If your brand colors (or messaging) don’t spark joy, it’s time for a reboot. This week on System for Everything, I’m joined by Dakota Hersey, founder of More Than Creative. After growing a successful photography business, she’s back to her first love—helping small business owners market and sell their talents authentically.
Dakota doesn’t just design brands that look good. She helps creatives and service providers build brands that make content creation feel easy, client communication feel seamless, and the whole marketing process feel a little more like you. She’s passionate about bringing marketing back to its original purpose: to connect, communicate, and serve.
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Why So Many Creatives Feel Out of Alignment With Their Brand
One of the first signs your brand isn’t working? Marketing feels hard. You’re stuck staring at your screen, struggling to figure out what to say or how to say it. Dakota calls this out right away: when the message isn’t clear, content gets complicated.
More often than not, she says, this disconnect comes from building a brand based on trends or templates instead of truth. A lot of creatives unintentionally mimic the people they admire, starting with offers, sliding into tone of voice, and eventually waking up in a business that doesn’t even feel like theirs.
When You Don’t Know Who You Are: Start Here
Dakota’s superpower is translating “I just want it to feel like me” into a full brand identity that actually sells. But what if you’re not even sure what “me” is anymore?
That’s where her strategy shines.
She shared the story of a wedding photographer client who wanted to break into the luxury market but was afraid to share that she loved thrifting. Dakota helped her reframe that “quirk” as a strength. Thrifting became a metaphor for curation, storytelling, and intentionality—values that high-end clients actually resonate with.
The key? Finding the overlap between who you are and who you serve. You don’t have to be your ideal client. You just need a brand that connects the dots.
Your Website is Your First Salesperson
According to Dakota, your brand’s home base is your website and it should be doing real work.
She approaches websites as more than digital brochures. Every page is treated like part of a sales funnel, and the copy is written to convert before design ever begins. She often uncovers gaps in confidence or offer clarity during this stage, which becomes an opportunity to rebuild the business from a stronger foundation.
Copy, design, workflow—it all has to work together to support the client journey and reflect the brand’s essence.
Branding Is a System, Not a Snapshot
Dakota compares branding to building a house. You wouldn’t install fancy lighting without knowing where the walls are going. So why would you design a logo without a message? Or launch a service without a strategy?
The best branding projects, she says, happen when copywriters, designers, and strategists work together—not in silos. If you’re going through a rebrand, think of yourself as the general contractor (or hire someone to be one). Your systems, team, and tech all need to talk to each other if you want the final result to be aligned, effective, and sustainable.
What If You’re Tired of Showing Up All the Time?
Not everyone wants to be on TikTok five days a week—and you don’t have to be.
Dakota encourages her clients to think in terms of “owned platforms” (like blogs, newsletters, podcasts) and “public platforms” (like Instagram and TikTok). Owned platforms let you show up when you want to, and they continue to serve your audience when you’re resting, creating, or just off the grid.
She’s a big advocate for building systems that don’t rely on constant energy. Blogging, SEO, and email funnels might take more time upfront, but they pay off in the long run. It’s about building resonance, not just reach.
How to Build a Brand That Lets You Rest (And Still Resonate)
If you’re burned out from “showing up everywhere,” Dakota recommends taking a step back—not from your business, but from the expectations.
Here’s how she guides clients toward sustainable branding:
- Audit what feels hard: If something consistently drains you, it’s probably not aligned with your strengths.
- Permission to opt out: Not vibing with Instagram? Great. Let’s build a strategy that doesn’t require it.
- Lean into what’s easy: Love teaching? Maybe workshops are your jam. Hate writing? Try podcasting.
- Build for the quiet seasons: Use the creative, energetic seasons to set up content and systems that work when you can’t.
Ultimately, she believes that branding isn’t a performance, it’s a practice of alignment. When you build a brand that feels like you, marketing stops being a chore and starts being a conversation.
