Branding Tips from a Business Coach for Female Entrepreneurs

When I started my business in 2016, I had no idea that the thing I struggled most with would become my superpower.

That's right! I really sucked at branding in the beginning.

Not only was I super unclear about what was required for a solid brand foundation, but I also lacked an understanding of my story and found myself lost in what other people were doing and creating.

I think we can agree, that blending in is kind of the opposite of a strong brand.

Fast forward months after starting to build my website and I discovered the beauty of brand storytelling, emotional branding, and human connection. Needless to say, this understanding made all the technical elements of branding so much easier.

Now, I'm regularly featured as an expert in branding and brand storytelling and today, I'm sharing some of my recent branding resources with you. You can also check out an entire guide I have on my website here if videos aren't your thing.

Now onto the good stuff. Here are 5 resources on my favorite topic ever...branding!👇

PERSONAL BRANDING: 6 TIPS FROM A BUSINESS COACH

Watch Time: 14 mins​

Personal branding strategies can feel overwhelming when you're trying to do it yourself so in today's episode I'm sharing 6 tips to improve your personal brand as a business owner. It's time to brand yourself and use this proven strategy to increase your income and impact.

Watch: Personal Branding

EMOTIONAL BRANDING

​Watch Time: 5 mins

​In this video, we’re talking about what you need to know when it comes to emotional branding including the power of emotional branding, what you need for it to work, how to find your emotions, and how to go even deeper in your branding

Watch: Emotional Branding

5 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR BRAND MESSAGING

​Watch Time: 13 mins

​Your brand messaging is one of the most important parts of the branding process. Why? Because your messaging impacts everything that happens with your marketing. Brand messaging is kind of my love language. And the reason for that is because it combines both of my passions and both of my areas of expertise, branding, and marketing.

Watch: Brand Messaging

HOW TO PERFORM MARKET RESEARCH FOR YOUR BRAND

​Watch Time: 20 mins

​Market research is essential when building the brand foundation for your new business. In fact, everything you'll create from advertising to content and programs will rely on what you learn in the market research stage.

Watch: Market Research

HOW TO TELL YOUR BRAND STORY THROUGH YOUR BRAND IDENTITY

​Watch Time: 19 mins

​Did you know it's possible to share parts of your brand story through your brand identity?! Find out how in today’s video.

Watch: Brand Identity

You can watch all of these videos in my new Branding for Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners playlist here.

Don't forget to drop me a comment on your favorite video so I know you watched it!

P.S. Have you gotten your hands on the Content Planning Blueprint, yet?

I created this blueprint to help you become an organized, productive, high-converting content machine that gets their brand seen and paid consistently.

As I was creating the CONTENT PLANNING BLUEPRINT, I knew I wanted to give you a tried and tested approach to planning 90 days of content for your business so you can create data-driven content topics, and show up consistently.

Without a clear system in place for finding content ideas, organizing your content ideas, optimizing your workflow, and creating a weekly rinse and repeat system for time management, your dreams of consistent and converting content just won't happen.

I've seen it time and time again.

The key is harnessing the power of a weekly content workflow, the art of repurposing, and utilizing SEO research so you can master your content creation strategy. At the center of a successful marketing strategy lies your content.

Check out the Content Planning Blueprint now!

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

6 Tips For Finding New Clients Online

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Here at Brandmerry, we focus on personal branding and marketing strategies to help you create more income and impact. 

And one of the ways to create more income and impact is serving more clients. 

So I thought what better way to support you in doing that than to share six of my favorite ways that you can start implementing to sign new consistent clients in your business.

Before I dive into the six tips, I have two little disclaimers that I need to share with you. 

These tips are not going to work if you don't know who your ideal customer is. In fact, you're going to have a really hard time signing clients if you don't know who you really want to work with. 

So it's incredibly important that you do the ideal customer work so that you know how you're showing up and what you're saying to those clients. 

In addition to that, your messaging needs to be very clear. 

Ideal customer and messaging are both core parts of the personal branding process. In fact, they are just two of the elements that I teach inside of my course You! Branded. 

And if you want to get a sneak peek, you can watch the Build a Better Brand Method on-demand training all about personal branding. Sign up at betterbrandmethod.com to watch it on demand. 

So make sure you take the time to learn more about your ideal customer and messaging. 

6 WAYS TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS

METHOD #1 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Create High-Value Content

My number one way to attract new service-based clients is to create high-value educational content. 

Now, educational content can be a slew of different things depending on what you sell in your business. But if you're a service-based business owner, chances are you’ve got a lot of cool information up your sleeve that you can teach your audience. 

Now, why do I say high value? 

Because if you can really position yourself as an expert from the start, from that initial piece of content that they consume from you, whether that is on a blog or a video on YouTube or a live stream or a freaking Instagram Reel, then you're going to build that trust right from the beginning, and that is really important.

Create high-value content, put it out there, show up, invite individuals to join your community, join your email list, sign up for your service, and watch as you build momentum and brand awareness and those clients keep coming in. 

So again, I'm going to stress here, it's not just about consistent content, it's not just about posting to post on social media. It's high-value, quality content. 

What is your audience searching for? 
What questions are keeping them up at night? 
Why are they coming to you to solve their problem? 

Help them through that process and watch as your gap between the new ideal customer and signing that customer gets a lot shorter.

METHOD #2 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Host a Live Event

This is one of my favorite ways to sign new clients. With a product launch, a course, and a group program, but specifically for one-on-one service-based clients. 

