How to Run an Online Business as a Digital Nomad

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

One of the reasons that I decided to start my business back in 2016 was that we wanted to travel more. My husband and I had always taken that regular trip every single year. And we took some pretty epic vacations while we were working our typical 9 to 5 jobs, but we wanted more flexibility. 

So when I set out to start my business, we thought, hey, we're going to add another trip or two trips a year, extend our trips a little bit longer. 

We did not imagine that we would quickly become digital nomads. 

So today, I want to share with you some of the lessons that I've learned throughout that journey.

In 2018, our world quickly changed. 

We unfortunately lost many people that we loved that year. And my husband and I realized that we wanted to take action and we wanted to take action quickly. 

Essentially, we wanted to start traveling full time. 

At the time, my husband was working a 9 to 5. 
I was already running my business, which had grown to six figures a year. 

And we decided that our best avenue at the time was to bring him home from his retail job, sell our home, buy an RV and a truck, because we didn't have that either, and set out to travel across the United States.

TRAVELING FULL-TIME IN AN RV

We traveled across the United States in an RV from 2019 to 2020. And it was an experience! 

If you don't already know, we also have a child. And at the time he was just three years old and we were really learning to navigate not only running a business from the road, but also having my husband home for the first time, it had just been my son and I for so long. 

We ended up traveling from 2019 through mid of 2020. You can probably imagine why we stopped traveling in the RV in 2020. And we decided to just settle down for a moment and let some things pass over. 

Now, being a digital nomad for us looks different every single year. 

We spent two years living in an RV. 

Last year and into this year, we have had a home base in our apartment that we rent out while traveling overseas and to different countries. 

We actually have been to St. Croix. We've spent a month in Hawaii. At the time of this release, we are coming back from three months in Greece. 

What I love about being an entrepreneur and being able to run my business as a digital nomad is the flexibility to do it from anywhere. 

And I think in 2020, we realized that not only are entrepreneurs and small business owners able to do that, but a lot of people who work in corporate or 9 to 5 might be able to be more location independent.

Here are some of the top lessons that I have learned on my journey from living in an RV to renting out an apartment and taking small trips to traveling for months at a time to different countries. 

DIGITAL NOMAD TIP #1
KNOW YOUR WIFI OPTIONS

Every time someone sends me a DM on Instagram, like, “Oh, I'm thinking about doing this. What do I need to know?” I always begin with your wifi is never guaranteed. 

I don't feel like anyone warned me about this when I was setting out to become a full-time RV-er. Wifi is just not always reliable. We have four hotspots and sometimes we have zero service.

We might go to a place that we're like, oh, this is going to be beautiful and scenic and then have zero wifi, zero cell service. It's happened so many times. 

I have driven up to gas stations, 20 minutes away just to upload a video. 

So I think one of the greatest lessons that I've ever learned is that wifi is essential as a digital nomad, somebody who runs their own business, but it's never guaranteed. 

So what do you do about that? 

Well, you have to really plan accordingly. I’m already a pretty big planner, have an entire video on planning six months in business right here, but when you're planning as a digital nomad, it is essential, so that you know when you're able to take client calls, when you're able to maybe record a bunch of videos and upload them. 

And you want to be really strategic with the locations that you're scouting out during those times.

I work one-on-one with my clients through video consultations. I also do trainings inside of my membership, Brandmerry Academy. And I need a way to do a few of those calls every single month. 

When we were getting ready to head to Greece for three months, I would look at our route and make sure that none of the days that I'm planning on having calls are travel days, seriously just never schedule things on a travel day. 

Meaning, you're going from one location to another, whether that's by ferry, bus, car, boat, a plane, it doesn't matter. Don't plan on having client calls on a travel day. You can thank me for that one later. 

What I do after I’ve blocked out travel days is I’ll look at our schedule, where we're going and the areas, the Airbnbs, the hotels, and gravitate to where the reviews say that there is excellent wifi. 

I am a stickler for looking at reviews specifically for wifi. And if there aren't any reviews about the wifi, I will even reach out to the host and ask them and tell them that I require video streaming. So don't be afraid to ask those types of questions. 

Then, what I do is I adjust my availability for my clients based on that information. 

So for instance, we're gearing up to spend some time in Athens. I know that this particular Airbnb has rave reviews about wifi and we're in a large metropolitan area. So even if I don't have it in the apartment, I can go to Starbucks or a public park where you can often get wifi. 

You really want to plan accordingly for your calls and never just assume that everywhere you go will have wifi. 

This is also fantastic because it allows you to have bulk work days as well, where you can squeeze all of your client calls into one day or any of your meetings or anything like that, which leads me to the second point.

DIGITAL NOMAD TIP #2
STRUCTURING YOUR DAYS

I love bulk scheduling and structuring my days because it allows me to get more done. I have a harder time being productive and focusing when I've got a 9 to 5 schedule available in front of me. 

In fact, I share some productivity tips in this video right here.  I found that when I have a more focused, intentional time, I actually get more done. So when we are traveling, obviously we want to experience new cultures and we want to see new things. That is the joy of being a digital nomad. 

I have zero desire to sit in my Airbnb or my hotel all day, every day, and not experience the world around me. So I have to be really intentional with the days that I am going to dedicate to work. 