Find It Quickly:
- 01:23 – System Reboot
- 03:21 – Building a Brand That Feels Like You
- 09:36 – Creating a Cohesive Client Experience
- 13:54 – Collaborative Rebranding and Marketing Strategies
- 16:40 – Sustaining Your Brand Presence
- 24:19 – System Shut Down
Connect with Dakota:
- Website: morethancreative.co
- Instagram: instagram.com/morethancreative.co
- Instagram: instagram.com/dakotaherseyphotography
- Podcast: open.spotify.com/show/2mMUHHCACRx71ETK4P4PGV
Review the Transcript
Julie: Welcome back to the System for Everything podcast. Today’s system tip. If your brand colors don’t spark joy, just choose a new palette Every Tuesday consistency is a scam. Today’s guest is Dakota Hershey, the founder of More Than Creative. After successfully growing a photography business, Dakota is ready to return to her original dream, helping small business owners market and sell their talents and services.
Specializing in SEO brand messaging, copywriting for emails, websites, socials, and more. Dakota is on a mission to bring marketing back to the original why? To connect, to communicate and to serve. When she’s not elbows deep in marketing strategy, she’s either at the gym, walking her dog dune, swimming in the ocean, or rotting on the couch watching reality tv.
My kind of girl. She’s the kind of person who can turn. I just want it to feel like me into a full blown brand identity that actually sells. She has worked with wedding pros, photographers, coaches and creatives across the country to design brands that don’t just look good. They feel. Right, and that’s exactly what we’re talking about today.
Welcome Dakota.
Dakota: Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. I also realized I was just getting it. I’m just like your number one hype girl. All
Julie: right. We
Dakota: are gonna
Julie: start as we always do with the system, reboot. A quick little reset to start our episode with some humor and humanity. Dakota, what is a brand, real or fictional that lives rent free in your head?
Dakota: Oh, I have to think about this one. Honestly, right now, I don’t even know if it’s rent free because they are very clearly paying for it. But Tart has been like Tart Cosmetics has been all over the place, especially on TikTok, like I am a TikTok girly. And yeah, they have been killing it with their like user generated content and so.
It’s rent free in my mind, but I also feel like they’re just using their paid ads and their, uh, their users, like their, um, commission based people, like really, really well.
Julie: All right. What is your most controversial snack opinion?
Dakota: Oh, oh, well, I grew up, this might be controversial. My mom did not allow us to eat chips unless we had a sandwich.
So I was not a chip person, but we could get around it because goldfish didn’t count as chips. Nice. In my head, I can eat as many goldfish as I want, but if I like, I cannot, I cannot go and just like get like a handful of Doritos like that. Yeah. Is. It doesn’t work for me. Alright. What is the last thing you Googled that you probably didn’t need to?
Oh, it definitely, I’m always googling the definition of words and I think that that is like partially as a copywriter, like I wanna make sure that like the word that I’m using is, is like specifically correct to what I’m saying. But then also sometimes I feel like we get in the, um, mindset or like the habit of using words and then we don’t actually know what the definition to them are.
And then you end up like miscommunicating. So I’m. Always like, is that word? Word? What I think means is that, does that mean what I think it means? And then I have to Google it.
Julie: I love that. Okay. I right everyone. You have met the personality. Now meet the powerhouse. Let’s jump into the real system of the day because while choosing fonts is fun, Dakota actually helps creatives build something deeper, A brand that feels like home.
Here’s my conversation with Dakota on the system for building a brand that actually feels like you. All right. You have worked with a lot of clients who build brands that look great, but feel like someone else’s mm-hmm. Are kind of the red flags that a brand isn’t really rooted in who they are.
Dakota: I will say that I have found, if.
People are not able to feel like their marketing is easy, then chances are they haven’t really spent the time to like truly understand what their messaging actually is. Because I think that, well, I know every single time that we work with somebody on their messaging and we give them a brand that um, really gets to the root of it and feels like them.
Then I, their marketing. Takes off from a perspective of like, they have no issue creating content. They have no issue figuring out what to talk about. And that’s because like we spend a lot of time making sure that everything that they’re talking about makes sense and that they understand what the through line and like the invisible thread between all of those things are.