Sometimes we think, “All right, I've got this one-on-one service and it's always available, someone can sign up at any time.” Well, that might actually be hurting you. 

And I'm not suggesting that you're constantly opening and closing and opening and closing the doors or changing things around, but adding in frequent live events, maybe quarterly, maybe monthly, where you get to share your expertise, give incredible value, and then ultimately pitch your service can be incredibly helpful.

So these live events could look like a video series on social media, you could host a challenge inside of a pop-up Facebook group, you could host a webinar or a workshop, some sort of training for your audience. 

Essentially you have something that everyone signs up for about a topic that is super important to your audience and then you get to pitch your products and service as a solution to that problem. 

If you have a service that's always open, you're always accepting new clients, it can sometimes cause your audience to say, “I'll sign up later, I'll do this later.” 

Having these live events can be incredibly helpful and moving your ideal customer through the buying process, getting them really excited, helping them solve a problem, and then offering up your service as the solution.

METHOD #3 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Share Your Free Gift with your Community

Now, tip number three might not work for all of you, but I think it's important to know. Because I'm hoping that we'll also get the juices flowing in your brain around growing your community. 

Tip number three is all about sharing your free gift with your network. In the beginning, you might not have a huge network to tap into. I didn't have anybody in my network that I could sell my services. 

But I have a lot of clients who do. And by realizing that they have this network, we have to get really creative with how we tell them about our new venture. 

How do we tell them about our services without feeling like we're bombarding them or overwhelming them? 

One of the best ways to do that is to create some sort of freebie or lead magnet for your audience. You need this anyways, you need this regardless because it's a great way to build your email list, which is going to help you sign consistent clients.

When you create that, a great thing to do if you have the network available to you is to share it with them. 

Reach out to them and say, "Hey, I have this new freebie. If you're interested, this is what it does." Or, "I know that you have a network of people who might be interested in this, would you mind sharing this?" 

If you have a connection with other people in your industry that maybe have a similar audience or maybe they've changed gears and now they work with a different audience, reach out to them and say, "Hey, I know that you used to do this, I know you used to be in career coaching and you're not anymore. Would you mind sharing my new freebie that I have on resume building with your existing audience?" 

Tying into those connections that you already have and those networks can be incredibly helpful. But this is my favorite way to do it from a really authentic place so it doesn't feel like you're like, "Oh, I got this new offer, here's where you click to buy."

It will get people on your email list where they will hear about your services.

METHOD #4 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Build Brand Authority

Tip number four, and one of my other favorite ways, is to build brand authority. 

Now, we talked in tip number one about high-value content, about how it's important to build your expertise and showcase your expertise from the beginning. 

Because, the reality is there are going to be people who are looking for your products and services online that may be further along in the buying process and they're looking for that moment of trust, of “this is my person.” 

So having that high-value content is incredibly helpful. 

But another thing that's going to help you sign consistent clients is going to be your brand authority. People want to know that you know what you're talking about. 

A few great ways to do this, and two of my favorites, are through pitching your personal brand and through the power of search engine optimization.

When it comes to pitching your personal brand, this is a fantastic way to get in front of a new audience. I have my degree in public relations and it is one of the trainings that we teach inside of Brandmerry Academy, my marketing membership because we understand that it's a fantastic way to get all eyes on your brand. 

When you do this, you're getting invited to come onto a platform with credibility. Now, maybe you're not going to get into Forbes the very first time you pitch but think about those smaller podcasts that your audience loves, that they listen to regularly, that they have a lot of trust and respect for the host. 

That host is inviting you in to share your expertise. Your authority level is already elevated. 

So rather than shooting a paper airplane in the dark of social media and hoping it lands on your ideal customer, you're getting in front of your ideal customer already elevating your brand authority through the power of pitching your expertise.

On the other side of that, we've got SEO. Now, this isn't an “or” situation, this is an “and” situation. Because pitching and getting featured in publications, on podcasts, on TV will also help you boost your SEO because it helps drive traffic to your website.

SEO is an incredible way to increase your brand authority because of your ranking on Google.

So I'll give you an example. If you go to Google and type in brand coach, I am going to show up at the very top, if not in the top three. If I'm a consumer and I'm looking for a brand coach and I go to Google and I see that the top person without paid ads is Brandmerry, immediately the authority is high. 

So using the power of SEO, and site-wide SEO specifically to rank for your industry can also help increase your brand authority. 

SEO, search engine optimization, is something that we teach again inside of Brandmerry Academy, which is my marketing membership. And you can learn more at brandmerryacademy.com.

METHOD #5 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Offer Assessments

Tip number five is all about offering assessments. 

Now, I wanted to make sure that in covering these six ways, that you had something that would work for you no matter where you're at in your business. So the assessment works really well if you have a small audience or you're just getting started. 

You could absolutely do it if you're further along in your business and you've got a huge email list, but just know that you're going to need a lot more time blocked off to handle all of these assessments. 

Now, assessments do require your time and energy, but in the beginning, it's incredibly worth it if you are looking to create consistent income through your service-based business.

So what an assessment essentially is, is honing in on one area of your expertise, offering free assessments by application for someone to get your knowledge dumped into their lap. So I'll give you an example of what I did in the beginning of my business. 

I offered brand messaging assessments. 

I would promote them on social media, I would promote them in my email list, I would promote them on my website and my blog, and back in the day when I used Facebook groups, I would promote them there as well. 