And that's why I really love batching and bulk scheduling my content, to bulk scheduling my client calls, even live videos.

If I'm doing live videos, I'll put them all on the same day. So we know that those days, we're not going to go out and wander. I'm going to get a bunch of work done, and then we're good. We don't have to worry about it anymore.

I highly recommend that you start to group your activities together. 

If you need to record videos, record a bunch of videos, choose the day that you're going to do that. 

If you're going to do podcasts, bulk those together. 

If you need to write emails, do those all together. 

Client calls, like I mentioned, I always bulk those together when we're traveling so that I don't have to go out and then think about when I have to come back and so on and so forth.

I shared my bulk creation process in my first vlog here where I bulk created 90 days worth of content, which is also something I recommend before your trips.

I also talk about my entire planning process in this video, where I talk about planning 90 days worth of content. 

Sometimes you are going to notice that you've got a lot of preparation before you jet set and head off to an awesome destination, but that preparation and maybe intense time is going to allow for a ton of flexibility and movement and exploring when you're in that new location.

DIGITAL NOMAD TIP #3
COMMUNICATION IS KEY

My third tip for you is all around communication. It’s incredibly important that you explain to the people that you work with, your clients, your bosses, your coworkers, your team, what's happening, your flexibility, and your availability.

This is going to make a huge difference.

The last thing that you want is to be out doing something freaking awesome, like in a helicopter ride or something like that. And someone's messaging you about something that's not urgent. 

We have a tendency to check that stuff. 
We have a tendency to want to check back in on our emails and our Gmail and all of that and those moments can take us away from the moment.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you completely ignore your communication platforms, but by having these boundaries in place you’ll find people are more intentional with how they communicate with you. 

One of the best things that I've done is set really clear boundaries and expectations with the people in my life. And that goes from my team members who know that I'm going to be out exploring for the next four days. 

Unless it's an absolute emergency don't message me. 

My clients also understand, because I tell them, that these are my travel days. These are the days that I'm flying. I probably won't get back to you just then. 

If I'm in a different time zone, I always let my clients know that I'm in a different time zone. So I might be getting back to them at 3 AM.

I set up those expectations and I really communicate this clearly before I set out and do anything. I always email my clients, including my membership Brandmerry Academy, to let them know I'm going to be traveling. 

What's so cool about it is everyone is awesome about it. Everyone's respectful about it because we love when people set clear boundaries, because it lets us know that we can do that in our own lives as well. And it just sets the stage.

So I have never once had someone get mad at me because I'm super clear and upfront ahead of time on what they can expect. You can do this no matter what you're doing. And I highly, highly recommend it. 

The other thing that I'll say about communication and boundaries is if you are traveling with your family, let's say in a 36-foot travel trailer across the United States, boundaries and communication are so important. 

My family knew my entire schedule for work days. 
When did I have calls? 
When did I need to record? 
When did I need to laser in and focus? 

We talked about that every single week so that we could really enjoy our lives and really laser in and focus and grow my business while also being a digital nomad. 

It takes a lot of balance because you're going to want to just go out and be on vacation every single day, but the reality is that you are a business owner and you've got to set these boundaries with other people and also yourself.

And that leads me to my next tip.

DIGITAL NOMAD #4
NOT EVERY DAY IS A VACATION

Not every day is a vacation. 

My husband and I will go on a weekend trip to the Dominican, or we went and took my son to Disney. Those are specific vacations, meaning I'm not working while we're there and we're just really enjoying ourselves. We're not trying to juggle both. 

But as a digital nomad, there's this misconception that every day is a vacation. 

And I believed that for a really long time, when we first started traveling, I wanted to do everything in every new location. My husband and I had to have conversations because he's home with our son supporting him, running our household, essentially, and he’d want to go hiking and I’d agree, but after a while I realized we couldn’t maintain that every single day.

I had to get better at setting boundaries with myself.

That means that having those clear bulk days and a structured schedule will take away the pressure to go out every day because you know you have full days to work and full days to explore.

Another thing I started doing is checking in on my work stuff early in the morning to answer emails, etc and then log off for the rest of the day. This allowed me to be present in the biz, but also enjoy myself fully when we were out exploring.

I also highly recommend working in full vacation time. What I mean by that is even if you are a digital nomad full-time, you can still take time off work. I recommend taking at least one week of “vacation time” every quarter!

I think that's incredibly powerful when you are running your own business. 

But if you feel like you can't take an entire week off, just know that you need to choose very deliberate days, where you are stepping out of the office. 

When your office is your laptop and your phone, anywhere in the world, you have to set those clear lines and it's really going to help you to experience the cultures and experience life and experience all the reasons that you want to travel in the first place, while also growing a successful and sustainable business.

CONCLUSION

I really love sharing information about the lifestyle that we live. And like I mentioned, I recorded a vlog on how I prepared my content to travel for three months. 

If you want to check that out, you can go ahead and check that out in this video right here. 

As I've mentioned, this is our life. And even as we're gearing up for next year, 2022, we will be traveling the majority of the year, 10, 11 months out of the year and the things that I've done in my business and having these systems and these workflows has really supported me in being able to do that.

