The Better Brand: Brand & Marketing Strategy for Christian Entrepreneurs

The pumpkins are out, the goals you wrote down in January are staring back at you, and Q4 starts October 1st. If you're a Christian woman entrepreneur wondering what's still worth doing before the year ends, this is the Q4 planning for small business rhythm I come back to every fall. It'll help you finish this year well and lay the groundwork for next year while there's still time to act on it.

Grab a notebook. This one comes with action steps.

• Why looking back comes first, and how an Ebenezer stone turns a simple wins list into worship
• The two-column exercise that sorts what's left into Still Aligned and Let It Go, plus a way to save next-year ideas without losing them
• A one-hour year-end brand check: where your best clients came from, what your website still says about you, and how to collect testimonials that actually sell
• What October, November, and December are each good for, including how to decide about Black Friday well before Thanksgiving night
• Why a rebrand or new website for next year needs a decision in Q4

Timestamps are estimates. Check them against the final edited audio.

[00:00] Fall in Texas and the "where did the year go?" feeling [02:00] Welcome, and the one question this episode hangs on [04:30] Step 1: Look back first, with Samuel's Ebenezer stone and your three wins [08:00] Step 2: Still Aligned or Let It Go, and permission to mourn what didn't work out [11:30] Step 3: The year-end brand check, from client sources to testimonials [15:30] Step 4: October to build, November to serve, December to rest [20:30] Step 5: Three intentions, what God did in my business this year, and a recap

When should I start planning next year? In Q4. Waiting until December or the second week of January means you're planning from exhaustion, and a strong first quarter needs groundwork laid in the fall.

Is December a slow month for sales? Not for everyone. People who want to start the new year with a new brand or website are researching in November and December, so your website needs to be ready to meet them.

When should I book a rebrand or new website? If it's on next year's list, decide in Q4. Designers book out ahead, and you don't want a brand project landing on top of your busiest season.

• 1 Samuel 7:12, the Ebenezer stone
• "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" (the hymn line "Here I raise my Ebenezer")
• Free Brand Audit Scorecard: jantouchberry.com/scorecard

Ready to turn your notes into a real plan? Grab the free Q4 planning guide and map out the last three months of your year.

Get the Q4 planning guide: jantouchberry.com/q4planning

Want to see how your brand and website are holding up before next year? Take the free Brand Audit Scorecard: jantouchberry.com/scorecard

CONNECT WITH JAN:

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We’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode and its impact on your journey. Use the hashtag #HerFaithAtWork and tag us for a chance to be featured in our next episode.

ABOUT THE HOST:

Jan Touchberry is a brand strategist, marketing consultant, and founder of The Brand Collaborative. She helps women entrepreneurs build profitable businesses with clear messaging, strategic funnels, and aligned visibility.

Grab The Visibility Vault - a 5 module training with workbook for a clearer path to consistent sales.

Interact Quizzes - What I use to build all my quiz lead magnets on.*

Enjoy 1 month of Showit FREE with my link when you sign up.*

Get 25% off your first year of Flodesk, my email marketing software.*

Get 30% off of your HoneyBook subscription - The CRM I use in my business.*

Tired of freebies that flop - grab this resource and level up your game.

Get more clear on who your brand serves: Ideal Client Workbook

*Some are affiliate links which means I may earn a commission.

Episode Title: The Marketing Mistake I Made Even Though I Know Better

Slug suggestion: utm-tracking-marketing-mistake-christian-entrepreneurs

Meta description (155 chars max): I stopped tracking where my website traffic came from. Here's how UTMs fixed it and how to check your own blind spot.

Primary keyword: track website traffic sources

Secondary keywords: UTM tracking for small business, Google Analytics traffic sources, marketing data for entrepreneurs

I put Google Analytics on every website I build — mine included. So when I tell you I had no way to track where my website traffic was coming from, that's not a beginner mistake. That's a "I know better than this" mistake. People were showing up on my site. Instagram, Pinterest, email, this podcast — I couldn't tell you which one was actually bringing them, or which ones I could quietly stop putting effort into.

This episode is the fix. If you've ever looked at your own analytics and thought "well, traffic is traffic, I guess that's good" — this one's for you.