Essentially, in conjunction with awesome benefit-driven messaging, I would say…

I'm offering five of these this week, here's the link to sign up. When you sign up, you are going to fill out a short questionnaire, we're going to hop on the phone for 20 minutes, you're going to share a little bit about your business with me, and then I'm going to give you three ways to improve your brand messaging at the end of the 20 minutes.

So super actionable, they knew exactly what they were getting, it was focusing on one specific area. 

I found that the assessments really served me better than offering a free call or a discovery call. Because those are incredibly vague and someone might not know exactly what they're going to get on that call so they might be hesitant to sign up for it. 

Think about two to three things that you could really focus on that are key to your entire framework as a service-based entrepreneur, create really strong marketing materials to promote those assessments, and offer a limited-time opportunity to get in the door.

Don't always have these assessments open. Say you're offering two or three a week, maybe you do this every month, maybe you have it on the back end of your freebie or in your email funnel. 

No matter how you want to work it in or promote it, these can be incredibly helpful with getting your customer on the phone with you showcasing your expertise, solving a problem, and then at the end of the assessment you can say something along the lines of, “If this was helpful for you, do you want to have a conversation on how we can continue to work together?”

Then you can move into the sales conversation - and just for the record I never had someone tell me no!

METHOD #6 TO SIGN NEW CLIENTS:
Storytelling

If you don't already know, my expertise over here at Brandmerry is serving my clients through personal branding and marketing strategies, but it's all based on the art of storytelling. 

If you're not familiar with the art of storytelling, you can watch this video right here, where I share more about the importance of storytelling and some of my top tips. Ultimately, if you want to show up, you want to build connections, you want to build trust, get in the habit of sharing your story.

When I first started out and I wasn't signing any clients in my business, I was doing all the things. I was showing up, I was even at the beginning offering some assessments, but nothing was really registering with my audience. 

I had a small list of about 10 people that grew from 20 to 30 to 40 or 50, and still, I wasn't signing consistent clients. 

When I started to focus on emotional branding and the connection with my audience and showing up and sharing stories about why I do what I do, my values, my mission, those same people started buying from me. 

And they weren't new to me, I'd been showing up, I had been delivering value, but suddenly there was that connection piece. So one of the best things that you can do for your business, especially as service-based entrepreneurs, especially as someone who's building a personal brand, is getting into the habit of sharing stories.

Now, I talk about the art of storytelling all the time on my podcast, The Brandmerry Podcast. 

You can also check out the Brand Storytelling Guide on the Brandmerry Blog.

Storytelling truly is an art. And you want to make sure that when you're sharing these stories, that you're not just talking to a wall or talking to anyone, that you're speaking directly to your ideal customer, the same ideal customer that's going to buy your one-on-one package or the custom package that you are offering. 

So get in the habit of incorporating a story into everything that you create, and that includes your emails and your social media posts and your blogs and on your website and in your videos because it's going to help you sign consistent clients in your business.

All right, there you have it, six ways to sign new clients as service-based entrepreneurs.

Don't forget to catch the free on-demand training, the Build a Better Brand Method.
You can go to betterbrandmethod.com to learn more about my signature six-part method.

You're going to learn more about elevating your messaging. I've got a trick in there on doing the ideal customer research that you're not going to want to miss where I’m talking about telling your brand story. 

You can also check out youbrandedcourse.com to learn more about my paid branding course. This is truly where you get the step-by-step system for building a strong brand foundation rooted in story, understanding your ideal customer and mastering your messaging.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Build Your Personal Brand

How to Build Your Personal Brand

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Today’s episode is all about personal branding.

As a Personal Branding Consultant and Marketing Strategist, it's one of my favorite topics and something I support my clients with daily. I have spent the last five years teaching entrepreneurs how to personally brand themselves online so that they can build scalable businesses. 

The information that I'm sharing with you today isn't just based on my experience. It's based on my clients, which includes hundreds who have gone through my program, You! Branded, or worked with me as a 1:1 VIP client.

What I’m teaching you today will shift the way you think about branding forever and fill in some of the gaps in your personal brand as well.

WHAT IS PERSONAL BRANDING

In this context, I am talking about personal branding as it applies to business owners. So, you're looking to receive money and funds for your products or your services online.

With this in mind, how does personal branding impact that?

Personal branding is based on the experience that you are creating for your ideal customer, with you being the person behind the brand. 

Whether you sell a product or a service, personal branding can help you create more connections with your audience. We've also found that personal branding helps with client retention. 

When a customer shares a connection with a brand, connects with shared values, is on board with their mission, feels taken care of, is connected to their story, we know that client retention improves. This is why personal branding is so important no matter what you sell online.

At the end of the day, if you're not leading the charge with your personal brand, if you aren't choosing what messages are being shared and what is being said, other people will create the narrative for you. 

We don't really want that. 

So, it is important that as a business owner you are focused on the person, or the people if there's more than one, behind the brand, and sharing that through the art of personal branding.

When we watch videos or read most blogs on personal branding, they’re typically focused on social media only. I want you to think of that as an avenue for sharing your personal brand, but keep in mind you can also share your personal brand through video, blogging, or email marketing. 

There are a lot of different ways to showcase your personal brand online.

For our purpose I want to dive deeper into what personal branding is made up of, not just how you share your personal brand.

How do you actually figure out what your personal brand is, so you can use those marketing avenues to attract your ideal customers, promote your products and services, and build a deeper connection?

To figure out what our personal brand is, we've got to start at the very, very first step, which is understanding who you are.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING WHO YOU ARE

When it comes to figuring out who you are, the person behind the brand, it's important to start thinking about your story. 