It took us a while. It might take you a while too. 

Maybe you're like I was, and you're watching this video and you're just starting your business and like, "Ooh, I want to do this. Like, what would this be like? What do I need to do?" 

What I recommend is just starting to build these systems in your business and really focus on that scalability and that sustainability so that you can step away when you need to, so that you can hire a team member to support you. 

And if you’re looking to start your business so you can leave your corporate job and travel, then I invite you to learn more about Roadmap to Freedom, my comprehensive 90-day group program that helps female entrepreneurs make money on their terms.

Learn more at brandmerry.com/freedom.

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Brandmerry podcast? I release new episodes every Thursday on topics around branding and marketing! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at brandmerry.com/podcast

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

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

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

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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.

The 4 Brand Bios Every Business Should Have

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

How you introduce yourself is a big deal when it comes to running a successful online business. 

Did you know that there are four brand bios that we recommend that you have? 

I am super jazzed to talk to you today about your different brand bios. 

How you introduce yourself is so important and there are different platforms and different moments in time that are going to require a different usage of your bio. 

Sometimes you're going to need just a two-liner. 
Sometimes you're going to need a full brand story to share with your audience. 

I really want to break down each of these with you and how they build on top of each other and give you some insider tips for writing your different brand bios.

BRAND BIO #1: HOOK

Let's start with the first brand bio that I always recommend my clients write inside of my programs like Roadmap to Freedom, because it is so important, and that is your hook. 

I talked about your hook last week in my weekly video training all about brand messaging, which you can catch right here. 

Your hook is designed to replace the elevator pitch in 2021 and beyond. 

It is designed to stand on your website to hook your audience in 10 seconds or less, to use on your social media platforms, to use in the sidebar of your blog, to work into your content, to use it to introduce yourself on a video.

Your hook is a great way to share who you are, who you serve, the problem that you solve for your ideal customer, and how solving that problem gives them the desired outcome that they want. 

Your hook is typically two sentences long and can be used everywhere. 

You always want to write your hook pretty early on in your business because you're going to use it in your marketing and your messaging moving forward. 

Again, you can watch the video that I did last week on brand messaging to get a little bit more insider knowledge on crafting your hook.

BRAND BIO #2: BIO BLURB

The second bio that, I don't know, might be one of my favorites, is called your bio blurb. 

This builds on top of your hook to offer more authority and expertise for your audience. You'll typically find your bio blurb on the homepage of your website. 

I talk about the four-part framework for the homepage of your website in this video right here, so you can check that out after you conclude this one today. 

But your bio blurb is where you're continuing to expand on your hook. 
You're offering a little bit more of your story. 
You're sharing your mission. 
You're talking more specifically to your ideal customer and ultimately teasing your entire brand story, which they can read on the about me page of your website.

You also might find that your bio blurb can be used as an introduction to a podcast, speaking on stage, or even inside a freebie PDF file that you create for your audience. 

Your bio blurb is where you start to add in a little bit more of the emotional element and connection with your ideal customer.

BRAND BIO #3: PROFESSIONAL BIO

The third bio that you want to create is a professional bio. 

Now, I'm not recommending that you have this right out of the gate for your business. As I mentioned, your bio blurb, number two, can help you when you're getting featured as a guest speaker or on podcasts when they're typically asking for a professional bio. 

But once you start to get some of those accolades, you've had success in your business, you've been recognized for an outstanding award, or anything in that category, you want to create a more professional bio as a way to introduce yourself to the media.

You'll typically find your professional bio could actually live on your about me page. 

I always recommend that underneath your entire about me, you have a little section with your headshot that says professional bio, and have your professional bio there. 

If you're doing an interview or something, you can send them to that page to grab your bio. It's readily available on your website. You can also use it in your PR collateral as well. 

But your professional bio is where you really showcase your expertise and your authority. You talk about the amazing things that you've done. It's a great opportunity to brag about yourself and your awesomeness.

Here’s an example of mine:

Michelle Knight is a mother, wife, world traveler and storyteller. She is the founder and CEO of Brandmerry.com where she supports entrepreneurs in branding themselves online, marketing their message and creating more income and impact.

Michelle focuses on teaching the power of storytelling to create an authentic brand that allows them to show up as they are, build a loyal community and experience time, financial and location freedom as a result of their work. 

Michelle left her 9 to 5, retired her husband, built a multiple-6-figure-a-year business and became digital nomads all within 5 years of launching her business.

Michelle has been featured on CNBC, Entrepreneur, and Authority Magazine.

BRAND BIO #4: ABOUT ME PAGE

Finally, we have your about me page. You can probably see how each of these is going to build onto the other one. 

Once you understand your hook, who you are, who you serve, and how you're supporting them, you can then present your bio blurb, why you're doing what you're doing, your mission statement, and how you ultimately want to support your clients in getting their end results.

From there, you can continue to expand on that with your professional bio and your about me page is the big kahuna. This is where you're sharing your entire story on how you created the business that you have today.

I have a podcast episode on the Brandmerry podcast on how to write an about me page that sells that you can listen to for all of the details on this process.

What I want you to note is that your about me page can sell for you, because the reality of it is most people are interested in the person behind the brand. We know that your about me page is the second most visited page on your website, and that's because we know that emotion and connection, and trust is what ultimately leads to a sale.