And so I would say that like people who don’t really understand what their brand message is, rely a lot on trends and a lot on like. Unoriginal type content that they can copy from other people.
Julie: What kind of things do you think people tend to copy without even realizing it? Is it more voice or tone or like even their offers?
Dakota: I think it starts, I think it’s a slippery slope because I think that it starts with offers. Um, because I mean, we all started a business and we were all trying to figure it out, and I think it’s really easy for us to say, well, I’m gonna go look at what somebody else has got going on because, um. You’re just trying to get like an idea.
You’re, you kind of look at it from the guise of collecting information and research and then you start to get to the point of like, well, if everyone’s doing it this way or if like, if this person that I really admire is doing it this way, that must mean that it’s right. And then you can kind of start to get into this whole or like mindset.
If somebody else is doing it a certain way, that that is the only way to do it. And then I think that if you fall too far down that rabbit hole, then you end up creating a business that like when you pick your head up, you’re like. Wait a minute, I don’t really know where I fit in with this. And so I think it can start on the foundational level as far as like how you structure and price your things.
Um, but then it can also get to the point where like, well, I don’t really know what to say on my contact page because everyone kind of says the same thing on a contact page. So let me just go look at so-and-so’s website and then you can pull that copy over. And then the next thing you know, like you are.
Go from like, I’m looking for inspiration to then you are just copying what somebody else is doing.
Julie: What is your approach when somebody says, I want it to feel like me, but I don’t know what me
Dakota: is. So that’s probably one of my favorite conversations, like, because I have a lot of people where, we’ll, they’ll kind of come into it and we like break down the walls of like.
Because it all comes really from like an insecurity thing because I feel like I find that most of the business owners that I work with do know who they are. They’re just kind of afraid to figure out, or like afraid to show it, or they’re like trying to decipher like what parts of my personality make sense for my business.
So like one of the examples I have is that. I had a, a girl that was a wedding photographer and she wanted to get more into like the luxury end of things, and she loves thrifting. And so the conversation got brought up when we were talking about like. You know what types of clients are like, who’s your ideal client?
Where are they shopping? What are they doing, what are they like? And then she was like, well, I get kind of nervous to talk about that because like a lot of the places that they shop, I don’t, because I like thrifting and the people, I’m assuming that the people that I wanna work with are gonna be shopping at like higher end stores, and I just don’t do that.
Mm-hmm. I said, okay, well let’s talk about like, let’s talk about the thrifting because that’s so unique to you. And I know her personally and I’m like, that’s a huge part of your personality. Why do you like thrifting? And then we got into it and I was like, the reason we basically uncovered that the reason that she likes thrifting is because she likes the intentionality between, or that comes from.
Having to search for something and it feels like a treasure hunt to her. And she loves the fact that all of her Thrifted pieces had a story before her and now they’re gonna have a story after her. And oh, it’s like this, like more of like an antiquing, like this thing was brought to me. It’s very one of a kind.
And I’m like, okay, well people who like nicer things like. That like they can appreciate the one of a kind feeling and they can appreciate the story and they can appreciate the curation of it. And so that’s where we can kind of find the pieces of what you like. And then, you know, it’s a Venn diagram, so like how can we find the things that you like and fit them within the context of your customer without getting stuck on that surface level of, well, I’m not my ideal customer, like.
It doesn’t sound like what we do is going to make sense. Um, and getting a little bit deeper instead of being so superficial, which I think is just kind of where great messaging comes from anyways, is not getting stuck on like. You know, well, they like to shop at Target and they eat Chick-fil-A and they drink coffee, iced coffee like that.
That was kind of the hole that we all got stuck in for a couple of years. Yeah. And I think that people are starting to get like a little weirder and like a little bit more comfortable with Yes. Sharing those of the weird people embrace it. Embrace because it’s unique and I think that it’s all about finding someone who can help you position it correctly.
So
Julie: once you help someone step into that, like. Main character energy. Mm-hmm. I mean, the next step is to make sure their whole business supports it, you know, from visuals to workflow. So how. I wanna talk about how you really turn that personality into a process. I know you don’t just do brand design. I mean you build whole client experiences like Right.