Now, story work is something that I specialize in, over here at Brandmerry. No matter if you work with me on branding or marketing, we're always focused on the art of storytelling. 

I talked about storytelling in this video right here. If you want to check it out, that is going to be really helpful for you in understanding why story is so important.

But some of the things that you want to identify in the beginning is:

• Who the heck are you (or the people behind the brand)?

• What has ultimately led you to create this product or this service?

• Why do you want to solve this problem for your ideal customer? 

We know that to be successful as a business owner, we need to solve a problem. 
If there's no problem, people won't pay for a result. They won't pay for a solution. 

So, you want to get clear on why you chose to do that? What has ultimately led you here?

One of the elements that I teach inside of Module One of my program You! Branded is focusing on the three transitions. What are three pivotal moments in your life that have led you to this moment today? It’s also something I share in this recent podcast episode here.

This is also incredibly helpful in writing your brand's story, which is often one of the things that we do when we are first launching our business out into the world. Also, at this phase, you want to pay attention to identifying your brand values and your brand mission. 

If you need additional help with this, episode one and four on the Brandmerry Podcast talks about both of these pieces, so you can dive into the logistics on each of those over on iTunes or Spotify.

The goal at this stage is to be super clear on the person/people behind the brand, otherwise, it's going to be really hard to communicate who the person behind the brand is, which is the art of personal branding in a nutshell.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP #2: WHO IS YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER

The second thing that you want to do is get super clear on who you want to attract to your brand. 

There are two sides to branding. There's you, the personal brand. The stories that you're ultimately going to share. 

Then we also have to understand who the brand is designed for because it's not for you (you can’t buy your own services and products and keep your business afloat). You are the person behind the brand, the person building the connection. But who are you wanting to attract?

This is where understanding who your ideal customer is is incredibly important. 

You need to not only get very specific on who your product and your service are ultimately for, but also get down to the nitty-gritty details around who they are. 

This is going to help you tremendously as you start to show up on social media, as you start to enhance your email marketing, and as you venture into blogging or creating video. 

Who are these pieces of content for? This is going to make the entire process of showing up and marketing your business so much easier. 

It's also going to play a role in the types of stories that you share online and the types of photos that you create because you're doing it to attract an ideal customer. You want to make sure that you take the time to identify who that person is.

Here are two little things, and three questions, that I want to share with you on ideal client work.

IDEAL CLIENT WORK: TIP #1

Get super clear on specifically who this person is. This is where some of those demographic pieces come into play. I'm not going to tell you that you can only work with women, or you can only work with men, or you can only work with business owners. 

But start to think about those demographics that they identify with most, because that's really going to help you when you are writing copy, creating messaging, and choosing those visual pieces for your brand.

IDEAL CLIENT WORK: TIP #2

The second thing that you want to be able to answer are these three questions:

•  Where are they at currently? 

• What are their struggles? 

• And what is standing in their way? 

This is kind of like a two-for-one. Struggles and obstacles. 

If someone has a problem, they can clearly tell you, "This is my problem. This is what I'm currently experiencing in my day-to-day life. This is what I'm trying to move away from." 

But if they haven't moved away from that yet, what is standing in their way? That can be where you really get clear on the obstacles. 

The last piece is where do they ultimately want to go? If you solve their problems if they have a solution, what will that allow them to do? 

Now again, I want to be super clear, this plays a role whether you have a product or a service. I actually teach a little secret sauce to ideal client work in my free class, Build a Better Brand Method. Visit betterbrandmethod.com to sign up for free.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP 3: UNDERSTANDING WHO YOU ARE

The third step in the personal branding process is your messaging. 

Let's just recap to see how this fits in.

We know who you are, right? You are the person behind the brand. You're the one that's ultimately showing up on these platforms, sharing your expertise, sharing your knowledge. 

We understand who you're speaking to and who you want to attract. That's your ideal customer. 

Now how do we do this in a very consistent and fluid way? That is where messaging comes into play. 

I teach a strategy called Core Brand Messages, which you can watch in this video right here, where I recommend that my clients get super clear on their brand messages for their brand as a whole, not about a specific product. 

In fact, I think a lot of entrepreneurs limit themselves because they brand a specific product or a service rather than focusing on the overall personal branding from the beginning. 

This looks like identifying some of the obstacles your audience is facing, sharing the struggles that you fix or solve, sharing the desires of your ideal customer and how you, and your brand, ultimately get them from struggle to desire using your techniques.

This is where creating those messages right from the start can really help with consistency in showing up on social media and in the content that you're creating on the different pages on your website. 

When it comes to messaging you want to make sure that you're incredibly focused on consistency. 

We know that if someone, a consumer, has a break in consistency, they have a break in trust.

So, it's important that if you're showing up on Instagram, and you're showing up on Pinterest, and you have your website (what platforms you ultimately choose), that you are really consistent with your messaging, with the aesthetics, with all those pieces on every single platform. 

Don’t break trust with your audience, it's an incredibly bad thing to do as a business owner because we know that people buy based on trust. 

Zig Ziglar once said, "If someone likes you, they'll listen to you. If they trust you, they'll do business with you." So, don't break that trust.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP #4: EMOTIONAL BRANDING

Tip number four is my specialty and it is called emotional branding. 

Sometimes when we're thinking about showing up online, we get super logistical. We're always thinking about what we offer and why it’s helpful. And while those are VERY important pieces of information to identify, we know that people make purchase decisions based on an emotional connection. 