When you're creating your about me page, don't forget to really share the story. This is where you get to expand and talk more in-depth, to paint a very vivid picture, something you might not get to do in your hook or your bio blurb. 

The idea is that your hook will hook them, your bio blurb will start to build that know, like, and trust factor, and your about me page is really where you sweeten the deal. 

This is where you get to share who you are, your authenticity, the moments that have led you to create the business, the product, the service that you sell today, and showcase the person behind the brand. 

It's a beautiful opportunity to connect with your ideal customer, always keeping in the back of your mind as you're writing it who your ideal customer is and what they ultimately are looking for from you, how you can support them. 

Again, I have a podcast episode that breaks down your about me page, how to write it, and the importance of it. You can check that out here.

CONCLUSION

Sometimes we forget that there are so many different ways that we can introduce ourselves and share our brand story with the world and that if you're going to take all this time to write an about me page, you need to also understand your hook, your bio blurb, and your professional bio as well.

If you are ready to share your brand with the world, make sure you join the waitlist for my signature program Roadmap to Freedom.

This 90-day live group program is designed to help new and aspiring entrepreneurs make money on their terms. We cover it all inside of this strategic program, giving you the tools to build your strong brand foundation, attract your ideal customer and community, market your business with ease and learn to sell consistently and authentically.

To learn more head to brandmerry.com/freedom.

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Brandmerry podcast? I release new episodes every Thursday on topics around branding and marketing! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at brandmerry.com/podcast

---

- 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.

How to Find Your Niche for Your Online Business [Entrepreneur Edition]

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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The niching down process always seems to feel like a dark cloud over your head at all times. 

And you're probably thinking to yourself, “I just need to figure it out and then I can move on.” 

I was in the same boat years ago and most of my clients inside of Roadmap to Freedom are also feeling this way when they first start the program.

Niching down feels heavy and a big hurdle to take on. What if it isn’t good enough? What if it isn’t specific enough? What if I want to change it?

All of these questions are probably floating around in your head so today we’re going to strip it back and talk about what niching down actually is and some of my top tips for the process so you can feel confident moving forward with your business!

WHAT IS A NICHE?

I'll tell you what your niche is not. Your niche is not your product or your service. 

Something that I see entrepreneurs do time and time and time and time again is they say, “This is what I offer. This is what I offer. This is my niche.”

No, it is not. That is the avenue that you support your clients. That is the tool that you use for the work that you do. 

It's not your niche. It's not your focus. It's not your little carved-out space in the industry. 

And the other side of this is not only is that not what your niche is, but it's also limiting you. 

Your niche is the center of the branding process, it is one of the first things you do when starting your business because everything stems from this.

It's one of the first things that we do inside of my program, Roadmap to Freedom. 

Imagine if you center your entire brand around a product or a service, what happens if you pivot?

What happens if you decide to add another product or service? 

What happens if you decide that your current product or service is no longer something you want to offer? 

You're kind of screwed. You're going to have to spend a ton of time going back to the beginning and redoing your brand foundations and rebranding everything. And it's not worth it. 

And it's not the correct process of niching down. So if you're reading this and you're like, ooh, I think my niche is centered around my product and service, don't worry. We're going to talk about what it is instead.

The other thing that your niche is not is your ideal customer. 

Now you're going to learn in just a second that your ideal customer does play a role in determining your niche, but your target market is not what solely defines a niche. If someone asked you your niche, and you responded with, “mothers” that would be wrong.

FINDING YOUR NICHE

When you start to think about your niche, I want you to focus on the problem that you solve for your ideal customer.

You've got a target problem for a specific person or group of people. This problem that you solve, which is the cornerstone of a successful business, is also the center of your niche.

People buy things, services, products, whatever, to solve a problem. 

If I make eggs every single morning and I have a pan and my eggs stick to the pan every morning, my problem is I have a pan that my eggs stick to. So I need to go out and find a pan that's not going to do that. 

If I have adult acne on my face, I've got a problem. I need to find a solution to that problem. So I'm going to go out and I'm going to search for something to solve that problem. 

If you want to start an online business and you don't know how to start an online business. That's the problem. You're going to go out and you're going to look for something to help you solve that problem. And you're going to find Roadmap to Freedom and you're going to sign up and the rest is history, JK. For some of you that is 100% true. 

So you have to solve a problem with your business. So that's what we want to use in the niching down process.

SPECIFYING YOUR NICHE

Now, if you're sitting there thinking, “I solve a lot of problems.” 

Let's have a conversation about that. 

When you're starting your business, i.e. the period before you’re making consistent money in your business the more specific you can be, the faster you will grow. 

We've got to start small to go big. 

It can be really easy to say, “I want to do all of these things. I want to have five different programs. I want to solve five different problems. I want to have five different ideal customers. I saw so-and-so is doing that and I want that too.” 

There are two things that might be happening with so-and-so, let’s call her Sally. 

One could be that Sally is doing that, but they're not making any money. Which happens way more often than you would imagine. 

Option number two, and what might be happening is Sally has been doing this for a while. Sally got really good at one thing and then added something else and then added something else.