How do you use branding to shape what it’s like to work with someone from start to finish?
Dakota: So I will say that we. We approach building websites and websites to me is kind of like foundational of everything because it is your online storefront, it’s your online home. That’s where all roads are going to lead back to the website, into the contact form, which then like starts off your sales process and client experience and so.
All of our client projects typically start off with a website copy. If they start off with something else, then we do eventually get back to the website. ’cause I’m like, it’s hard to do the marketing to points towards something that doesn’t feel like a really strong foundation. And so the way that we write copy is also a little different or the way that we like.
Design and customized websites is different because we start with the copy and we do the copy within a wire frame. And because we have, um, a really strong background in like, I love sales and I really think that marketing and sales are basically siblings. Like they have to be operating together. And if they’re not talking, then something is wrong because absolutely.
Your website is technically your first salesperson. Like that is the person who’s talking to people before you talk to them. So we need it to sound like that. We need it to, we need it to sound like the salesperson that gets them on the phone, um, or that get, makes them think like, oh, like I really wanna talk to this person.
And so as we go through each of the website pages, because I’m thinking about the larger ecosystem of how it’s all going to work, we get into a lot of the conversations that are. Probably, well, they’re not in the realm of a copywriter. They’re more in the realm of like a business strategist. But that’s the part that’s really fun to me, where we’ll go in and we’ll start to map out like a services page and they’ll tell me the offerings and then it’s like, why do you have it structured that way?
Or like, I need you to sell it to me. And if they come into it super confident, then that’s great, and I’m like, you sold me. And I will write the copy for it and we will position it. But usually it uncovers some. Like insecurities or like some, I don’t really know why I’m doing it. I was told in a workshop or a business course that like, this is the way that we’re supposed to have it set up, but I don’t really know why.
Or like, I’m not super confident in selling it this way, but I was told that I should be. And so then we kind of, I. Not in the way of like a therapist, but in the way of like, I kind of just like to poke around a little bit of like, why are you not feeling so confident there? And then we can get to the bottom of it.
And then I think from there, once you have a super solid foundation where we’ve poked around using the website as kind of like our tool to start those conversations. ’cause it is really hard for you to just come to me and be like. Something fails off of my business, but I don’t really know what it is.
Like we have to have something that kind of facilitates the conversation. And for us, that’s the website. And then from there, um, that’s when we get into like the larger marketing strategy that kind of continues to build off of itself with the blogging and then the brand photos are part of it. If we’re gonna do email newsletter, like.
What does your content look like? So we kind of, you know, weasel our way in.
Julie: I love that it’s how you keep the branding from being something that lives just on a website and nowhere else, right? Versus where it needs to be on everything. If your business couldn’t run without you, that’s a, a haunting your assistant from the beyond kind of problem.
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Before life throws a plot twist. Are there any systems you recommend putting in place alongside with a rebrand?
Dakota: So I think that when it comes to a rebrand, it’s really important to view it as less of multiple different processes and one big one. And so all of the people that you’re working with should want to work together.
And the best projects that I have worked on, um, I just did a project with Jay Ashley Innovations, and so she is like. A brand designer, like graphic designer, I got brought onto the team as copywriting. Um, and then she’s got some other people that are filling in other roles and that project has been so fun for us because.
We are getting, we are getting direction from the client, but then I’m calling her and I’m saying, Hey, do you think that she’s gonna go in this direction? Because I’m gonna write the copy differently. If there is like a section on the website that you want to design a specific way, or like, if she’s planning on doing blogging after this, then I will, we will need the design of the blog to look different or we will need to create other spaces.
And so I think that. Where I see a lot of the problem in marketing in general is that people are outsourcing, which is great, but they are not necessarily connecting all of those people. And then you’ve got where all of these different people are working on their own processes, but there’s no one who’s like connecting everything and making sure that it’s all talking to each other.
And so I think that. As far as a system goes, like it’s really important to have your mindset shift in the beginning to realize that this is like one big project. Um, similar to building a house where sure you can have someone who’s gonna be doing the plumbing and you have someone who’s doing the electrical and someone who’s building the framework, but there is still someone who.
