Shannon Wells, creator of Unlock Your Biz, talks about building confidence, showing up for your business so you aren’t leaving money on the table, and building routines around showing up online.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* Shannon’s early path to building confidence and what it required

* Why you need to grow a thick skin early on

* Transferring confidence from one area into your life and using it in another area

* Shannon’s practice of building routines around areas where she needs to grow

* How you can use a routine to gear up for a new “show up” activity

* My story of gearing up for a webinar and the routines I used to drop into the right mindset

* Shannon’s authenticity policy

* Why you owe it to your audience to show up as you

* How to weigh complaints against results

* What personal development and loving yourself will do for your ability to show up for your clients

QUOTABLES:

“Confidence is something I had to come into. I had to grow into it by failing.” – @unlockyourbizzClick To Tweet

“Coming into [confidence] means you have to grow a thick skin. The more you grow, the more you reach and that means more people will be judging you.” – @unlockyourbizzClick To Tweet

“I sit down and ask ‘What is the real reason I’m self-sabotaging in this area?’ and I create a routine to counteract it.” – @unlockyourbizzClick To Tweet

“Whatever that thing is that calms you in your free time when no one’s looking, do it before you do something that’s nerve-wracking.” – @unlockyourbizzClick To Tweet

“Our audience is expecting us to show up as ourself, not as anybody else.” – @unlockyourbizzClick To Tweet

“There’s always going to be someone out there doing the exact same thing you’re doing and they could be listening to those people, but the question is why aren’t they listening to those people–because they wan...

How To Brandscape in 2022

In terms of branding your online service business, not much changes year over year. The Brandscape Method is enduring because it teases the brand foundation out of you. Who you are won’t change. Who your best client is? Perhaps–that is movable.

Whether it’s my original business in branding photography, content strategy or creating marketing dashboards to measure your funnels or content, your brand foundation remains at the core.

After last week’s episode on moving your business beyond the basics of a logo and color palette, we’re covering the reasons why you need to brandscape your business and the mechanics of doing it.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* The definition of brandscaping

* What “inner game” means to a business owner with a personal brand

* Why matching your outward brand to your inner self is a boon to attracting the right kind of clients–for you

* Landscaping as it applies to a business

* The difference between a bold message and a watered-down message

* Applying the parable of the tortoise and the hare to your business mission

* What to do, the actual activity, of brandscaping your business

* Your brand as a gatekeeper

QUOTABLES:

“Your brand has to match your inner game to attract the kind of clients for whom you will do great work.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“The most important job your well-defined brand does is act as a gatekeeper.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“It takes confidence to brandscape.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“Brandscaping takes what it feels like to work with you and puts it into words and pictures your best client will resonate with–so they pay more attention to you.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“Moving along the know, like, and trust journey requires their interest and attention. Staying on that journey requires brandscaping.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

 

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

* Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

* Instant Badass Brand

After a year of deep market research into my best client, I came up with interesting results: people say they know branding is your message, but still really think it’s just your colors and logos. I dive into the WHY of this in this episode.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* Why you need a brand even if you can’t define what branding is (and why you’re in good company if you’re in that second boat)

* What branding can do for your business growth

* Where “branding basics” like your colors and logos fall into the reality of branding a small business

* The importance of market research in understanding your audience and your best client

* The three fundamental truths of visibility in the online business world

* How to move out of the bootstrapping stages

* What you need to know whether your DIYing your brand or hiring it out

* Next steps if you want to move beyond the basics

QUOTABLES:

“Your branding tells the world why you’re different than the next guy up the road–and why you’re the better choice.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“Knowing you need to move beyond a basic logo and color palette to achieve business growth is different from doing it.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“It doesn’t matter if you’re the best at what you do. It only matters if enough people think so.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“Your branding tells the world why you’re different than the next guy up the road–and why you’re the better choice.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“Imagine an employee entirely devoted to sharing your big message with the world, and you’ve imagined your brand in the flesh.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“The idea that you’ll invest in branding once you’ve “made it” is a false premise. ” – @britneygardner

Kristen G. Roberts and I talk about what online creators–digital course creators, entrepreneurs running group programs, and those teaching on social media–need to know about protecting their content and their businesses. And after protecting it, leveraging it for insane business growth.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* First, we cover what intellectual property is and how it applies to the average online biz owner

* Kristen gives the basics of what you can protect with IP laws and the difference between ideas and applications of an idea