And now she sells journals and posters and sweatshirts and coaching and books and live events and, I don't know, tapestry for their walls, right? Because Sally can do that. 

But if you're in the beginning phases and you're not consistently making income, you are not in a place where that makes sense. 

So you want to be specific because that's going to allow you to grow faster. 

When I first started, I specifically helped people launch their business. My focus was helping them build their brand, show up on social media and build their website. Those were the three things that I focused on. 

That's all I knew how to do at the time, by the way. So I didn't make any promises of signing clients. I didn't say I'll help you launch your first group program or I'll help you build a podcast or anything like that. I was like, I'll help you take all of your ideas, streamline them and put a business out into the world.

Then as I started to learn more and more, I was able to expand. 

Today, the problem that I solve is supporting entrepreneurs who struggle with creating a revenue-generating business. They're not making consistent money from their business and they come to me. That's probably why you're here. The avenues that I use are branding and marketing. And I have specific programs under each of those. 

My niche has expanded over the years as my business has grown.

FINDING YOUR NICHE THROUGH BRAND STORYTELLING

So, to start you want to identify the problem that your target audience is facing. 

This is why ideal customer work is so important because it's going to be really hard to identify the problem if you don't really know who your ideal customer is. They fit hand in hand and that's where it can get confusing sometimes. 

So the way that I love to teach it is, to begin with the process of storytelling. That begins with identifying a few key pieces about who you are.

• What are your strengths? 

• What are the things that you're really, really good at? 

• What have you helped people with? Friends, family, colleagues?

• What have you been paid for in the past? 

• What's your training and all these different things? 

What are the things from your story that you know make you unique, that you're really, really good at, that you can bring to the table? 

Then think about who you ultimately want to support in doing just that. This is the second phase, which is your ideal customer. 

For example, when I was starting my business, I made a list of all of my strengths, and this is still an exercise that I teach inside of Roadmap to Freedom, and then started grouping them together. 

And I found that something that I was really good at was communication, that I had a background in PR, but I didn't want to teach PR. That I knew how to use social media and communication and messaging. And I had done a lot of work in branding and messaging and advertising in different forms for companies and nonprofits.

By looking at this, I was able to see that there was a central theme in what I enjoyed doing and that was communication. 

So then I started to think about, well, who do I want to work with? Who do I feel really connected with? Who can I share a lot of similarities with? Because that was important to me. That's not a decision marker for all businesses, but for my business, I had in my mind specifically who I wanted to work with and what their desires were.

So I started writing that down. 

Then the third piece of it, I said, okay, this is kind of my general focus. This is my ideal customer. 

What are their main problems within that focus? 

So I started to ask myself, with my ideal customer in mind, what do they struggle with most with communication? And I was able to start to pinpoint those specific problems to which I could then create my niche. 

THE EVOLUTION OF YOUR NICHE

Now your niche can evolve over time. We've already said that. And I think sometimes we think that pieces of business are so permanent and we let ourselves believe that like, well, I'm going to do this and then I'm never ever going to be able to go back to it and change it ever again. 

That's not true. 
Your business is evolving. 
You're evolving. 
Your level of expertise is evolving. 

It's meant to change.

But you've got to have something solid and specific to get started, otherwise you're constantly going to be changing it and moving it around and you're not going to make money in your business. 

CONCLUSION

With niching down, we've got to focus on the main problem. Because again, we will pay a lot of money to solve a problem. 

When you’re thinking about niching down, think about doctors.

If you go to a general doctor who can help you with anything under the sun, you can bring all of your questions to them. They make less money than a specialist, right? 

If I’ve got a problem with my foot, I'm going to go to a foot doctor and they're going to help me with that specific problem. If I want to get my skin looked at, I'm going to go to a dermatologist and they're going to help me with that specific problem.

Those specialists make more money because they're specializing in solving a very specific problem. We will pay more money as a consumer to solve very specific problems. 

So if there's anything to motivate you to get specific, especially in the beginning, think about the money that you'll be able to create that will then allow you to expand to a point where yes, you can sell journals and jewelry and tapestry and books and all of those different things. I get it. I want to do it too. But I also know that I'm going to need money to do all that. 

So don't stretch yourself too thin. Focus on getting really, really specific.

When you're thinking about the niching down process, think about the specific problem that you solve for your ideal customer. 

I’m guiding you through this entire process in my upcoming Niche Challenge happening October 18 - October 24, 2021. 

We will walk through my signature process for niching down so you can walk away with a specific niche and an understanding of how to communicate your niche in a way that magnetizes your ideal customer.

Join the free challenge at brandmerry.com/niche.

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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.

3 Must-Haves for a Mission-Driven, Magnetic and Money-Making Business

3 Must-Haves for a Mission-Driven, Magnetic and Money-Making Business

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

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Inside of this episode, we're going to talk about what every successful entrepreneur has to start with in order to create major momentum in their business. 

We're going to talk about how to cultivate expansion, AKA scalable growth in your business so you don't plateau. 

We're going to talk about the single piece most entrepreneurs miss that's keeping them from attracting their soul clients, and the exact three pieces needed to create a business that's set up for success from the start and continues to support you in your dream life of freedom.