• Why "I'm getting traffic" isn't the same as knowing what's working
• What a UTM actually is, explained without the jargon
• How to build tagged links using Google's free Campaign URL Builder
• The one habit that makes tracking actually pay off long-term
• The mistake that makes tagging your links pointless if you skip it

(timestamps are estimates — verify against final edited audio)

[00:00] The confession: data nerd, lazy analytics

[03:15] Why untracked traffic is just an anonymous blob of visitors

[06:40] What a UTM is and how it tags a link by source, medium, and campaign

[10:20] How to build one with Google's free Campaign URL Builder

[13:05] The habit that matters more than the tool

[15:30] The mistake I almost made even after catching myself

[17:45] Why this is a brand-growth decision, not a tech task

"My website's doing fine" tells you nothing you can act on. "The link in my Tuesday email converts three times better than the one in my Instagram bio" tells you exactly where to spend your next hour.

• Google Campaign URL Builder — free tool to build tagged links
• Brand Audit Scorecard — free, see what's working (and what isn't) on your own site
• Brand Clarity Audit — $27 personalized breakdown of your site, search presence, and conversion path

Pick one channel you're active on — email, Instagram, Pinterest, wherever — and tag your very next link before you share it. Then put a reminder on your calendar for 30 days out to go check what it told you.

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⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - @jantouchberry

JOIN THE CONVO:

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode and its impact on your journey. Use the hashtag #HerFaithAtWork and tag us for a chance to be featured in our next episode.

ABOUT THE HOST:

Jan Touchberry is a brand strategist, marketing consultant, and founder of The Brand Collaborative. She helps women entrepreneurs build profitable businesses with clear messaging, strategic funnels, and aligned visibility.

If this episode had you doing math in your head about your own prices, start with the Brand Audit Scorecard to see where your pricing and positioning actually stand right now. Ready for a deeper, personalized look? The $27 Brand Clarity Audit breaks down your site, your messaging, and your search presence in one report.

Grab The Visibility Vault - a 5 module training with workbook for a clearer path to consistent sales.

Interact Quizzes - What I use to build all my quiz lead magnets on.*

Enjoy 1 month of Showit FREE with my link when you sign up.*

Get 25% off your first year of Flodesk, my email marketing software.*

Get 30% off of your HoneyBook subscription - The CRM I use in my business.*

Tired of freebies that flop - grab this resource and level up your game.

Get more clear on who your brand serves: Ideal Client Workbook

*Some are affiliate links which means I may earn a commission.

Ever built a lead magnet that got plenty of clicks and almost no completions? That gap between interest and follow-through is the whole reason this episode exists. I built a quiz lead magnet inside Interact, watched my view rate come in exactly where I wanted, and then watched my completion rate tank. This episode walks through why a quiz outperforms a typical PDF or checklist in the first place, and what I found once I went looking for why mine wasn't finishing the job.

What you'll learn:

• Why a quiz creates a different kind of opt-in motivation than a typical freebie
• How question-by-question analytics can show you exactly where people are dropping off, instead of leaving you guessing
• Why segmenting your list by quiz result changes what your follow-up emails can actually do
• What happens when every outcome in your quiz assumes something is broken, and why that can quietly cost you completions
• The two changes I made after diagnosing my own drop-off, and why I'm still waiting on the results

Episode highlights (timestamps are estimates — confirm against final edited audio)

• [00:00] Why we can't resist a self-discovery quiz, and what that means for lead magnets
• [03:15] The moment my view rate looked great and my completion rate didn't
• [06:40] What's actually inside Interact: quiz types, the logic builder, and results pages
• [10:20] How segmentation turns a quiz into more than a one-time freebie
• [13:05] Building four to five emails per result, and what each sequence is actually built to do
• [17:30] What the question-by-question analytics showed me about where people quit
• [20:10] The problem I didn't expect: every result assumed something was broken
• [23:00] What I changed, and why I don't have the after numbers yet

Key takeaway: "A quiz has to feel light. You can put all the strategy you want behind it, but the person taking it shouldn't have to feel any of it."

Resources mentioned:

• Take the Brand Frequency Quiz: jantouchberry.com/quiz
• Try Interact at a discount: Interact quiz platform link

Call to action: Take the Brand Frequency Quiz at jantouchberry.com/quiz to see the segmentation in action, and if you're thinking about building your own, use the Interact link above to get started at a discount.

