coach based in Australia NSW. And now, proud CEO of her company, supporting her growing community of menopausal women from all around the world.

Bron and I shared a mutual friend – shout out to Monique Basil-Wright from The Wright’s Stationery! Monique was in the process of designing some beautiful and bespoke planners for Bron, until she reached a stumbling point and kindly suggested that Bron needed to strengthen her brand with some more visual elements – which Monique had thoughtfully referred Bron to me to help with. 

Bron was in agreement and during our zoom meeting, she opened up and told me she was embarrassed by her current branding as it no longer aligned with who she is or where she wanted her business to be. She said she had knocked up a DIY logo in Canva, which did the job, but now she was ready to level up and on that call, she made a very bold but equally exhilarating decision to work with me then and there!

As a Brand Alchemist, I love nothing more than helping businesswomen step into their power and follow their North Star mission to become the go-to person for their niche and industry. I could see that Bron has a wonderful business and message to share with the world, and so I am going to tell you the brand story and design process of how I transformed her business with a touch of my brand magic.

The Brand Story of Sweaty Sisters

Bron created Sweaty Sisters just after she left her corporate job of just over 25 years. Bron watched her four children leave home and start their own lives, during that time, she re-married and opened a fitness studio (Clearview Gym) on the property of her new home and then boom – the dreaded menopause hit!

Suddenly, Bron had no idea who she was. She wasn’t a single mum raising four babies, she wasn’t a Senior Executive leading project teams, and she sure as hell didn’t feel like her “normal” self. Bron talked about how embarrassed she felt gaining weight, whilst coaching women on how to lose weight. Before she knew it she found herself skipping her workouts and reaching for the nearest chocolate bar and glass of wine for comfort. How could this be happening she would ask herself? Bron was now a personal trainer, running a fitness studio for goodness sake.

It seemed like menopause had started to derail her health and shatter her confidence. All her research and Google searches indicated that this was all part of going through menopause. All part of “the change” and no hope or indication that the symptoms could be improved – except managed via HRT. But Bron made it her mission to find a better and healthier solution to combat menopause.

Bron chose to embrace the change, reframe the internal dialogue, and take back control of her environment and her habits. She rediscovered herself and realised she had to stop the downward spiral one small, do-able step at a time. She focused on the things that used to light her up and committed to making small but mighty changes to things that she could control and little by little she came back to life. Bron developed strategies to manage the foggy meno-brain, she recovered her sluggish metabolism, returned to exercise (with a simplified and more effective routines that she loved), and started enjoying her meals again.

Eventually, her head started to clear, her energy returned, the extra weight started to melt off and her menopausal symptoms became lighter. Bron created a new lifestyle which has become what she now calls her ‘second spring’. Bron soon realised that she had a gift of helping women, lose weight, gain more energy and find their confidence again. Many of these women were either peri-menopausal or in the throes of menopause. Her clients have told her that she has helped them change their life, in particular the way they see themselves. She has helped them establish new habits and systems of behaviour for a healthier lifestyle.

Additionally, Bron has helped them re-connect with passions that they once loved and never thought they would be able to do again. She has shown them how to nourish their bodies both mentally and physically and how to safely move their bodies for more flexibility, strength and energy so they can continue to do the things they love. But most importantly, she has helped them love themselves and their lives – again.

Bron shortly took to the internet to search for a positive action-based group (and being unable to find one) she decided to create her own Facebook group called, The Second Spring – A Menopause Reframe and so Sweaty Sisters was born. A deliberate and fun play on words, Sweaty Sisters is a movement of women who want to live their lives to the fullest and not be defined or dragged down by the menopause narrative. Sweaty Sisters is all about feeling nourished, energised and alive so women can live a life they love.

Phase 01 Branding – Crafting The Concepts

Every brand deserves careful and thorough research. This allows me to fully understand and get under the hood for the type of client I am designing for and to successfully create a strong and aligned brand for them. For Bron’s brand, I knew it was important to craft logo concepts that would appeal to women around the ages of 45 – 55 who are either peri-menopausal or already going through menopause. The number one goal of Sweaty Sisters is to help women discover that there is more to life than being dragged down by their menopause symptoms.

Before I started crafting the three logo concepts, I like to decode my clients’ star charts, this allows me to delve deeper into what my client is all about. The stars tell me the client’s personality, core values, who their soul clients are and her north star mission – yes all of that and more! I like to focus mainly on my client’s ‘big three’ sun, rising and moon sign – Bron has her sun in Cancer, moon in Cancer and rising in Libra.