So, emotional branding is incredibly powerful, and it's the focus of Module Six inside of my course You! Branded. We know that when you're super clear on how you ultimately want your ideal customer to feel, then you can create messaging, and you can create the aesthetics, and the visual components and the overall experience to make them feel that way.

I created a video for you right here. It's one of my most popular videos, all about emotional branding. 

When thinking about your personal brand make sure that you focus on building a connection because that is what personal branding truly is about. It's about sharing these stories and creating an experience for your audience so that they purchase from the brand and stay loyal to the brand for years to come.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP 5: BUILD A COMMUNITY

Tip number five is all about your ideal customer yet again. 

I know we initially think about personal branding as just the person behind the brand, but I hope you realize that that's a small portion of it. To improve your personal brand online, you want to get in front of the right people. 

So, this step is all about making sure that you're consistently increasing brand awareness and attracting your ideal customer.

One of the best things that you can do when creating your business is building a community around your brand. This is also going to play a huge role as you expand your brand down the line, maybe offering live events, a podcast, or releasing a book. 

My favorite way to build community is through email marketing. Making sure that you are growing your email list so you have a way to stay in contact with your brand community members, to share stories with them, to share educational content, to share knowledge, to share your products and your offers. 

Not only is having this online community really going to help with the evolution of your brand, but it's also going to help you make money. 

So, as a business owner, it's important that if someone is intrigued by what you're saying, that they are interested in your products and your services, that you get them into your inner circle, that you capture their name and their email address so you can continue to nurture that relationship.

You can read more about growing your email list in this blog.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP 6: CUSTOMER SERVICE

The last tip that I have for you is all about that connection piece. It's what we talked about in the very beginning. Personal branding really is about the experience. It's about building a connection with your audience. It's about sustainability and longevity. 

So, my last tip for you is to take care of your customers. Take care of your clients. 

We put too much emphasis on getting people in the door, getting people on our email list. But I challenge you to put the same amount of emphasis, if not more, on taking care of the customers and clients once they're in the door. 

This is what is going to lead to your recurring clients, to your referrals, to your word-of-mouth. Some of the most powerful pieces in building a strong personal brand online.

I am really incredibly proud of my client retention rate because I make it a goal to make my clients a top priority. 

These are the people who have invested in your products and services. Show up for them, take care of them, and they can be the best advocates for your personal brand.

This looks like making sure you have a clear client onboarding system so they feel taken care of from the moment that they invest. It can look like making sure that you're checking in with them, that you have ways for them to provide feedback, and you're honoring that feedback as well. 

One of the things that we have done inside of my course, You! Branded, is to receive feedback from clients on why they purchased, and feedback on obstacles that they've run into as they've gone through the course, or if they would have liked something changed. 

We take that feedback to heart and we improve the program for all.

At this point, it's not a guessing game anymore. People will ultimately tell you how you can care for them the best. And if you listen to that, I promise you that they will be the best advocates for your personal brand.

CONCLUSION

I hope that these six steps to improve your personal brand were really helpful for you. 

If you want to dive into personal branding and building a better brand, I invite you to watch my free class, the Build a Better Brand Method. 

You can check it out with the link below, or go to betterbrandmethod.com to sign up for this on-demand class. 

You're going to learn my six-part framework for building a better brand. I talk a little bit more about building those core brand messages, your ideal customer, and the power of story. 

You also will have a chance to join us inside of my course You! Branded when you are ready to join us. This course will completely give you everything that you need to build a strong personal brand online.

And, if you want to read a bit more on the blog about personal branding, check out my Personal Branding Guide here.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

Mission vs Purpose: The Difference in Branding

Mission vs Purpose: The Difference in Branding

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

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One of the key pieces of branding, and one of the things that I've stepped into as my business has grown, has been this idea of creating mission-driven brands. 

In true Michelle fashion, we must start with a story. 

For those of you that don't know, I love storytelling. It's how I built my entire business, and I encourage all entrepreneurs to tell stories all of the time as a way to connect with their ideal customers. 

So it wouldn't be a kickoff episode on The Brandmerry Podcast, without a story.

Before I had my online business, before I even dreamed of creating Brandmerry, I worked in the nonprofit sector. I've been volunteering in nonprofit work since I was a kid. It was something that was expected of us, and I'm so thankful for that.

It was honestly something I just always did.

When I first went to college, I went to school for musical theater. And when my brother got sick with cancer, I ended up coming home. 

Some of the classes at the local university were focused on Nonprofit Management, so I started exploring that avenue and found that I truly loved learning more about creating a nonprofit, messaging and communicating the mission of the nonprofit, and building a profitable nonprofit that can make a difference in so many lives. 

That's kind of where my introduction to marketing and communication started, in the nonprofit sector.

Fast-forward a couple of years, and we, unfortunately, lost my brother to cancer, which many of you know. If you've read my story you know that my family created a nonprofit in his honor. 

That process was so interesting to be on the other side of as we had to get super clear and specific on the goals and mission of the organization. 

One of the things that stood out to me, although again, I didn't put it in connection to branding until much, much later, was the fact that to even begin an application as a nonprofit, you have to clearly state your mission.

What is the focus? 
What is the objective? 
What is the mission behind the organization that you are creating, and how will you do that with your day-to-day activities? 

I just found that to be so fascinating, and I remember helping my parents write the mission statement and learning so much about that process. 

Fast-forward a few more years, and my now-husband, Ben and I moved to Chicago, where I pursued a degree in Public Relations, Marketing and Communications. So I went to school to learn how to work with journalists, how to craft messages, studying advertising, studying marketing and communications, studying messaging, and that landed me an internship at a very large nonprofit in Chicago that helped children with cancer.

