29: Personal Branding for People Who Don't Have Their Shit Together with Tori Sprankel
Your brand kit is probably overpriced fluff, you definitely don't need a logo to start making money, and other burning hot takes
I don't know who needs to hear this, but if you've been sitting on your business idea because you don't have a logo, this episode is your intervention.
In this week's episode, I sat down with my good friend Tori Sprankel — brand and website designer, cool mom whisperer, and the person who makes every project we collaborate on look significantly sexier. And she's about to blow your mind with some industry tea that'll save you thousands of dollars and months of overthinking.
Tori works with what I call "cool moms" (and I don't know if they're inherently cool or if Tori just makes them look cool, but every single client of hers is iconic). She's also got one of the strongest brands I've ever seen when it comes to attracting the right people, so when she says most businesses are overthinking their visual identity, I listen.
We're talking about why your business might not need a logo, what brand elements you DO need, and how to show up consistently without losing your damn mind.
Rapid-Fire Squirrel Brain Questions
Here's what we learned about Tori in her round of squirrel brain questions:
If she could gather "nuts" like a squirrel: Shark's teeth and seashells (her husband would say jackets because she always comes home from thrift stores with them).
If her brain had a pop-up ad: Flight alerts. Forever and always. They never pick vacations based on location — it's whatever discounted or mistake fare pops up in 90 days.
If her life came with a warning label: "This is temporary" (in a positive way). She and her husband are both from military families, so they get itchy after living somewhere for three years.
What she'd win an Olympic gold medal for: Girl dinner mastery. (Her secret weapon is millennial nachos.)
Something she thought she'd have figured out by now: That she can do whatever the fuck she wants. She still forgets sometimes that she's in her mid-thirties and can grab a Snickers at the grocery store, skip work for the day, or eat ice cream at 3 PM.
Her walkout song: "Paper Planes" by M.I.A.
Some People Don't Need a Logo (A Designer Said It)
As someone who works in brand design, Tori’s got some strong opinions about what's necessary versus what's just designer ego.
"The deliverables that come with my industry are so inflated sometimes. I think it's a lot of times maybe even the ego of the designer more so than what the needs of the client is."
She's talking about those massive brand kits that come with seven different logo variations, patterns nobody will ever use, and enough "brand elements" to make your head spin.
Most of it is just fluff, according to Tori. Expensive fluff that you'll never touch again after downloading.
She even said that not every business needs a logo and gave us a makeup analogy to explain:
"When I go out to feel put together, I don't put on a full face of makeup. I put on blush, I make sure I have earrings on, I make sure I have my necklace on, and either my hair is somewhat brushed or I put a cap on."
She doesn't need everything to feel put together when she walks out the door, and your business doesn't need a full brand kit to look legitimate either.
The thing is, marketing has changed. We're not building corporate empires here — we're building personal brands.
And for personal brands, especially ones that live primarily on social media, your vibe matters way more than your logo.
Think about it: when was the last time you saw someone's logo? I don’t even know what most of my successful business owner friends' logos look like!
If your main marketing happens on Instagram and you're selling through a link in bio, the visual consistency of your colors and fonts in your stories and reels is enough.
What matters more is how you're showing up in your content, what's in your carousels, what your video backgrounds look like, and — most importantly — your messaging and point of view.
I’ve got a hint of blue and coastal vibes in everything. Tori's super cool and aesthetically pleasing while being in the margins of motherhood.
Those are our brands, not our logos.
What Brand Elements You Really Need
Okay, so if logos are optional and most brand kits are marshmallow fluff, what do you need to look cohesive and put-together online?
Tori breaks it down to the essentials:
Visual consistency. Pick your ride-or-die font and colors for Instagram stories and stick with them. Tori uses a light green-yellow color sometimes, I’ve got my blue everywhere. When people land on our stories, they should know what to expect visually.
One solid carousel template. Not a hundred-pack of Canva templates you'll never use. One template you can use month after month that feels like you.
A handful of colors. Six at most. These become your visual guardrails for everything from sales pages to email templates.
Content corners. Tori has specific places in her home where she consistently shoots content: her mirror for selfies, her Kindle on the bed, her dining room table by the fiddle leaf fig.
