Episode 12: What’s Essential With Rayna Diane Hennen

On Episode 12 I interview my graphic designer and strategic business partner Rayna Diane Hennen from Good Fortune Design Studio.

We talk about the creative process and why it’s so important to listen and understand your client and what their business objective is. Rayna’s discovery process helped guide the redesign of my blog and was instrumental in landing on the right blend of colors, fonts and user interface. We did a content review as part of the process and we retired certain aspects of the blog as part of the refresh. Our conversation is focused on how we partnered on my redesign and how we used technology to get the job done and why having a long-term relationship with a designer pays off in the long run.

Rayna shares why you need to think of good graphic design as an investment in your business and when to spend the money on a polished presence. Your website is only as strong as you use it. We talk about how podcasting can be beneficial to your search engine optimization and how simple landing pages can help grow your presence online. We talk about making sure your website is mobile responsive, especially as you work to grow your list. Rayna has a free offer that she’ll share with us on the episode.

Rayna talks about her passion for riding her motorcycle and how she incorporated this interest into the marketing of her service offerings. She recently published an article in Motorcycle Magazine about resilience that you’ll want to read. You’ll also want to check out her site: Good Fortune Design Studio to see what I’m talking about.

We also talk about the key concepts from the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown and how to incorporate these principles into a design. We talk about simplification and eliminating clutter. Knowing when to let go and create space for new opportunities is critical.

I think you’ll absolutely love Rayna’s answer to my finale question. Enjoy!