Later in life, right before I started my business, I was the Communications Manager at a large non-profit in St. Louis, Missouri, and again, I was constantly reminded of the mission and that everything we did came back to the mission.

When I started Brandmerry, I didn't craft my mission right away because I was all wrapped up in, "What's everyone else doing, and what am I supposed to do?" But, there was a moment before my third webinar I remember sitting down and thinking about how I had a company name, Brandmerry, and what did that mean? 

What was the point of it? 

What was the mission?

I spent a few minutes identifying my mission statement, and it's been the same ever since. 

As I began to work with entrepreneurs and work with businesses and consulted nonprofits, I’ve always come back to the importance of crafting a mission statement for your brand and business.

MISSION VS PURPOSE

Now, what is the difference between mission and purpose? They're kind of connected, but I find people interchange them a lot and it can be confusing.

Simon Sinek has a wonderful approach to identifying your why. What I have found in working with entrepreneurs and small business owners and navigating this myself is that typically, the purpose or why is really focused on why YOU’RE building it. 

What it will allow you to do in your life; the personal benefits to you.

I know for myself and many of my clients, my why is the fact that I want to travel, and I want to create a legacy for my son, and I want to create financial freedom for my family, for my clients, and their future. A big driver for me is experiencing what I call the freedom trifecta - time, financial and location. 

In the beginning, my why was so simple it was literally that I wanted to shop exclusively at Whole Foods for my groceries. 

So, as my business has grown I’ve recognized that my why or purpose has changed a lot over the years. And while, I’ve always had a goal to impact the lives of others, “Impact others!” isn’t really a brand mission.

So when it comes to writing a mission statement I want you to think of it as your ultimate objective. It’s the long-term mission behind your brand and specifically how you want to make an impact and support your audience. 

The difference here is that its super long-term, and I think this is where a lot of entrepreneurs get hung up. 

There are setting goals for the business, typically three, six, nine months and a year and thinking this is what I can do now.

A mission statement is less of a goal (i.e. deadline) and more of a compass.

It is a compass for the work that you are going to do. It's going to help you in your decision-making processes. 

When you start to hire team members, it's going to help you in the hiring process. 

It's going to help you with your stance on social responsibility. 

It's going to shape your values.

It's going to impact who you will and will not work with. 

Ultimately, your mission statement provides a focus for your brand. 

It's the guiding force for everything that you're going to do in your business. 

So from the standpoint of a business owner, it's incredibly powerful to determine a mission statement and to be able to ask yourself, "Is this in alignment with my mission?" 

It's something that nonprofits do all of the time and it’s required by the government to say, "This is the program that we're doing, and this is how it connects to my mission," and so forth. I think this clarity and connectedness is what so many small business owners are missing.

If I'm launching a new program I might consider:

• How does this connect to my mission? 

• How does this connect to my objective and how I am committing to showing up?

So having a mission statement early on in your business can truly impact a lot of the decisions that you're going to make.

BRAND AFFINITY

In addition to your decisions as the brand owner, we also know that brand affinity comes down to a connection between a brand and a consumer on a deep, deep level, typically around brand values and a clear brand mission statement. 

I'm going to be talking about brand values in a future episode, so I won't get too into it now, but I want you to remember that your values and mission matter when it comes to selling your products and services.

We have the statistics that tell us that people will buy because of this connection, because of shared values, because of a shared mission. 

I'm about to share with you my mission statement, but before I do, I want to say that this isn't something that you have to broadcast everywhere. You don’t need a title that says, MISSION STATEMENT on your page, you can work it into your content, story, etc.

And remember, it’s not just about saying it - it’s about honoring it as you grow your business!

You can absolutely say your mission. People do it all the time, and I love that, but you don't have to.

This is for you. 

This is your guiding force. 

This is to make sure that the things that you're doing are in alignment with your mission, with the ultimate objective for your company, whether your company has a name like Brandmerry or it's Michelle Knight.

It does not matter. It's still a company. 

Remember, it’s important to treat your businesses as a business, so take the time to get in touch with what you want to be remembered for and the impact you want to make.

At Brandmerry, we believe in two outcomes, income and impact. 
Because one without the other kind of sucks. 

You can have a lot of income and not be making a difference in the world. I think that's a true disservice as a company and something that we're seeing more and more of over the last few years in social responsibility and companies taking a stand, and standing behind their missions and standing behind their values through action. 

You can also be making a huge impact, but limiting yourself because you don't have the income. You could be doing even more good in the world if you had the income and the funds, and that's one of the ways that I love to look at money. Yes, of course, I want money for travel and I want money to support my family, and there's nothing wrong with saying that.

I want to be a millionaire, but I also know that with that money, I can do more. 

I will have the resources to do more, and so my impact will be greater. 

Here's the last thing I'll share with you before I share my mission statement. 

When you're thinking of your mission statement, it's not about a particular product, it's not about a particular service. It might be so far away from where you are right now, and that is okay.

It's a compass. 
It's a guiding light. 
It can evolve.

Just like all things with branding and marketing and running a business, things will evolve, and your mission statement may evolve as well. However, it doesn’t have to, my mission statement is the same one I wrote back in 2016, right before my third webinar with about two attendees!

The Brandmerry mission is to help women uncover their story and their authentic voice so they can build a movement and brand around their mission.

So everything that I do comes back to working with entrepreneurs, women specifically at this stage of my business, who want to make an impact, who have a mission of their own, and who’re creating a business and a brand as a way to reach more people. 