Looking and overseeing all of those people and making sure that they are all doing things that align with each other. And so if you are not planning on being that person, um, or you don’t feel confident enough to like have the skillset to be that person and communicate all of those to all of those people, then you should make sure that you find someone who will basically step in and be like your, uh, what do they call it, your gc, your like general contractor or your general manager over the project.
Julie: That is awesome. Okay. Because I know that branding isn’t like just a one time thing. I mean, it is truly a living and breathing thing within how you run your business. And so I know one of the biggest places that it, it shows up or, or should be showing up is. When you’re online. Mm-hmm. But if you are not in, let’s say, launch mode, how do you help people build a brand presence that doesn’t rely on constant output?
Dakota: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And this has been, this has been a conversation that we’ve been having a lot lately because I just think people are burnt out. I think there’s a lot of noise online, and so we’ve kind of been told for a while, like. Well, you just like consistency in posting. Like you have to stay top of mind.
And I do think that there is part of that that is true and something that like all of us business owners have to accept that like part of doing business today is the fact that we do have to show up online. And I kind of frame that as like it’s free. And so we’ve actually been given a gift. So like we have been given a gift.
We should show up, we can decide what that consistency looks like for us, whether it’s like once a week or if it’s every day or if it’s twice a month. Um, but I also think that the thing that I’ve been pushing my clients to do is to make sure that their marketing strategy has both, I call them like owned platforms and then publicly owned platforms.
And so for me, um, I’m a big blogger. I love blogging. For my photography business, I have been blogging for almost 10 years now, and so that business has gotten to the point where when I show up, it’s simply because I want to, because I have built systems in the background that are generating for me. They obviously took a lot of work to build it up, but I think that people get really.
Stuck with the idea of like, Instagram is the only way to do things where there are other platforms where you can put your brand online and do a lot of work and then be able to like sit back when you have seasons of your life where you’re not like. Able to do it from a time perspective or you’re not able to do it from like a creative perspective.
Like I’ve had times where I don’t wanna show up. I have plenty of time, but I just don’t have anything to say. And so, um, but because I have focused in the past on making sure that like when I was in those creative seasons, that I did have time, that I was really capitalizing on it. And, um, trying to spread myself out where I am not only like having an Instagram strategy, but I have a blogging strategy or I have a podcast strategy or a newsletter strategy or something that you can kind of plan ahead for.
And then I look at it as almost like a not putting all of your eggs in one basket type thing. Mm-hmm. Um, because I think if you have Instagram be like. Or something, TikTok, something that like requires you to put a lot of coal in the engine. Like you are going to build something that you’re gonna constantly have to be pouring coal into.
Where if you know thyself and know that that’s not something that you’re gonna want to do, or like, you can have some forward thinking of like, I’m gonna go into a season of life where I’m not gonna be able to do the thing that I’m doing. You can start to put some of those systems and strategies into place.
So then that way when that season arrives, you. You’ve already thought about it and you’re already ready.
Julie: When someone is burned out from trying to then show up everywhere
Dakota: mm-hmm.
Julie: How do you help them build a brand that lets them rest and still resonate?
Dakota: Yes. So with this, and this happens all the time, so if you feel this way, like just know, I think every single business owner has this and it actually to me feels like less of a marketing problem and more of a like really needing to do some inner work.
Obviously there’s a through line in all of the stuff that I do. Like, I feel like this stuff is very, very personal and you kind of have to, um, like take a long hard look in the mirror. And so what happens when things feel really exhausting is that a lot of times it’s because they’re going against something that like is naturally easy for you.
And so that’s like one of the first things that when people come to me and they’re like, well, I don’t wanna do this because it feels really hard. Or like, I get really frustrated by it. I’m like. Starting off with the permission, like with the permission to say, well then you don’t have to do it. It doesn’t feel natural to you, so let’s try to find something that feels natural to you.
It’s all going to be work, which is fine because building a business is work. And if like we really get down to it and you say, well, all of it’s hard and I don’t wanna do any of it, then we would have to have the conversation of like. Well, I don’t know if you wanna be a business owner. Like maybe you should.
