Small Biz Spotlight: Deb Nystrom

1

I’ve always believed that when you want others to respect you as a leader and an authority in your field, you must brand your business image seriously. And that’s exactly what Deb Nystrom did…

Deb is an organization development consultant and executive coach. Like many small business owners, Deb faces her share of competition – there’s no shortage of coaches these days. But Deb stood out of the crowd for me. From the second I landed on her web site’s homepage, it was evident that Deb took great care to project her business image seriously. She strategically planned her brand to reflect her personal professionalism, as well as her warm and welcoming personality. As a leader, she took a leading path in developing her brand.

The investment in designing her brand professionally has paid off….just take a look at her site and you’ll immediately see what I mean! http://reveln.com/

I was SO impressed with Deb’s level of commitment to her brand that I could not resist contacting her personally and getting to know her better. I really wanted to feature her business, because she sets a great example of how well-designed brand can support and sustain small business. Kudos, Deb! :)

Have you been struggling with your own brand design? I’d love to help you. CLICK HERE TO CONNECT WITH ME. I enjoy meeting new people, making new friends and I especially love helping small business with projecting their best business image!

– Kristine

Tell us about Reveln Consulting. How did you arrived at such a distinctive name for your business?

Reveln is a blend of my business practices and values, as well as my marketing intuition, and then some. Here are four aspects I discovered as I began to develop and use the Reveln name in 2004:

1) My name doesn’t quite carry my message, as Reveln is able to do. It also seems to communicate in multiple ways, in English, with ties to words like Revelation, Reveling (fun) and Revere. People who work with me know I like work to be based in data and to be outcome oriented. My work is also intuitive, fun, with people implementation as the core. These aspects correspond to the English words embedded in this unique name.

2) The unique “Reveln” is great for placing high in Google search. www.Reveln.com It makes it easy for existing and new clients to find me in search. The branding is more memorable when getting the spelling correctly, joking about it a little.

3) My current tag line also helps explain the name: Where reason and revelation come together to develop strong, positive leadership and healthy, productive organizations.

4) Synchronicity: There happens to be a family connection in the name! By coincidence, Reveln ties to my Swedish married name, Nystrom, as it is a town in Sweden. My husband’s parents were both Swedish Americans!

I LOVE that you placed a photo of yourself on your home page! Was this a natural decision? Or did you struggle with it? I ask because many small business owners are apprehensive about using their own “face” as the face of the brand.

I never thought twice about it. Everyone has something attractive about themselves, a smile, a gesture, body posture, welcoming eyes. I see my photo-visual presence as my personal handshake and greeting to the world.

When I visit other sites and cannot find a photo of who is behind the site (or the team), it doesn’t feel like I’ve been greeted. Consulting & executive coaching is such a personalized profession and relationship, not having a photo seems to be a red flag that the website is not a top priority for reaching out to clientele.

Photo choice: I had a photo that caught me with the right smile on a good hair day in Minnesota (low humidity), by Minnehaha Falls. The day, location, and time in my consulting career lined up, so the photo for the home page was born.

I have a great web-master as well who is also a professional photographer, who may update my photo in the near future.

Your logo is simple, it’s not complicated or over-designed. The site’s colors are warm and reflect your authenticity and personal touch. Please tell us about your process for how you arrived at the total brand look-and-feel?

I have an arts background and believe in the impact of good visuals. I hired a professional graphic designer to design my logo and overall visual brand. For the logo, she interviewed me and sent me several colors and designs. We narrowed things down until we had a winner we both liked. I can tell it is a winner as I’m having this spotlight interview with you, and my client work!

A strong logo conveys a lot, including confidence in what you offer to the world.

What would say is your strongest competitive advantage? How do you set yourself apart from other businesses that offer similar services?

A significant website presence and personality opens the door to clients discussing and building relationships. This is based on my combination of three main service areas:

1) leadership & organization development/coaching (and a client list & recommendations)
2) change leadership, and
3) social media coaching

I have a dynamic presence in person, so when I do a a) presentation and b) get looked up on-line, along with c) my referral network, those a, b, c items generate successful interest & leads. I also refine my niches as needed. For example, there aren’t many higher education, “od” systems / change /innovation strategists out there, to those who know the lingo.