In doing so, my mission is to make sure that these CEOs and these business owners are connecting to their story, they're connecting to their authenticity, and they're sharing that with others because I know that through that, you can create a greater movement.

If you think about how I show up on social media, how I show up on my website, the copy on my website, if you think about my products and my services, they all come back to this. 

Brand storytelling, authenticity, mission statements, they're in all of the work that I create for my clients.

WRITING YOUR MISSION STATEMENT

This week, I want to encourage you to sit down and answer a few questions:

1. What is the impact that I want to make? 

2. How can I share that objective and how do I want to reach that objective with my audience? 

3. How can I craft a mission statement and use that as a sounding board for all of my decisions moving forward?

Because as I mentioned, you might be a solopreneur right now, but you're going to grow and you're going to expand, and you're going to need to hire a team and choose to work with brands, there will be collaborations, and you can come back to your mission statement to say, "Is this in alignment with my mission statement or isn't it?" 

It makes making decisions a heck of a lot easier as a business owner. 

Not to mention, I just think you're super rad for having a mission statement and doing the work to support it.

The other cool thing is that it puts you in the CEO role of your business, and that's powerful, especially when you're just starting, to step into that mindset of like, "This can be bigger than it is right now, and I see that. I see that future." 

When writing your statement keep it simple and have fun with it.

HELPFUL LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Episode 2 of The Brandmerry Podcast: The Difference Between Branding and Marketing

Build a Better Brand Method Free Class >> BetterBrandMethod.com

SUBSCRIBE to The Brandmerry Podcast here

P.S. If you are ready to build a better brand, a mission-driven brand, a brand that makes an impact, a brand that builds a community, and of course, a revenue-generating business you need to watch my free training.

This on-demand training will teach you my signature Build a Better Brand Method, walk you through the power of storytelling, messaging and more. Plus, give you the confidence to build your brand online.

Get signed up at BetterBrandMethod.com

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

BRAND AFFINITY: WHAT IS IT AND HOW DO YOU IMPROVE IT

Brand Affinity: What Is It and How Do You Improve It?

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Have you ever wondered why some brands resonate with you so much better than others?

Or, why you find yourself coming back to a brand over and over again because of the connection you feel?

Me too, that was until I learned about Brand Affinity.

Turns out I had been focused on building Brand Affinity for years, just didn’t have a name for it, but this secret sauce is something every online brand should work towards (more on why in a minute).

The beautiful thing about Brand Affinity is that it doesn’t have to take years to build trust. We often think that building trust with our audience takes a lot of time, and for some it does depending on where they are in the buying process, but it can happen within in minutes.

The tips I’m sharing with you in this blog will give you tools to start building Brand Affinity today, so you can get started on your way in building a deeper relationship with your audience.

Let’s start at the beginning.

WHAT IS BRAND AFFINITY?

Brand Affinity is when a consumer believes a particular brand shares the same values as them. 

It’s deeper than a knowledge of the brand, brand awareness, and begins to build the connection between consumer and brand on a more personal and emotional level.

This connection is what allows you, as the brand, to not only stand out online but keep your audience coming back time and time again.

Remember purchase decisions come down to trust.

“If someone likes you they’ll listen to you, if they trust you they’ll do business with you!” - Zig Ziglar

Building this trust is necessary when building an online brand in 2020 and beyond because consumers are looking for brands that they can trust.

As more generations become part of movements and make changes in their personal lives they’re looking for brands that share those values and go even further to provide support for those values as well.

When you build brand affinity with your audience you increase the likelihood that they will purchase your service or product, you create a consumer base that sticks around for the long haul (hello community) and your audience is more likely to refer others to your brand.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a sweet deal.

BRAND AFFINITY IN MARKETING

In a few minutes, I’m going to share with you five ways to increase your brand affinity, but there is one strategy that is essential when it comes to marketing your business and that’s the power of storytelling.

The reality is you can’t just post your values every single day on social media, but you want people to understand them.

You can’t share your mission point-blank in every email, but you want your audience to understand it.

This is where storytelling becomes your secret weapon in marketing.

Through strong storytelling, you can showcase your values and mission daily through your brand messaging. Yes, that’s right storytelling should be incorporated into every aspect of your marketing.

Want to learn all the ins and outs of storytelling in business? My Tell Better Stories Mini-Course has your name written all over it. Learn more at brandmerry.com/stories

Storytelling gives you the ability to not only share relevant stories that showcase your values and mission (hello, Brand Affinity) but give you the tools to begin building deeper relationships with your audience.

These deeper relationships and connection are why our audiences trust us, buy from us and keep coming back.

It’s not enough to just have strong Brand Awareness, someone’s knowledge of your brand, you have to go deeper. The truth is, there are a lot of people offering something similar to you, multiple ways for a consumer to solve their problem, but storytelling and specifically Brand Affinity makes your brand...their brand.

5 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR BRAND AFFINITY

I know you’re wondering, “Michelle, aside from storytelling how can I increase Brand Affinity with my community?”

Well, I’m so glad you asked!

I know storytelling can feel complex, I’ve included some resources below to support you with this, but I want you to be able to start TODAY. So, below you’ll find five simple ways to improve your Brand Affinity almost immediately.

1 | SHARE YOUR BRAND VALUES

Seems simple enough right? Well, not enough brands are identifying the values of their brand and therefore aren’t sharing them. How do you expect someone to experience Brand Affinity, shared values, if you yourself don’t know your brand values.

So, if you haven’t already identified yours now is the time to start.