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Subscribe to the newsletter: http://jantouchberry.com/newsletter

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⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - @jantouchberry

Grab The Visibility Vault - a 5 module training with workbook for a clearer path to consistent sales.

Interact Quizzes - What I use to build all my quiz lead magnets on.*

Enjoy 1 month of Showit FREE with my link when you sign up.*

Get 25% off your first year of Flodesk, my email marketing software.*

Get 30% off of your HoneyBook subscription - The CRM I use in my business.*

Tired of freebies that flop - grab this resource and level up your game.

Get more clear on who your brand serves: Ideal Client Workbook

*Some are affiliate links which means I may earn a commission.

If this episode had you doing math in your head about your own prices, start with the Brand Audit Scorecard to see where your pricing and positioning actually stand right now. Ready for a deeper, personalized look? The $27 Brand Clarity Audit breaks down your site, your messaging, and your search presence in one report.

JOIN THE CONVO:

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode and its impact on your journey. Use the hashtag #TheBetterBrand and tag us for a chance to be featured in our next episode.

ABOUT THE HOST:

Jan Touchberry is a brand strategist, marketing consultant, and founder of The Brand Collaborative. She helps women entrepreneurs build profitable businesses with clear messaging, strategic funnels, and aligned visibility.

If you've ever typed a number into an invoice and then quietly lowered it before you hit send, this episode is for you. Learning how to price your services isn't really a math problem. It's a mindset problem, and for a lot of Christian women in business, it's tangled up with guilt about charging for something that feels like ministry. In this episode, Jan sits down with three women from her mastermind group, Lindsey Fletcher, Andi Hart, and Gabe Cox, for an unfiltered roundtable on why pricing is so hard and what to actually do about it.

• Why fear and imposter syndrome quietly talk you into charging less than you're worth
• How to separate a client's "no" from a personal rejection
• The mindset shift that lets you see charging well as an act of stewardship, not greed
• A practical, research-based process for pricing a new offer or service
• How to raise your prices on existing clients without burning the relationship

Timestamps are estimates. Verify against the final edited audio before publishing.

[00:00] Meet the mastermind — Jan introduces the format (equal parts The View and business roundtable) and the four voices in this episode: Jan (brand and website strategy), Lindsey Fletcher (sales conversations), Andi Hart (product-based businesses and wholesale), and Gabe Cox (goal planning and business strategy).

[03:30] Why pricing feels so personal — The group unpacks the layers under pricing fear: imposter syndrome, the fear of actually having to deliver, and the way a "no" to your offer can feel like a "no" to you, especially when you built the thing yourself.

[08:00] The "helpful or paid" trap — Lindsey names the belief a lot of Christian women carry: if you're helpful, you can't charge, and if you charge, you're not helpful. The group reframes pricing as a way of letting a client actually invest in their own result, not a barrier to serving them.

[14:00] What happens when women get paid — Gabe references a community development study where giving income directly to women, rather than men, was what actually moved a community forward, and connects it to the idea that underpricing limits the impact a business owner can have.

[18:00] Pricing on feelings vs. pricing on data — Andi breaks down the consumer psychology of pricing (why a $1,000 washing machine reads as "better" than a $300 one) and why decisions made from feeling instead of research are the most common way business owners undercharge.

[22:30] Start at the top, not the bottom — Gabe shares how she used to launch everything cheap, and how flipping that (starting with a signature, higher-priced offer and working backward) changed both her income and her client experience.

[27:00] How to actually raise your prices — The group walks through real approaches: giving current clients a heads-up and a last chance at the old price, grandfathering loyal clients until they lapse, and raising prices at capacity rather than on a schedule.

[33:00] Final wisdom — Each guest leaves one closing thought: take imperfect action instead of waiting to feel ready, let God lead the decision, and remember that undercharging, not overcharging, is the mistake that actually costs you.

• Proverbs 31:18, referenced in the conversation about stewarding what God has given you
• A community development study on income and women (referenced from memory during the episode; exact source and figures were not confirmed on air)
• Alex Hormozi, referenced for his advice to start with a signature, higher-priced offer

CONNECT with the ladies on their podcasts:

Gabe Cox - Pursuing Goals God's Way

Lindsey Fletcher - The Leaders Table

Andee Hart - She Sells Differently

CONNECT WITH JAN:

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JOIN THE CONVO:

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode and its impact on your journey. Use the hashtag #HerFaithAtWork and tag us for a chance to be featured in our next episode.