The point is that you don't need to show every corner of your life. Tori's garage gym is a "gymnastics takeover mess" thanks to her kids, so it's an unreliable narrator for her personal brand. She can't count on it to be consistent when she feels pressure to show up.
Also, drop the expectation that everything has to be Pinterest-perfect. My brand for years was literally my fucking ugly ass office in bum fuck Canada with my rat's nest bun. It worked because it was consistent and authentically mine.
One day Xanthe visited my apartment and walked around asking, "Why haven't you posted this? Why haven't you posted that?"
Sometimes you need a second set of eyes to realize your life isn't as boring as you think.
Why Specificity Is the Secret to Relatability
People hear about the importance of relatability and immediately think, "Nothing's relatable about me. I'm boring."
They think they have to manufacture reasons to be relatable instead of just getting specific about what they're already doing.
Well, the good news is that being relatable is easy. All you have to do is get more specific.
The specificity formula:
"I love Diet Coke" = boring vs. "I love a crispy 2 PM Diet Coke" = suddenly relatable
"I love Taylor Swift" = so does everyone vs. "I actually die thinking about how much I cried during Long Live at the Eras Tour" = now we can relate
Give people just 10% more detail and suddenly you don't have to work so hard at being relatable.
I tell my students all the time that people will lose their minds if someone says, "I hate purple." One commenter is gonna be like "fuck you, I love purple" and another will reply, "I've been waiting for someone to say this, I hate purple too."
When it comes to relatability, it doesn't matter what you say, as long as you say something and have a stance on it.
Tori adds the perfect perspective here:
"It may not be that every single person relates to your 2 PM Diet Coke. It's more like the ritual of taking a break and that first sip of your favorite drink."
That's the magic of specificity — it makes your general experiences feel personal and relatable, even when the details don't match someone's exact life.
Instagram vs. Website First
And here's where Tori and I have our biggest disagreement of the episode (and prove we can be friends even when we don't see eye to eye on business strategy).
Tori's case for Instagram first:
She knows a lot of people can't afford a website initially, and Instagram is free. Take our mutual client Rachel from Hey Sleepy Baby, who grew to 120,000 followers and DIY'd a Squarespace website years after building her audience on Instagram.
Tori thinks there's learning and growing that needs to happen to become a confident personal brand before investing in branding and websites. You can spend six months going ham on Instagram, growing your audience, and figuring out your thing — all for free.
Plus, people need credibility built socially first. "You can't throw a link in bio and expect people to buy right away," especially when people barely follow accounts without vanity metrics.
Her order of operations: Instagram first, then copywriting, then brand design and web design and photography all at the same time so they can work together.
My case for foundation over following:
I always say "choose your foundation over your following" and often discourage people from starting with Instagram because they might get bummed out and quit their business entirely.
It takes a fucking long time to grow on Instagram. People assume it's easy because they only hear success stories, not the reality of posting every day for months with 100 followers.
I myself didn't start Instagram until I’d been in business for a year, and even then, I got my initial boost from a Facebook follow train (which nobody does anymore) and Clubhouse connections (RIP Clubhouse era).
Where we agree:
Both of us think you shouldn't invest in professional copywriting, branding, or web design until you know who you are as a business.
I made $140,000 her first year without hiring anyone. Tori built her own website at 2 AM while feeding her newborn. You don't need to hire professionals right away, but you do need to know yourself before you invest.
The compromise:
Tori's new link-in-bio freebie through Showit — basically a mini website that gives you the best of both worlds. You get your own domain and a branded setup without the full website investment, perfect for people building on Instagram who need a foundation too.
Point of the Story
Whatever you've got going on, you're not boring. You're interesting, period. Your job isn't to be something people have never seen before — it's to be relatable, specific, and consistently you.
Tori Links
Follow Tori on Instagram
Check out her website
Check out Eldest Daughter Studio for her website templates (which include my website copy templates! Discount Code: BTLCOPY)
Check out her freebies and resources (including the Link in Bio freebie)
Grab her free IG carousel templates
Join the waitlist: BTL Copy x Eldest Daughter Studio
Tori’s walkout song
BTL Links
Use code "MILLIONAIRE" for $100 off my website copywriting course, Site Series Sprint.
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Other Links
Clara Pierce (the influencer with the cute cutting board)
This episode was edited by Adrienne Cruz.
Eeekkkk love! Thanks for yapping with me!