As you know, this is such a driver for me and has always been the motivation behind my business, the motivation to support women specifically in creating these freedom-based businesses that allow them to experience whatever freedom looks like for them. 

Whether that's traveling the world as a digital nomad…
...being able to pay off their bills
...retiring their husband
...being able to send their kid to the best school there is,
...to just being able to go to happy hour every single week because you freaking want to. 

Whatever freedom looks like for you, that's always been the mission. 

And I really believe that when we start our own businesses, whether we're doing them full-time or part-time or side hustle or whatever that looks like, we are giving ourselves such an opportunity for expansion and growth, and we're giving ourselves an opportunity to really evolve.

And from that, from the extra income, let's just call it what it is, we're able to do really cool shit. 

So this post is all about that.

We're going to talk about those three must-haves that I have used in my own business, that I teach all of my clients in order to create a mission-driven, magnetic, and money-making business. 

UNDERSTANDING YOUR BRAND MISSION AND BRAND PURPOSE

The number one must-have that you need to have solid in your business in order for this entire thing to work is a clear understanding of your brand mission and your purpose. 

Often we hear a lot about the idea of why or the power of why. Maybe you've completed a workbook or a free guide or attended a training where they've told you to get in touch with your why. 

I want to go a step further because, in my own journey, I quickly realized that the why that I was coming up with wasn't enough. 

When things started to get a little rough there in the beginning and I started to really question if I wanted to keep doing this, I had to dig deeper. Because the why that I was providing myself, the why that I had come up with was really surface level. 

It was all about being able to travel full time, which is pretty cool, let me just say.

It was about being home with my son. It was about having money to shop at Whole Foods. But when things started to get difficult in running my business, that why was really easy to dismiss. 

It was really easy to be like, "Oh, that's okay. We don't need that right now. Oh, that's okay, I'll go get this job. And that'll allow us to do that." 

What I needed to get in touch with was my purpose. Your purpose is a step further. And this is why I love the work that Simon Sinek does because he talks about going further than the why, the purpose. 

Why are you doing what you're doing? 
What is the true purpose behind your brand and your business? 

Now I want to take a second and look at the nonprofit sector. I grew up in the nonprofit world, volunteering, doing community service every freaking weekend.

My family actually owns our own nonprofit that we started when I lost my brother to childhood cancer. And I worked professionally in the nonprofit sector for years. 

One of the reasons that I'm so driven to that industry, and I bet you are as well, is because everything is surrounded around their mission. The very first thing that you have to do when you are creating a nonprofit or filling out a grant is tell them your mission. 

This is what builds community around an organization. This is what allows them to effectively communicate what they do with their community. 

So I want to know what is the mission of your business? 

Have you taken the time to identify what you're actually doing? 

What is the purpose of your business?  Not just what you provide, not just the services that you have, not just the transformation that you want to provide your clients, but the mission, the heart of the brand, and the business.

This is what will keep you going. 

This is what will sustain you because running a business, it's not all butterflies, rainbows, and unicorns. 

I know it's easy to think that because everyone's showing you the bright, shiny stuff in the online space, but it's going to take hard work, and it's going to take that word that I personally love, which is hustle. 

I think hustle is a really, really strong word. 
It means you're in it to win it. 
You're in it for the long run. 
You know your purpose. 
You're going to put in the time and the energy because you are clear on the outcome. 

Hustle ain't bad and you're going to need it. 

The only thing that is going to keep you going is a connection and grounding to your purpose and your mission. 

So I want you to get clear on that before you do anything else moving forward. In a recent podcast episode, I shared more about building your brand mission.

I have two questions I want you to ask yourself over the next 24 hours. 

The number one thing I want you to ask yourself is, "What impact do I want to have? What impact do I want to have in this world?" 

The second thing I want you to ask yourself is something that I realized shortly after losing my brother to childhood cancer. And that was, "What do I want to be remembered for?" When I answered this question, my entire life changed and as a result, my business was born. 

So I want you to think about that. At the end of it all, what do you want to be remembered for? 

You'll start to discover that this is a lot deeper than, "I want to shop at Whole Foods." Or, "I want to buy that new car." Or, "I want to pay off my student loan."

This is the stuff that gets your community to come to you. 
This is the stuff that gets people to trust you because they're so connected with your mission and your message. 

So ask yourself, brainstorm, do a little work on those two questions. 

Just to remind you of my own mission, it is to empower women, to uncover and own their story, and share it with true authenticity through their profitable business. 

Every single thing that I create centers around this mission. Every program that I put out there connects to story. 

My brand, what you see on my website, my social media platforms, all connects to story. 

I have a clear linear connection through everything that I create and as a result, no matter what happens, I keep going. And that's where that resilient mindset comes in.

CULTIVATE EXPANSION IN YOUR BUSINESS

Number two is all about cultivating expansion in your brand and your business. Now the key to cultivating expansion, the key to any successful online business is the power of creativity. 

I don't know about you, but the desire to create keeps me going all the time. It is the reason that I actually wanted to start this business in the first place.

I love creating new content. 
I love posting pictures on Instagram, recording videos, writing emails, writing blog posts, collaborating, and having conversations with people. 

The idea of creativity and the power of me actually creating content lights me up. 