ABOUT THE HOST:

Jan Touchberry is a brand strategist, marketing consultant, and founder of The Brand Collaborative. She helps women entrepreneurs build profitable businesses with clear messaging, strategic funnels, and aligned visibility.

If this episode had you doing math in your head about your own prices, start with the Brand Audit Scorecard to see where your pricing and positioning actually stand right now. Ready for a deeper, personalized look? The $27 Brand Clarity Audit breaks down your site, your messaging, and your search presence in one report.

If your website still explains you the way it did two price points ago, this episode is for you. This show just went through its third name change in three years, and instead of glossing over that, this episode uses it as the case study for a question a lot of established business owners are quietly avoiding: how do you know when to rebrand your business, instead of just tweaking the same one forever?

• Why a business can be working — clients, revenue, momentum — and still be carrying a brand that describes who you used to be
• The real difference between positioning (which is allowed to change) and the thing underneath it that shouldn't
• How to tell the difference between "this needs a refresh" and "this needs a rebuild"
• Why outgrowing your own brand isn't a failure, it's just what happens after real growth
• What's coming on this show going forward, and why the content itself is shifting shape

• [00:00] The Texas weather bit, and why a third name change isn't the flaky move it looks like
• [02:15] The real story: from Her Faith at Work to falling out of love with content creation and social media
• [05:30] The question that reframed everything, and what came out of sitting with it
• [08:00] The "next level problem" — the gap between the business you're running and the brand still describing the old one
• [09:45] A musician's detour into pitch, volume, and timbre — and what it actually has to do with your brand
• [13:00] What's ahead on the show, and the Brand Sound Quiz

Take the free Brand Frequency Quiz at to find out what your brand actually sounds like right now versus what you meant for it to sound like. If the results surprise you, hit reply on the follow-up email — Jan reads every one.

Ever have someone tell you they love your podcast... and then never actually buy anything from you? Or wonder why episodes you recorded two years ago basically don't exist anymore because nobody can find them? Here's the thing: podcasting is one of the best owned-media tools you have, but only if it's built to actually lead somewhere. Today I'm sitting down with Jenny Suneson, who has been in the podcasting world since 2018 and now helps mom entrepreneurs build sustainable businesses in 20 hours or less using podcasting as their number one visibility strategy — to fix exactly that.

• Why your podcast name might be the single biggest SEO mistake you're making (and the easy fix if you're too attached to change it)
• The often-overlooked places in your podcast settings where you can add searchable keywords
• How to know if you've niched down too far — or not nearly far enough
• Why "customer journey" is the most common blind spot for podcasters, even ones with a strong, established brand
• The real reason most podcasters shouldn't chase sponsorships first (and what to prioritize instead)
• Why auditing your back catalog could be the fastest way to grow your downloads this year

Timestamps are estimates and will be confirmed against final edited audio before publishing.

• [00:00] Meet Jenny Suneson — Podcasting since 2018, in the industry since 2019, and why she loves that podcasting doesn't change nearly as fast as social media
• [04:00] The SEO ingredients most podcasters skip — Why your first word matters, what to do if you love your "cute" show name, and the hidden keyword fields in your podcast host most people never touch
• [10:00] How far is too far when niching down — Jenny's own journey from "female entrepreneurs" to "mom entrepreneurs," and how to know when you've found the sweet spot
• [14:00] Mapping the listener journey — Why so many podcasters run their show and their business as two disconnected things, and the funnel that actually moves a listener toward becoming a client
• [20:00] Monetization: products first, sponsorships last — Why most podcasters chasing sponsorship deals are leaving money on the table, and where affiliate links fit in
• [22:00] The one thing to do if you want to level up — A full back-catalog audit, and the tool Jenny (and Jan) both use to track SEO rankings episode by episode

Jenny put it simply: most podcasters aren't struggling because their content is bad — they're struggling because they never built a way for a listener to become a lead. If you're not offering a next step, people don't know one exists.