I suggest thinking of the values you personally hold and how those connect to your brand.

What values do you want to share between you and your consumer, it will be a lot easier to build a business you love if you attract the right people.

For instance, some of my brand values are:

+ Authenticity
+ Transparency
+ Care and Attention to Detail
+ Reduce the overwhelm
+ The desire for our living a Freedom lifestyle

I showcase these through my marketing, every email, photo, etc is focused on attracting people who share the same values.

TAKE ACTION: Identify your core values and then share them.

The simplest thing to do is post them on your website, this can be done on your About Me page, but as we talked about earlier you’ll also want to showcase these through storytelling.

2|  SHARE THE MISSION BEHIND YOUR BRAND

I started my career in non-profit work so forgive me as a gush over the power of a Brand Mission. As business owners we forget this, not enough business owners are taking the time to identify the mission or purpose behind their brand and this is a mistake.

63% of consumers state they want to buy from purpose-driven businesses.

And although money is amazing, I love it myself, it’s not the purpose. Your purpose and mission need to be deeper than that.

For instance, the mission behind my brand is…
“To empower women to uncover and own their story and share it with the world through their personal brand.”

This mission not only drives every decision in my business, but is also one of the main connectors for my audience.

TAKE ACTION: Identify your mission.
What is the purpose behind your business?
What legacy do you want to leave begin with your work?

Then share it! I love encouraging my clients to share their mission statement on their Home Page, but you can also include it on your About Me page.

3 | SHOW BRAND AFFINITY THROUGH PHOTOS

This is my favorite thing to do as a personal brand and it’s so important. We often don’t think about the effect of Instagram on building trust or the use of seeing multiple photos on a website as a way to build Brand Affinity, but it’s actually a very powerful practice.

Here’s why it’s so powerful. When you showcase multiple photos of yourself, different outfits, different locations, different expressions your audience feels as if they are seeing at different moments in time. It’s as if you’ve met and know each other for longer than you actually have.

Photography overall is one of my favorite investments as a brand. It’s not about spending a bunch of money or posing for all your photos, but it is about elevating your brand by showing different sides of your personality and if you’re not a photographer then hiring one can be one of the best investments in your business.

TAKE ACTION: Hire a photographer if you can and make sure you clearly articulate your brand values, ideal customer and the emotional connection you want to portray. More on prepping for a Brand Photoshoot here

But, even if you can’t invest in a photographer right now, you can use a tripod or a friend to take photos of you. Make sure you’re sharing different moments in time to achieve the Brand Affinity. Then share your photos on your website and of course on social media.

Take a look at my Instagram to get a feel for this!

4 | BUILD A COMMUNITY

There are a lot of different ways to build community outside of a private Facebook Group, even though everyone is telling you that you need one. The truth is you can build community on social media and through your email lists just as effectively.

When we think of community we think of a central location for everyone to hang out, but what you’re wanting to do is just declare your brand as the community.

For example, inside of my first email when you sign up for my email list I welcome new subscribers to the Brandmerry Community. 

I’m always referring to the Brandmerry Community on my live streams, blogs and on social media. There isn’t a specific jacket we all wear, but we know. The women inside the community know I’m speaking to them and about them and that builds connection.

You could even go as far as declaring a name for your community.

This sense of unity makes someone feel as if they are part of something bigger. It’s not just about buying your product and peacing out it’s about belonging, which we as humans want.

TAKE ACTION: How can you use the tools at your fingertips to build a community? Will you give your audience a name? Determine some of the fun ways you can create a community that allows your audience to be part of something.

5 | EXCELLENT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

It’s no secret that as consumers we want to be cared for. We don’t want to work extra hard to get the products and services we desire and once we make the decision, i.e. commitment, we want it to be easy.

This is where your customer service comes to the next level.

We often think the customer service is the sale, and while that is important, what comes next is what builds further Brand Affinity.

For instance, when someone purchases one of my services or courses they receive instant confirmation that their purchase has been received. Then, they receive an email with all the information they need, including login, how to access the materials, the next steps and where to start.

I take the guesswork out of getting started and right away my audience feels taken care of and trust is increased.

TAKE ACTION: How can you improve your customer service? If you have any holes in your process, post-sale, fill those now!

CONCLUSION

I hope you can see the importance of Brand Affinity and why every single brand, no matter what you sell, should be focused on building this deeper connection and trust with their audience.

As I mentioned before I know sometimes this whole branding and storytelling thing can feel like a lot. If you’re wanting to build more of a foundation with your brand, understand how all the pieces like storytelling fit together and what you want to avoid when building your brand then I’d love to invite you to watch my free class.

In this free class, I’ll share the Build a Better Brand Method. Sign up for the next available time at brandmerry.com/brandmasterclass.

And if you’re looking for those resources on storytelling, sorry to keep you hanging, you can find those below.

Where and When to Share Your Brand Story can be found here

The Art of Storytelling in Business can be found here

5 Examples of Brand Storytelling to Incorporate into Your Marketing can be found here

How to Attract Your Dream Clients Through Emotional Branding can be found here

I hope these resources will support you in understanding storytelling in marketing on a deeper, it really changes everything!

P.S. If you made it this far, good for you! Let’s take it a step further and dive into your branding. If you haven’t already be sure to watch my free class on The Build a Better Brand Method.

It’s a free 60-minute class for female entrepreneurs looking to build a strong personal brand that supports them in standing out online, creating a stream of high-value content and build a community of fans that leads to a revenue-generating business.

Sign up for the class at brandmerry.com/brandmasterclass.

---

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.