By: Rebecca Alwine

Two entrepreneurs gave their brand a refresh to align their sassy business personality with an evolving vision.

Owners Shiang-Ling Bissonnette and Miranda Perales make up the dynamic duo behind The Hive & Co, a company that provides consultation services to small businesses. The team of two—both military spouses—joined forces after recognizing they each had skill sets that could balance each other out to make a strong partnership. Bissonnette brings the creative side, while Perales has an extensive background in marketing.

“We have different strengths that complement each other,” Bissonnette said. “Miranda specializes in SEO, but handles a lot of our content and web design, while I am the creative design side.”

As different as their crafts may be, the women share several commonalities in their personal lives. Currently, both have young children; Perales has her B.A. in Marketing, which is what Bissonnette is studying; and both are married to U.S. service members, a shared experience that emphasizes commitment to the team.

“Being associated with the military gives you a deeper meaning of relationships,” Bissonnette said. “We look out for each other, even if we just met, and we do what we can to help one another achieve.”

Rebranding When the Brand Vision Changes

Recently, The Hive & Co decided they needed to rebrand their business, even though they weren’t quite a year old.

“We felt that we had grown and evolved so much as a business,” Bissonnette said. “We immediately started partnering with clients and handling their marketing, which helped us to realize that we had much bigger goals and aspirations for the businesses than when we started.”

Their plan was to expand the brand to fit a new vision they had developed in those early months. The Hive & Co implements rebranding strategies for their clients, but they found doing it for themselves to be easier. Through their own entrepreneurship experience, they know how busy business owners can be, so it makes getting to know the personality of the company tricky.

“We think the brand should reflect the owner, so when we have a new branding client, we want to get to know them and their business as much as we can to create an effective brand,” she said.

Bissonette added that her company faced a unique difficulty while rebranding because they knew the final product would be reflective of their abilities and skills.

Business Resolutions for the New Year

Resolutions are not reserved solely for individuals or personal goal setting. The Hive & Co founders are using the change of the calendar year to reflect on achievements and game plan areas for improvement.

“We have so many ideas and aspirations,” Bissonnette said. “One thing we like to do is look back at the prior year and what we didn’t do that great, and then we make that a goal for the next year.”

“Setting goals is easy; prioritizing the goals is the hard part,” she explained.

The Hive & Co offers a few tips for refreshing a business in 2017, with a focus on web functionality, social media, and SEO:

  • Make sure your website is easy to use and clients can find what they are looking for quickly.
  • Social media is a must! Be genuine when interacting via these platforms.
  • SEO may be a pain, but people need to be able to find you in order for your business to grow.