• Podcasting for Moms — Jenny Suneson's podcast, available wherever you listen
• Connect with Jenny on her website
• PodSEO (podseo.com) — the SEO tracking tool both Jenny and Jan use to see what keywords their shows are ranking for

CONNECT WITH JAN:

Here are all the best places and FREE stuff 👇🏻

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⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - @jantouchberry

JOIN THE CONVO:

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode and its impact on your journey. Use the hashtag #marketingwithoutsocials and tag us for a chance to be featured in our next episode.

ABOUT THE HOST:

Jan Touchberry is a brand strategist, marketing consultant, and founder of The Brand Collaborative. She helps women entrepreneurs build profitable businesses with clear messaging, strategic funnels, and aligned visibility.

If you've ever told yourself "I'll fix my marketing once I have more budget," this episode is going to challenge that. Today I'm talking with Dr. Dave Jones — former professional hockey player, founder of the Christian advertising agency M Is Good, and creator of the R7 process — about why the businesses and ministries that struggle most with marketing usually don't have a money problem. They have a messaging problem. This is a rich, practical conversation about strategy, funnels, and what it actually takes to get above the noise right now.

• Why Dave's agency won't just "update your website" until they've nailed down your vision and messaging first
• The R7 process for aligning strategy with purpose — and why skipping straight to execution almost always backfires
• What top, middle, and bottom-of-funnel KPIs actually mean, and why "ROI" is only part of the picture
• Why audience fatigue with marketing isn't really about too much content — it's about the wrong content
• Dave's honest take on what it really costs to compete for attention today, and how that's changed since 1980
• How Dave's agency uses AI responsibly — and where he draws a hard line

Timestamps are estimates and will be confirmed against final edited audio before publishing.

• [00:00] Meet Dr. Dave Jones — From professional hockey in Europe to a rock-bottom identity crisis to founding a Christian advertising agency on a word he first thought was "a really dumb name"
• [08:00] The R7 process — Destiny, vision, mission, strategy, prayer, and action — why messaging always has to come before execution
• [13:00] Why "just update my website" is the wrong first question — Building a real audience persona instead of guessing what to say
• [17:00] Social media fatigue, decoded — Why audiences aren't tired of content, they're tired of not getting the content they actually want
• [19:00] Top, middle, bottom of the funnel — What Dave's team tracks daily, and why they call it KPI management instead of just ROI
• [26:00] The real cost of getting above the noise — From a 30-day message bounce rate in 1980 to about one hour today, and what that means for anyone marketing without a big budget
• [31:00] AI in the agency — Where Dave's team uses it, where they draw a hard line, and his Model T analogy for why you can't opt out of it forever
• [33:00] The question to ask before you rebuild your brand — "What is the future you're fighting for?"

Dave's answer, when asked what a smaller budget business could do first: start with messaging, not money. "Any amount north of zero is better than zero" — but no amount of budget will fix messaging that isn't clear on who you're talking to and what you're saying to them.

• M Is Good — Dr. Dave Jones's Christian advertising agency, based in Raleigh, North Carolina
• Plan the Win: How to Manage Your Fear, Lust, Anger, Pride While Building Your Christian Organization — Dave's new book, launching this week
• planthewintoday.com — includes a free assessment of your four toxic motivators, plus a link to the book on Amazon
• Find Dave on LinkedIn

CONNECT WITH JAN:

Here are all the best places and FREE stuff 👇🏻

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ABOUT THE HOST:

Jan Touchberry is a brand strategist, marketing consultant, and founder of The Brand Collaborative. She helps women entrepreneurs build profitable businesses with clear messaging, strategic funnels, and aligned visibility.

If the word "sales" makes you want to crawl out of your skin, you are not alone — and this episode is for you. I sat down with my friend Stefani Pady, a former corporate sales leader turned coach and founder of GLS Coaching & Consulting and Women Worship & Work, to talk about why so many of us carry a "used car salesman" wound around selling, and how to reframe the whole thing around one word: help.

Stefani spent almost two decades in corporate sales and sales leadership before God used a cover-to-cover read of the Bible to completely rewire where she found her worth. Now she teaches leaders — many of whom would never call themselves "salespeople" — how influence, conversation, and genuine curiosity are the real engines behind selling well.