And that is the thing. You've got to be inspired if you want to inspire other people. 

Content creates community and a community is so, so important because it is where the money comes from. That's where your clients are. If you weren't focused on creating content at the very beginning of your business, I'm talking like day freaking one, you are missing out on some crucial time when you can be creating brand awareness. 

Having this content allows you to build community. It allows you to pull people in, to serve them, to provide your story, to tap into their story, to provide tips and tools, and transformation that allows them to trust you.

When you can get your audience to trust you, through the power of content, through the power of you showing up, that's when you create a community of true fans, rather than just followers. 

Once you have your mission established, you are light years ahead of a lot of people in this industry who are focused on the wrong things when they start out. 

Because of that, you should feel really inspired to show up and share that mission with your audience. That is key. Content comes from tapping into where you are now. 

So I have three questions that I want you to write down on a piece of paper and start brainstorming these different things. I promise you you are going to have exactly what you need to show up for your audience right now.

Number one, what inspires you? 

Gosh, it seems so simple, doesn't it? But we forget all the time. 

What do we actually like to do? And I’ve got a little secret for you. You're starting your own business, or you have your own business, you're scaling your own business, you're the CEO of your own business. You get to show up and talk about things and create content around things that you actually enjoy. 

You don't have to work for someone else anymore. 
You don't have to create content for someone else anymore. 
You get to show up as you. 

So let's start with that. What actually inspires you? What do you love talking about? 

Now, let's take it a step further with question two. 
What could you talk about for hours with your friends? 

Remember, we're setting out in the online space to create a community of fans.

Your community is your friends. I can't tell you how many members of my community and my clients that I am friends with, that I enjoy talking to and hearing about their life. So why would you show up and talk to your community about something different than you would maybe talk to a close friend about? 

Now, I understand some of us have friends who have no idea what we do. I love my friends forever and ever, and they're trying to understand day after day and they're getting awesome.

However, I get there's a little bit of a disconnect. But let's just imagine that you were talking to a very best friend who understood what you do and what you're building a business around. What could you talk about them with for hours? Write that down.

And the third thing I want you to uncover is what do these friends and family members come to you for advice on? 

It's already happening around you and you're maybe not paying attention to it, but the second you start paying attention to it, you're going to be like, "Oh, wow.”

I started to realize that people were coming to me to talk about public speaking. Those people were coming to me to ask questions about showing up on video. People were coming to ask questions about communication and social media. 

And that's where I started my business. That's what I taught in the beginning. That's what I would show up and share content around. So start looking at what your friends and family are already giving you ideas around. 

The key to consistent creativity and therefore consistent content comes from where you are right now. When we start reaching for an unattainable, meaning like what is Susie doing on the internet, what is Susie talking about, and we start talking about that too, there's going to be a disconnect.

When there's a disconnect, we aren't feeling creative and we aren't feeling inspired. 

And when we aren't feeling inspired, you guessed it: we can't inspire our audience. 

When you tap into your knowledge and your inspiration, expansion is inevitable. When you are constantly coming from a place of inspiration and you are sharing that with your audience, that can be in the form of, your story, valuable posts, tips, tools, tapping into their story, understanding where they are. 

These are the key pieces of really strong content. There's no right or wrong way to create content, my friends. I know it's really easy to fall into the idea that there is a template for everything. And there are some really cool tricks, but really just starting and doing the work now and testing and tweaking and figuring it out as you go is how you create authentic content that resonates with your audience.

And that will allow your brand to continue to grow and expand. 

If you want to see how I plan 90 days of content ideas, check out this video here.

BUILD AN ONLINE COMMUNITY FOR YOUR BRAND

Community is necessary. I repeat you can not build a business, a profitable business without a community.

How do you expect to sell things if you have no one to sell them to? 

At the end of the day, I am telling you, those high-level entrepreneurs that you see making six figures, seven figures, and beyond in their business, have a community of people who are interested, intrigued, and magnetized by their message. 

And because of that community, they are able to consistently sell and hit their goals in their business. 

Now, I see this all the time in the online space and it breaks my freaking heart because I did it too. I created a program, I created a course, I created the website and I put it out there and nobody came.

Maybe you've had this happen in your own story as well where you created a course or a program and you promoted it and you did all of the things that you were told to do, and you didn't hit your goals. 

And it comes back to not having people to actually sell that to. 

So when entrepreneurs come to me, they're really stressed out about this, they're feeling discouraged, they don't really want to do it anymore and we always look at the community. 

Who's there, and how are you showing up for them? 

At the end of the day, I cannot stress enough that community really, really matters. And you need a community of soul clients. Soul clients are those people who are invested and interested and believe in you, your mission, and what you are building.

One of my favorite quotes that I have ever heard that has shaped my entire business is from Zig Ziglar. And it says, "If people like you, they'll listen. If they trust you, they'll do business with you." 

Trust comes from creating a community of people who are interested in what you have to say, and for you showing up with content to build that trust for them. 

To make them understand that you are there to support them through their transformation, that you are the missing piece or the key that's going to help them to get from where they are to where they ultimately want to be. So not just creating a community, but creating that community of people who are genuinely interested. 

