Inspiring Conversations with Anne Gillaspie of Fix & Form | Strategic Branding Agency

Today we’d like to introduce you to Anne Gillaspie. She shared her story with us below:

Almost a decade ago Anne Gillaspie left her day job, managing the brand for a nationally acclaimed franchise company, and took a brief sabbatical to find her next move.

Piggy-backing on her move from Denver to Austin, she wanted to capitalize on the change of scenery for inspiration and truly find work that continued growing her professionally while also fulfilling her desire for balance as she and her husband were looking to start a family.

Little did she know how much business ownership would serve her mission and satisfy her need for decision-making and ideation in her work. Anne founded Fix & Form | Strategic Branding Agency in March of 2014, originally named AG Brand + Marketing because that’s the best she could do with limited time to hit the ground running as connections, referrals, and interest started flowing in. Anne met with new friends, past colleagues, and connections, and through relationship mastery, grew her startup “anti-agency” agency successfully within its first year in business in the booming town of Austin.

She taught branding workshops and courses within local startup incubators and at the General Assembly. As she loves teaching and inspiring while creating impactful brands, this outlet introduced her to many while also fulfilling her need to teach. Anne has now worked with countless startups and small and medium businesses, and as of this year, expanded her agency’s offerings by hiring a team of intellectuals eager to fix and form one flawless brand at a time.

Fix & Form offers deep strategy workshops to develop brand naming, identity, and formation, as well as brand refreshes, visual brand design, marketing and content strategy, website design, and organic social media management services all within approachable package bundles and ongoing subscription options.

Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Definitely not. As a business owner, learning technical skill sets to manage my website was mind-racking and kept me up some nights much later than I’d like to admit. Learning taxation for S-corporations and how to use tricks to help financially improve wasn’t something I was thrilled about.

Getting rejections from potential clients whom you thought you hit it off with a coffee feels harsh, always.

Getting taken advantage of with time, and offering it willingly, without being paid because I didn’t see the warning signs until I had given too much and burned a relationship. All things that business ownership challenged me with, some days, making it feel so hard that I did think to just apply for a day job and be “owned” again so I didn’t have to look at or think about the problem in front of me again.

Imposter syndrome is something we talk about often in business ownership, where you don’t feel like you’re qualified to be doing what you’re doing and that figuring it out and endless learning is what this is about. It’s tiring but also the most rewarding!

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Fix & Form | Strategic Branding Agency?
Fix & Form is a strategic branding agency driven by a team of intellectuals eager to activate our clients’ visions and fix or form the business of their dreams. In the near decade of our existence, we’ve mastered the art of deep conversation around purpose, mission, vision, and values, telling the true story of why you’re in business doing what you do.

We fix existing brands with refreshes and form new brand identities. We offer an exceptionally comprehensive strategic branding workshop series, to create impactful brands with words, imagery, and all the necessary tools to launch. We offer human connection in holding deep relationships with our clients, collaborating transparently and honestly.

We offer brand formation and identity, brand strategy and problem-solving, visual and graphic design including logos/websites/collateral/digital assets, copywriting and content strategy, organic social media management, and marketing must-haves like blog bundles, email campaigns, and social media strategy.

Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
Mentors can be hard to come by, mainly because if you don’t already have a relationship with them, you’re trying to start and build a new friendship while also forming a mentor/mentee thing. It’s tough to do.

My advice in finding a mentor is to look to those you already have relationships with so that it is easy and established, and then seek those with traits and skills you want to learn, regardless of whether they doing what you do or even being in your same industry or role.

If you can learn something from them, just ask for guidance and if they’re up for mentoring you in that skill set or tactic.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.fixandform.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thatbrandingteam
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/fixandform
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/annegillaspie