Maybe you’re not even in the right career field. Like we should talk about it. And if you push back on me and say, well that’s not true. Like I like, I wanna do all of these things. Like, I like to get people a little bit fired up and I’m like, well then why do you like to do it? What do you like about it?
And then we can kind of get that conversation going and then identify, well, I don’t really like doing this stuff online because like I would rather work with people. Okay, so let’s talk about what it looks like to have more of a network based marketing strategy where like you’re, we’re gonna reach out to different podcasts and you’re not gonna have to worry about creating content or like doing dances or singing songs that you don’t care about because you like people.
So how can we get you speaking at conferences or have you showing up at local events and running workshops? Like I think that people just get really stuck in the. This is what’s easiest, or this is what everybody else is doing. Where I think we can really avoid the burnout and have things that don’t feel so frustrating that actually will still on the back end, take the same amount of time, but it’s going to feel less friction because you’re doing something that you enjoy and it’s not taking, like, it’s not sucking so much of your energy up.
Julie: I feel like, and this is gonna be a complete compliment, that going through a rebrand with you is. Somewhat a form of business therapy as well. Yes. I love that. Dakota, please tell everyone where they can find you online, how they can work with you, especially if they’re in need of your quarterly services, like blogging, newsletters and more.
Dakota: Yes. Okay, so. You can find me on Instagram because Instagram feels fun for me. I like to record videos of myself talking. Um, all of these conversations that I have with other people I have had with myself. So you can find me on Instagram, my brother and I who works with me. We also have a podcast, which is more than creative, the podcast, um, because we love to talk and talking also feels easy for me.
We are doing a little bit of blogging ’cause I’m trying to. Take some of my own medicine. I have been, I will say like all transparency, I have been slacking on wanting to do the writing. So Weston has picked it up. He’s taken the responsibility of the blogging on for us because I’m doing that for more of our clients.
Um, but you can find some more like in-depth information. That’s where a lot of our case studies and like what it actually looks like to work with us, our project recaps are on there. Yeah. And then. I clearly love to talk, so if you have something that you have a problem that you’re trying to solve or you’re feeling really stuck and you just kind of need someone to bounce ideas off of, um, my dms are open and I would love to talk to you.
Julie: I can vouch for that, that she is a really solid person to bounce ideas off of and that she is. The best hype girl in the biz. Love it. I know. I miss
Dakota: you so much. I wish that I miss you. We need too. I wanna just talk to you, you all the time. Why we look closer. I wish we were like next door neighbors.
Honestly, we would get nothing done. I know. It would be the best
Julie: oring done.
Dakota: We would get nothing done or everything done. Yeah. Glass half full. That’s right. Reframing positioning, you know? Yes.
Julie: Before we let you go build a brand that feels like a deep exhale, we’re gonna close things out the way we always do by completely shifting gears, because even the most intentional brands need a dinner made of vibes now and then.
So today’s system shut is a fast five and it is five meals that technically count as dinner. So just leave me alone, okay? Because some nights you are not looking for nourishment. You are looking for survival. That’s right. Number one, buttered noodles. No seasoning, no shame, period. Bonus points if you eat them directly out of Tupperware.
Number two, a cereal in a big bowl. That serving size is between you and your calcium Intake. Number three, chips and dip salsa, onion dip, queso. You’re not picky. You’re a culinary minimalist. Number four, two cookies. A spoonful of peanut butter and an internal promise to do better tomorrow.
Dakota: Mm,
Julie: balanced only if you count emotional closure as a food group.
And finally, number five, a charcuterie board that is just Lunchables with better pr. You arranged it on a cutting board, so it’s fine dining now. Thanks for listening to the system for everything. If today’s episode made, you want to delete your mood board and start fresh Dakota’s links are waiting for you in the show notes@dallasgirlfriday.com.
Be sure to follow rate and review the show so you don’t miss a single system. And if you’re currently eating a meal of string cheese, just know you’re not alone. Thanks everyone.