* How to decide when it’s time to protect your IP and how to set those goals

* Kristen gives her opinion on a real-world trademark issue I’m considering

* When to leave the “bootstrap” stage and get things legally protected

* The difference between common law copyright and protected registration

* What to do when someone does infringe on your property

* Kristen shares a case study on one of her clients, how they licensed to expand their business and which trademarks it required

* Why certification is the next duplication step

QUOTABLES:

“Intellectual property is all the content you’re putting out; think of it as the magic sauce of your business.” – @TrestlelawClick To Tweet

“When you want to scale, it’s a common misstep to ignore all of that intellectual property you’ve created and not going through the steps to protect it.” – @TrestlelawClick To Tweet

“What a lot of course creators don’t realize is they might have an untapped market of other businesses.” – @TrestlelawClick To Tweet

MORE ON KRISTEN:

Website | Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

* Hour-long consultation with Trestle Law

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Content strategist Lacy Boggs covers leadership marketing, having conversations with future clients, and how to shift your message from “vitamins” to “painkillers.”

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* How the current quarantine situation perfectly parallels the entrepreneurial journey

* Lacy’s take on leadership marketing

* Why blueprints and formulas don’t work for everyone–and what to do instead

* The three keys to leadership marketing: your brand voice, how your customers want to be communicated with, and the data

* The difference between marketing and advertising

* Going back to beginner’s mind as the Buddhists do – and how to apply that to how you converse with your audience

* Lacy talks about a hard-won lesson in creating the wrong content and creating an audience not willing to buy

* What you need to track in content that leads to sales, and what the outliers mean to your data

* Lacy gives a case study of how leadership marketing may change business strategies

* What you can do now that everyone’s pain points have shifted

QUOTABLES:

“That’s the entrepreneurial journey: things that worked yesterday won’t work today and then tomorrow is apparently a whole new pandemic situation.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“We all got in business to do business, and unless you’re me you didn’t get into business to be a marketer.” – @blogspiration42Click To Tweet

“As a leader you have to figure out how to lead not only in your niche but in your marketing.” – @blogspiration42Click To Tweet

“Content marketing is a conversation; when you’re just talking at somebody it’s advertising.” – @blogspiration42Click To Tweet

“If you’re selling a done-for-you service, your client doesn’t care about how-to posts.” – @blogspiration42

When you start making the transition to selling your services (or products) online, it can be awkward figuring out what to say, and many will default to selling all the time. Here’s the solution.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* How this post was inspired by a previous guest

* Everything I stand for applies to product-based businesses as much as service-based

* While this episode was inspired by MLM rants, they only miss out on selling well because they’ve never been taught who to be when they’re not selling

* I talk about real-life sales examples

* What the off-season means for your business

* I give examples of different niches and what they’d do when they’re not selling

* If you’re picking apart the examples, remember the exceptions aren’t going to draw enough clients

QUOTABLES:

“Everything I do comes down to this. Serve, don’t sell.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“If you’re a business, you have to make money. I am NOT telling you to give up selling altogether. I’m teaching you what to do in the “off-season.”” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“When you build that trust, you’ve completed the KLT journey. You’re the de facto expert in their eyes.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“You don’t want to try to build a business around the exception; you want to build a business around clients that desire your services ALL 365 days of the year.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

* The Masterclass

* The Inner Ninja on Living Fully and Finding The Strength to Be Consistent with Parisjat Umscheid #037

* Ditch the Ideal Client Avatar #077

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Kami Guildner, host of Extraordinary Women Radio and founder of a community of the same way, guides us on creating a community based on know, love and trust values.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* Kami’s take on the Know, Like & Trust factor

* What community means even as we’re all staying home and staying safe

* How to take a community to the next level in an online world

* Taking care of yourself so you can contribute

* How Kami began her online community, Extraordinary Women Connect

* A collaborative approach  to connection

* Kami’s take on “bro-marketing” rules we can break to create a more client-attractive business

* What building a brand from the inside means

* The pivotal point of when a client steps into a brand that lights them up

* The R factor and how it applies to building a brand that grows like crazy

* Why showing up for your community is the beginning of the know, love and trust factor

QUOTABLES:

“For us as entrepreneurs, showing up and creating that kind of community that has that know, love and trust factor… it’s letting people fall in love with the work we do.” – @kamiguildnerClick To Tweet

“I have never been more grateful for this tribe of people we built together. It’s become an amazing, organic space to show up for one another.” – @kamiguildnerClick To Tweet

“Let’s step out of the formulas that drive the hustle, the push, and let’s step into being a client-attractive and collaborative space.” – @kamiguildnerClick To Tweet

