“I haven’t made any progress since we last met,” a former client said to us when she came to a recent Root + River event. Her shoulders lowered slightly as she spoke.

She went on to share all of the milestones she hadn’t hit yet.

Her website wasn’t yet live. She hadn’t used her carefully crafted Root Belief yet in conversations. She knew she was months away from sharing her thought leadership content. We could sense the defeat and embarrassment in her voice.

What we shared next surprised her.

“That’s OK!”

Then, we went on to list everything she had done – participated in her first event with a booth, made progress on her website and even spent time perfecting the product she was selling. She was making the bold step toward leaving a comfortable full-time position into creating a mission-centric business.

No progress? Hardly.

We hear a version of this story regularly from clients across industries and stages of their business. It’s a conversation full of what has not happened yet instead of what is.

“Love them where they’re at,” co-founders Emily Soccorsy and Justin Foster always say. It’s a motto that the entire Root + River team has embraced when it comes to our clients and a mindset that celebrates even the tiniest steps forward.

Have they made a new connection using your brand language? Gold star.

Found a way to articulate a belief during a new business call? Bravo.

A client reached out to say they liked that status-quo-challenging blog article? Well done.

Loving our clients where they are at is the ultimate expression of love, one of Root + River’s values that starts in the Root Session, typically one of the first brand experiences they have with Root + River.

In the session, we create space for our clients to just be. We strip away pretense, judgment and all of the “shoulds” they think they need to be. This creates moments that are raw and emotional, paving the way to do the deep work that’s necessary to be a modern day brand.

“I think there’s something about holding space for our clients so they can reveal themselves,” Emily says. “When they access their internal wisdom, and we are witnesses to it, there’s a sense of relief that floods the room. We’re practicing radical acceptance, and it’s extremely powerful.”

However, part of loving them where they are at is accepting when these moments don’t happen, too.

“A lot of what we do is teach clients to love on themselves,” Justin says. “A healthy sense of self-love is at the root of every successful brand and successful branding practice.”

When it comes to your branding practice, try our motto on yourself. Where can you love yourself where you’re at? Whether you are still doing the inner work of expressing what you really believe, or if you are finding yourself stuck in effectively implementing your new branding language, have heart!

You are doing the work, and that is moving you forward.

And if you need our support, we’ll be here to give you a gold star for whatever progress you make.

Let’s Talk!