• Why "sales" gets such a bad reputation, and how to separate the tactic from the value underneath it
• The difference between chasing urgency and choosing joy when you're overwhelmed with too much to do
• How to ask better questions — including why "what keeps you up at night?" isn't actually the sharpest question you can ask a prospective client
• Why closed-ended questions ("do you," "can you," "will you") shut conversations down, and how open-ended questions keep them going
• How to identify your highest-and-best-use prospects instead of chasing everyone who could theoretically buy
• What it looks like to close a conversation on a next step — without that step needing to be a signed contract

(Timestamps below are pulled from the raw transcript — please verify against the final edited audio before publishing.)

• [00:02] Catching up with Stephanie and her multi-passionate path from corporate sales into faith-based coaching
• [03:00] How reading the Bible cover to cover in 2019 changed where Stephanie's worth came from
• [08:29] Filtering tasks by joy instead of urgency — and how that changed Stephanie's week
• [11:24] Naming the "proverbial f-word": why sales feels slimy and where that reputation comes from
• [13:11] The mindset shift from "selling" to "helping" — and what that actually looks like in practice
• [18:47] The Challenger Sale model and why leadership tactics and sales tactics are the same tactics
• [21:26] Getting specific about your ideal client beyond the social-media version of an avatar
• [23:04] Why "what keeps you up at night" isn't the sharpest question — and what to ask instead
• [30:35] Stephanie's practical tips: open-ended questions, knowing decision-makers, and always closing with a next step
• [35:12] The Greek word parrhesia — bold, fearless speech — and Acts 4:13

"When we are walking in our calling, because we have been with Jesus, it becomes so much easier to figure out those tips and tricks... because we're trying to move somebody in a way that will truly serve them."

• Connect with Stefani: Women, Worship and Work | GLS Coaching and Consulting
• Join the Women, Worship and Work Bible Reading Plan: Sign Up Here
• Explore the Suited Membership: Learn More
• Book Mentioned: The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon & Brent Adamson

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You know the drill: two hours into fighting with an email template, the fonts still don't match your brand, and you're one broken column away from just hitting send on something that looks... fine. What if that email actually took ten minutes and looked like you hired a designer? Jan just spent real time inside Flodesk's brand-new AI design tool, Flodesk Studio, and she's back with the unfiltered rundown — what it nails, where it's still buggy, and whether it deserves a spot in your owned-media toolkit.

• Why a generic-looking email is a missed branding opportunity, not just a minor annoyance
• How Flodesk Studio builds emails around your actual colors, fonts, and voice instead of generating something off a prompt
• The one prompt trick that makes the AI copywriter sound like you, not like AI
• Where the beta still has bugs (and what to check before you move your whole workflow over)
• Whether you need a full Flodesk account to use it — and how to export it elsewhere if you don't

[00:04] Why the email you've been wrestling with for two hours could take ten minutes instead [01:23] The owned-media reminder: your email list is the most personal real estate you have — you're landing in someone's inbox next to messages from actual people [02:50] What Flodesk Studio actually is, and why it matters that it's currently free, beta access [03:49] The key difference from other AI tools: every layout starts with work from real human designers, not a prompt-generated template [05:29] You don't need a Flodesk email account to use Studio — design it there, export the HTML, and drop it into Mailchimp, Kit, Beehiiv, or wherever your list already lives [06:46] Walkthrough of setup: brand colors, font mapping, and how it guides you even if your branding isn't dialed in yet [08:12] The favorite tip of the episode: ask your AI platform of choice for a short brand voice summary first, then feed that straight into Studio [10:55] Why the AI copywriter's first draft didn't need the usual heavy rework AI drafts normally require [12:44] Sending the finished email — straight through Flodesk, or downloaded as HTML for another platform [13:39] The honest bugs: a font that shifted on delivery, no click-based tagging inside Studio yet, and having to hop back into Studio for edits after import [16:46] The bottom line: a time-saver that elevates rather than replaces the human, brand-first design work

• Flodesk Studio (beta, free): studio.flodesk.com
• Jan's full written walkthrough with screenshots: available on the blog at https://jantouchberry.com/flodesk-studio-review-my-honest-first-look-at-the-beta
• Book a brand and website consult with Jan: jantouchberry.com
• Get 2 free weeks of Flodesk - https://partners.flodesk.com/757l1wvhqq8s

Studio can only carry a brand that's actually been defined — colors, fonts, voice, all of it. If your brand still feels like a midnight Canva situation, that's exactly where Jan comes in. Head to jantouchberry.com to book a time to talk through your next best brand and website step, then go grab your free Flodesk Studio beta and start playing.