“When I started helping my clients build their brand from the inside out I brought all of that core work of building your brand from your very essence, your strengths, your passions, your values, the stories that shape you.” -…Click To Tweet

“That’s where you get the fire and that’s where businesses really grow like crazy because you’ve stepped into a whole new level of who you are and how you’re showing up and that’s the brightness of it all.” – @kamiguildner

Listen in to Sarah Weise on pivoting two different businesses during the global pandemic–and how you can, too.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* Sarah goes over her experience in quickly and drastically pivoting a conference

* We talk about how to find out–quickly–find out what your clients need

* Why realizing your best client may have just split themselves in two matters to your content delivery

* How a solopreneur can pull off a new research project quickly

* Sarah’s take on “going back to normal”

* How Sarah’s team is planning to give the same immersive conference experience online instead of in-person

* Moving strategies to provide more accountability and social connection

* How to choose your new best client

* Which questions you should ask when conducting market research for your pivot

* Sarah’s ideas on which sales tactics to keep using and which to shelve

* Acknowledging what’s going on in the world in the right way

QUOTABLES:

“What do we need to do right now? We know we need to pivot, but how do we pivot?” – @weisesarahClick To Tweet

“In a very short amount of time, customer behavior has changed drastically.” – @weisesarahClick To Tweet

“I think that normal has shifted. Even after this crisis happens our customer behavior will be different as a result of going through this experience.” – @weisesarahClick To Tweet

“A lot of companies are going to lose customers by not responding [to Covid-19].” – @weisesarahClick To Tweet

MORE ON SARAH:

Website | Instagram

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

* Women’s Worth Summit Website

* Best Client Builder

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How your brand ecosystem can work as an echo chamber for like-minded clients, the pitfalls of an echo chamber, and how consistency is always the basis of the know, like and trust factor.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* Learning loop feedbacks and echo chambers

* What a learning mindset is and how it applies to entrepreneurs

* How the Law of Averages works with an echo chamber

* A few personal stories about spending more time on social media and seeing perspectives outside your normal influence

* How to set up a brand ecosystem that acts a beneficial echo chamber

* The danger zone of putting out sporadic content that’s not supporting your brand themes and message

* Your brand as an ecosystem, where everything is related and affects everything else

* What to do when you’re messaging consistently but still not gaining traction in your business

* How a brand ecosystem works with examples from this podcast

* Building a brand ecosystem that nurtures your audience

QUOTABLES:

“When we are consistently putting out content that supports that supports the brand we want, we are creating the brand ecosystem we desire.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“You can’t introduce one thing into a brand ecosystem without it affecting everything else.” – @britneygardnerClick To Tweet

“The brand ecosystem has so many different interrelated pieces that they really need a 20,000-foot view and a 10,000-foot view and a 100-foot view to make sure that they’re all on-brand but also that they play well together.” -…Click To Tweet

“You’re going to have pieces of your brand message in different places. The key is making sure those pieces all relate to each other in a way that supports your overall brand message–that’s how you create a brand ecosystem that…Click To Tweet

“We all have the opportunity to create a brand ecosystem not only in business but in our personal lives.” – @britneygardner

Hayley Fiser joins us to give the everyday social media user the information they need so they can make informed decisions about how much time to invest in building a social media account.

TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:

* How both Hayley’s business and best client shifted with customer feedback

* Why Hayley is educating her audience on marketing metrics for Instagram

* What a click-thru-rate (CTR) means to you and your business

* How to know the time you invest on social media is effective

* Hayley’s thoughts on viral posts and what to balance them with

* Why your content that creates the most sales will likely not have the most engagement

* Hayley’s thoughts on hashtag usage on Instagram

* How to be aware of your best client’s user habits on a social media platform

* Using Instagram stories to gauge interest for feed posts.

QUOTABLES:

“We have the access to online metrics, but most of the time we don’t know what to do with them without a marketing background.” – @thehayleyfiserClick To Tweet

“[You want to know] how many eyeballs did you get in front of and how many people actually took action, because that’s how you know you’re getting in front of the right eyeballs.” – @thehayleyfiserClick To Tweet

“When someone says ‘this is going to get you a million dollars’ I’m going to be like ‘how’ and bust what they just said.” – @thehayleyfiserClick To Tweet

“Viral posts are a part of what you should be doing, but that’s just to build awareness, not to make a sale.” – @thehayleyfiserClick To Tweet

MORE ON HAYLEY:

Website | Instagram

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