This was very interesting to me, as the Cancer sign is all about loving and nurturing energy and Bron has the same sign in her moon, which fun fact, Cancer is ruled by the moon and so there is a sense of feeling ‘at home’ around these people. With the Moon at home in the sign of Cancer, people with this sign are very in touch with the emotions of both themselves and others. They feel emotionally fulfilled when they protect, support, and nurture the people around them, as well as when their family and home matters are secure.

What’s also interesting is Bron’s rising sign is in Libra, which is how she wants her brand to show up in the world. Libra energy is all about having a fun time and being the life and soul of the party. Libra Risings are also motivated to maintain tranquillity, as they understand that life is too short to sweat the small stuff – pardon the pun! Taking all this on board, I could see I needed to build a brand around Bron’s three core values: nurturing, loving and fun!

From there, I created a mood board and sketched out a few ideas on my iPad for the logos. I always promise my branding clients three logo concepts to choose from – the third one being the wild card, meaning I create something they weren’t expecting which often has a 50/50 success rate in swaying their decision. It’s always fun to see what logo my client picks. Bron chose concept 02, with elements from concept 01 – which is totally normal and the perks of showing my client different variations of how I interpret their brief.

Phase 02 Branding – Brewing The Brand

The feedback from phase 01, was that Bron loved the overall look and feel of concept 02 – especially the bright pink colours and touches of gold which make it very feminine and classy. However, Bron was not so keen on the blocky sans-serif fonts used and fell in love with the fonts from concept 01.

I suggested that the fonts from concept 01 wouldn’t look great for concept 02’s logo, because Bron had chosen a modern look for her brand. Bron expressed to me it was the ‘S’ from concept 01 she fell in love with and loved the curves so much that it reminded her of a real womanly body. And so I agreed, the ‘S’ needed to be somehow merged into the fronts from concept 02 – which I did! And the results were beautiful.

During this phase, I was also asked by Bron to refine the brand pattern some more, because she loved how her brand pattern inspired her favourite designer pattern from the classic Louis Vuitton. She knew her ideal clients were women who take pride in their appearance and have the expendable cash to be able to treat themselves and Bron wanted her service to be a premium and luxury experience for her clients to enjoy. And so by creating a luxurious and designer-inspired brand, it would resonate and appeal to her target audience better.

One of Bron’s big goals is to create a global movement about the perception of menopause and how it can impact a woman’s life. She wants to debunk the current narrative and provide examples of women who are finding their meno-magic and creating a new narrative, the “second spring” transformation journey. In the second spring, Bron wants to help women reconnect with their lost passions (or find new ones) which will be achieved through the creation of mini-workshops, courses, cookbooks, merchandise, memberships and annual retreats to educate and support women through their journey.

So because of this, I showed Bron a few visual mock-ups I whizzed up in Photoshop of what her big visions could look like. This always gets my clients excited as it makes it feel more real for them as they watch the brand magic unfold.

Phase 03 Branding – Manifesting The Brand Guidelines

Phase 03 is all about finalising the little details and getting the logo files ready to be exported and creating my client’s brand guidelines. If you’re unfamiliar with what brand guidelines are, they are basically your brand’s bible in how to keep your brand consistent when applying it to various places for web and print. Your brand has to work a lot harder in this modern world and referring to your brand guidelines helps you do that with ease.

When I created Bron’s brand guidelines, besides explaining how to use her primary logo and submarks etc, I also included lots of information about her personal and business story as well as her core values, brand personality, vision and mission – I call this brand heart and soul.

The brand’s heart is all the visual stuff you see e.g logo, fonts, colours and patterns, whereas the brand’s soul is things you don’t necessarily see but you can feel from engaging with one’s brand e.g core values, energy, niche, vision and mission etc.

Bron’s mission is to challenge the way women think about menopause, and to explain from her personal experience – menopause is not the end of the road because of brain fog, hot sweats and meno-belly fat – it can be a new and exciting life chapter. Her purpose is to help women who are entering the “second spring” to feel nourished, energised and alive.

Extra Bolt-ons – Canva Templates

Bron added the Canva bolt-on deal to her branding package, where I create a series of social media templates inside her Canva account, which also includes training and setting up her logo files, colour swatches and fonts all inside her Canva brand kit.

As a brand designer, I love Canva and have seen a huge benefit and limitless possibilities to help my clients grow their business and visibility. Canva allows my clients to edit my creations at any time, resulting in saving time and money. I believe it’s the number one tool every business owner should invest in.

My favourite was creating her Instagram templates, which consisted of designs that educated and entertained her audience – two key things to consider when creating social media content, plus, they have the highest form of engagement.

The Transformation of Sweaty Sisters

Since the completion of Bron’s rebranding makeover, Bron has told me she feels so proud to show up in her business as her new branding has made her feel like a professional.

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