Today we’d like to introduce you to Gracie Thomas.
Hi Gracie, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Thanks for having me! Well, starting a brand studio was never really in my plan— it happened organically. I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and started a few businesses myself before selling my first company, a clothing line, at age 19. After my company was sold, I found myself with a growing list of friends and family asking me to design brands and websites. I had designed the brand, website, and marketing materials for my previous business, and people liked my work. I started designing brands my freshman year and continued to grow my client roster throughout my time studying in the Business Honors Program at the University of Texas. At the time, I thought doing branding was a great way to make some extra money in college while exposing myself to different business models for my future career. Flash forward eight years and I am still doing it today! Upon graduation, I worked in branding and marketing for a wealth management group in Denver, CO, but it wasn’t the perfect fit for me. I kept coming back to the concept of building iconic brands—not just designing brands but building brands that were rooted in purpose and that connect consumers with something greater than just a product or service. I launched the GT Studio in 2020 to help businesses do just that.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I don’t think any entrepreneur would consider their journey a smooth road- the bumps are what grow you! One of my biggest struggles early on was getting people to take me seriously as a young female entrepreneur. As my business grew, it was also important that I started to structure my business in a way that worked for me personally. About a year before I took the GT Studio full time, I was diagnosed with a few autoimmune diseases and chronic Lyme disease. Finding a way to balance my health with the aspirations I had for my business became critical. I’ve learned that we all have different strengths and circumstances, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to running a business. I’ve seen and experienced a lot of different leadership styles and business structures and over time, I have taken what I like from each of those and created my own. I think it’s important to remind ourselves as entrepreneurs that we have the gift of designing a life not only for ourselves but for our team and those who interact with us. I’ve always loved a phrase used by a friend of mine: “create a life, not just a living”.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
The GT Studio is a strategic brand experience studio that helps businesses scale while maintaining a quality and consistent brand experience. Most of our clients come to us when they are looking rebrand in order to scale or expand their reach to different markets. We call it going from 1.0 to 2.0. In many ways, we are a blend of a consultancy and a brand agency, with business strategy at the forefront of every project and a creative agency in-house to help bring those business goals to life through messaging, brand visuals, and experiential design. We focus heavily on employee and customer experience and ensure that all of our work directly drives profit. When clients work with us, they don’t just walk out the door with a beautiful brand, they walk out with a plan, a team that is educated and excited to promote it, messaging and visual tools to communicate the brand to the consumer, and experiences that will connect their brand with their audience on a deeper level. Businesses have very little control over the perceptions of their brand, and our job is to influence those perceptions as much as possible to leave a positive lasting impression on their audience.
Our all-female team has backgrounds in entrepreneurship, business, marketing, and tech, equipping us to serve our clients on a deeper level compared to traditional brand agencies. Our bread and butter is strategy, but the visuals, experiences, and activations that support that strategy are the cherry on top.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Our team is full of good listeners. Often times our clients say that we are able to pull things out of them they didn’t even know was there. Part of our job is to build a brand experience that accomplishes business goals and attracts a certain audience; however, there is also a part of our job that involves making sure that the founder, exec team, and employees all feel aligned with the brand (or the majority of them at least- it’s no easy feat!). We’ve found that even if we build the perfect brand for their consumers if the founder and supporting team doesn’t feel confident talking about it and promoting it, the brand strategy will never work. Consumers can smell inauthenticity from a mile away and the most recent digital marketing data proves that. It was recently released that 86% of consumers prefer an authentic and honest brand personality (Hubspot). We help our clients find that balance by being good listeners not only to their audience during marketing research but also to their internal team.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thegtstudio.com
- Instagram: @the.gt.studio
Image Credits
Bailey Hart Creative
