AI has revolutionized what’s possible for branding and marketing small and medium sized businesses. It’s become an administrative assistant and a content generator, a brainstorm partner and a research assistant. It can crawl millions of websites and provide business solutions to real-world problems in seconds. So, if you’ve started reading this expecting me to tell you not to use AI, I’m going to disappoint you. I think AI has enormous power, and I expect that learning how to incorporate its benefits while minimizing the unintended consequences will be the test of an entire population for decades to come.

Branding lessons from an inspirational trip overseas.

For the first time since I opened the proverbial doors to Doodling Pandas several years ago, I took two whole weeks off to explore a few of the many places on my travel bucket list. While I was successful at creating a wall between myself and my inbox for those two weeks, I didn’t completely break away from work. Rather, this exploratory time afforded me space to experience and absorb the creative inspiration that overflows in spaces outside my small circle of the world.

Here are some of the creative lessons I took away from a beautiful trip abroad.

There’s something noble about the DIY spirit in small business. Bootstrapping, learning as you go, and trying to save money wherever possible are hallmarks of getting businesses up and running, and I credit them for catalyzing a profound amount of growth in a business’s beginning stages. There usually comes a tipping point in the journey, though, where the DIY mindset stops serving you and your brand. The time spent on tasks for which you are NOT an expert costs you more than you stand to gain by redirecting your focus in the places where you shine. Let’s unpack the research on how DIY efforts in branding and marketing can hinder growth, and what to focus on instead.