To those potential clients in other business areas that don’t know this jargon, I use different words to explain my consultation approach, focusing on areas of pain or urgency.

You obviously are very passionate about your work. What about it do you most enjoy?

I live for seeing new energy, the creative spark, and the productive tension building in groups, while working myself out of a job! Building self-sufficiency, strategic agility and enduring adaptability, while supporting internal leadership self-confidence is one of my life-long goals.

Do you have a favorite Client success story you’d like to share?

I like the story of my first accidental organization development client where I did some customer service training for a group of union bus drivers, tailored closely to the request of that group’s senior manager, when I was just a pup in my late 20’s.

The training was not customized to the audience, bus drivers’ interests, needs and pains, and flopped. I walked straight to manager and said, “Well, that didn’t work. Why don’t we find out what will work and ask them what kind of training makes sense to them?” I had stumbled into the “action-research” model of organization development.

The end of that story is that the bus drivers nominated “star drivers” that they wanted to learn from, that were naturally good at handling disruptive, difficult passengers. They became the new “teachers” of handling difficult customer service interactions. We co-created the training design with all interested parties, which is a forerunner of social learning and peer learning I study and use in my work in organizations today.

What kind of Clients do you most enjoy working with? Why?

I might be tempted to say easy clients, who are creative, adaptable, open and smart. But what’s the challenge in that?! Instead, I’ll overtly take the high road and say that smart, occasionally difficult, sometimes stubborn, yet engaged clients who want to do the right thing for their organization, as well as the world, and will stay the course of change leadership, are my favorite clients. Their wins are sweeter, and their hard won lessons are enduring.

Business-wise, I don’t have the ultimate niche identified as of yet. I have worked with higher education extensively including health systems, and manufacturing, unions. I’ve worked with bus drivers, fire fighters and police units to senior leader teams, faculty chairs and deans, and college presidents.

One of my most rewarding assignments is working, teaming, and co-creating with a system, with multiple roles, leaders with a clear or emerging vision, possible team consulting, while dealing with change, innovation, a sense of urgency, and a clear need for change.

What’s next on the horizon for Reveln Consulting?

Some new things that have come my way, that seem to meet a need is presenting and co-learning about adult bullying in the workplace and the power of peer networks and peer witnessing.

This also paved the way for me to be invited to present on career resilience to an upcoming Divorce Expo. Though I’m in a 32+ year marriage, I have many friends over the decades who’ve shared their learning with me that I can link to change leadership expertise at a personal level, while using crowd-sourcing, peer & social learning group tools to facilitate the many ways we help each other.

I’ve also been pulled into presenting on and providing group coaching on social media for my peers, consultants, coaches and small business owners. It’s been fun surfing the trends in social media, including my first virtual assistant, “Siri” on my iPhone and learning about Google+ and curation, as well as helping people with tools such as Facebook business pages, LinkedIn groups and social media policy.

Deb Nystrom, Revln ConsultingDeborah Nystrom, Reveln Consulting is a change facilitator & strategist; executive, leader team, and group coach; and an organization development (OD) consultant. Deb is also a social media coach for coaches and consultants, and business.

Deb started her career as an internal consultant in the 80′s, and became the OD practice lead at the University of Michigan in 2005. Deb continues today as owner of Reveln Consulting, working with leadership teams, organizations including administrative, faculty and physician leaders, researchers, unions & college presidents focusing on strategy development, process consultation and managing change and transition

Deb’s education is well represented on her blogs and main site at www.Reveln.com, as well as:

She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with her husband, and often talks with her adult children IRL (In Real Life) and via text, Facebook and sometimes using a phone.

Are You Playing Hide-N-Seek with Your Small Business?

0

Read More»
© Copyright Paragon Moon – Evolving Business Creatively :: Orange County Brand Identity and Graphic Design :: Tel. 714.710.9139