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JOIN THE CONVO:

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode and its impact on your journey. Use the hashtag #HerFaithAtWork and tag us for a chance to be featured in our next episode.

ABOUT THE HOST:

Jan Touchberry is a brand strategist, marketing consultant, and founder of The Brand Collaborative. She helps women entrepreneurs build profitable businesses with clear messaging, strategic funnels, and aligned visibility.

Have you ever looked at your business and realized you're offering five different things to three different audiences, and none of it is clicking the way you hoped? You're not lazy and you're not bad at this. You're probably just too broad. That's exactly what I dug into with brand strategist Mallika Malhotra this week, and honestly, this conversation hit close to home for me too.

Why does niching down feel so scary?

Mallika Malhotra is the founder of The Brand CEO, where she helps women who feel like "the invisible expert" — really good at what they do, but overlooked, overwhelmed, and underpaid — get clear on their positioning so they become the obvious, only choice. She built her own path the hard way, starting as a brand photographer doing what she calls her "junk drawer season": family photos, headshots, brand photos, Instagram workshops, a little bit of everything. It wasn't until she started following the data instead of her fear that she found her own niche.

• How to tell if your niche is actually too broad (the warning signs are more obvious than you think)
• Mallika's 4-part Bullseye Branding Framework: Specify, Specialize, Stand Out, Solve
• Why 2026's AI landscape makes niching down more urgent, not less, for generalists
• A simple way to use AI tools like Claude to mine your own client testimonials for the niche that's already working
• The one question to ask your audience that reveals what your brand is actually known for

[00:34] Mallika introduces herself and explains who she serves — the "invisible expert" who's great at her work but not getting seen or paid for it

[01:20] Her own story: two decades in corporate advertising on brands like L'Oréal, then years as a "Jane of all trades" photographer before she learned to subtract instead of add

[04:39] How do you actually know where and how far to niche? Malika's answer starts with one question: where is your revenue really coming from?

[08:44] The full Bullseye Branding Framework, broken down: Specify (your real ideal client, based on your last 10-20 clients, not a hypothetical avatar), Specialize (your true area of expertise), Stand Out (what makes your approach different), and Solve (your branded methodology)

[12:08] The clearest signs your niche isn't working yet — discount seekers, confused elevator pitch reactions, generic podcast pitches that go nowhere

[14:01] Why Mallika believes it's "dangerous to be a generalist" in 2026, and how having your own framework or methodology protects you as AI reshapes every service industry

[14:58] How Mallika uses AI responsibly in her own business, including her SNAP Brand Audit tool, and what to look for (and avoid) if you're buying an AI-powered tool from someone else

[18:27] The deeper brand strategy work: why "why do people even care?" is the question most entrepreneurs never ask themselves

[24:13] Mallika's practical first step if you don't know where to start: ask your audience, your peers, and your family what your brand is actually known for

[26:08] Her AI tip I'd genuinely never thought of — feeding your client testimonials into a tool like Claude and asking it to identify the themes and reputation already showing up in your clients' own words

"It's great to be different, but if it doesn't matter, nobody cares." Malika's reminder that differentiation without relevance is just noise — your niche has to matter to the people you want to reach, not just set you apart from competitors.

• Mallika Malhotra on Instagram: @thebrandceo
• Mallika on LinkedIn
• The Brand CEO website: thebrandceo.com
• SNAP Brand Audit (Mallika's AI-powered brand audit tool, referenced by Jan as a resource she's currently using)

If this episode had you nodding along — or wincing a little — start where Mallika suggests: ask three people in your circle what they'd say your brand is known for if you weren't in the room. Then come back and let me know what you find. And if you're realizing your website doesn't actually reflect the niche you're landing on, that's exactly the kind of thing I help clients fix. [Book a call with me] and let's talk about it.

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JOIN THE CONVO:

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode and its impact on your journey. Use the hashtag #MarketingWithoutSocials and tag us for a chance to be featured in our next episode.

ABOUT THE HOST:

Jan Touchberry is a brand strategist, marketing consultant, and founder of The Brand Collaborative. She helps women entrepreneurs build profitable businesses with clear messaging, strategic funnels, and aligned visibility.