Now, a community can be formed anywhere you want. It can be in person, it can be done on Instagram, Facebook, you could create a community on Pinterest, LinkedIn, it doesn't matter.

But what I really encourage you to do is go a step further and create an online community via your email list. Now, at the end of the day, we don't own Facebook or any of those other cool platforms. 

What I'm saying to you is that it's easy to hit like. It's a little harder to say, "Yes, I want to hear from you so I'm going to provide you with my email address." 

This extra step allows you to prime your community and pulls in those people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say. You might be sitting there thinking to yourself, "I don't have a community or maybe I have a really small community and I'm not sure how to grow it."

I'm going to share with you the simplest way to get started. 

START BUILDING YOUR EMAIL LIST

Step One: Ask yourself where your audience hangs out online. 

This should be where you're hanging out online. If you are hanging out in Facebook groups and your audience isn't on Facebook groups, then your content's probably going to fall flat and you're not going to get engagement. So be where your audience is, that's number one. 

Step Two: What does your audience need right now? 

Now go create that. Seriously. What do they need right now?

Go write it down, create something really quickly and put it out there online. Give it to them as a gift. Now here's the key: in order to access that gift, they must give you their email address. This is how it all starts. This is the baby step of building a list. Yeah, there are a ton of cool things that you can do with list building.

I geek out about them on the regular, but I just want you to get started. If you've already started creating lead magnets and building your community, but you're not seeing the numbers, then I want you to ask yourself again, "What does my audience need right now?" Create that and start pulling in your soul clients. 

Build a strong community over time.

You're not going to wake up tomorrow to 500 subscribers, so don't come and say, "Michelle, I did your freebie and it didn't work." It's working. Depends a lot on you and a lot on your consistency. 

But when you are doing this, when you are focused on consistently showing up and building this community, it is the number one way to profitability. 

Let me remind you: you cannot sell if you have no one to sell to. So focus on building community and the sales will come.

From the beginning I started to get people onto my list and I just continued to show up for them. 

With just 10 people, I signed my first high level client. 

And with less than 100 people, I hit 15K cash in my business. 

So I'm telling you, this is where it lives. This is where profitability, strong brand, a strong business, and success lives. It lives in your community.

CONCLUSION

This is the foundation or three pillars of a sustainable business and the foundation of what we teach inside of Roadmap to Freedom.

This 90-day group program opens once a year in October and doors are opening soon.

You’re ready to be your own boss, leave your 9 to 5 or side hustle and go all-in on your business

You’ve got dreams to travel the world and don’t want to compromise your love of travel for your career.

You’ve got BIG money dreams and you know that by stepping into the abundance of cash and experiences you can make a difference in the life of your family and the world!

You want to show up fully for your family, while still pursuing your mission-driven work.

You know you can impact thousands of people with your voice and story, you just need the platform!

You want the freedom to use your time and finances in whatever way you freaking please, without feeling restricted by how much you can earn.

You can no longer deny the fire inside to be more and do more in the world.

Then I encourage you to learn more about R2F and join the waitlist.

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com

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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 ↠

---

- 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.

Where to Start With Your Online Marketing

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

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A top question I get asked inside of my free online community is how to get started with your marketing before you feel ready!

I get the need for things to feel “right,” or “ready” but so many entrepreneurs wait and wait and wait, and wait to start marketing because they don't feel like they've got it all together or it doesn't feel ready and this waiting can stunt their overall growth and timeline to the results they desire.

In episode 12, on The Brandmerry Podcast, we talked about getting visible and how to boost your confidence around showing up online. 

Then in episode 14, I shared my top tips for finding your voice in personal branding and how to get started with that.

Now today, I want to share more about marketing your business. What does marketing mean? How do we gauge what needs to be done and when? How do we know when it’s time to focus our energy on marketing the sh*t out of our business?!

Rather than waiting and sitting in confusion and inaction, I want to give you a clear plan of what to have in place, bare minimum, to get started. I think this one's going to surprise you a little bit. 

I also want to talk through some of the mindset pieces around showing up and being seen, just continuing our conversation around showing up and what goes into that.

WHEN TO START MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS

At Brandmerry, we believe in two core pillars to running a business. 

There's the branding pillar, which is all about:

• Who you are and the problem you solve.

• Who you serve.

• What your core offer will be.

• Identifying your authentic voice.

• How you share that with the world.

• And of course, what does your brand aesthetic feel and look like.

Branding is the foundational piece of scaling your business. You have to have those pieces in place to do any of your marketing. 

However, I find so many entrepreneurs who skip the steps and jump straight into marketing. When you do this you’ll find that your marketing efforts are a constant struggle and barely taking off despite your hard work. These foundational pieces are essential.

After you've created those foundational pieces, it is about marketing. 

The marketing phase is all about spreading that brand awareness, attracting your ideal customer through lead generation, connecting with them, and leading them to the sale. 

This phase is ongoing, as it’s ultimately what brings in consistent sales.

Yet, this crucial element is often delayed as entrepreneurs are waiting for the magical moment when everything feels ready. 

WHEN ARE YOU READY TO START MARKETING?

So, how do we know when we're ready to market? 

I've got to tell you it’s a trick question, no one can define that for you. No one can say, "You will be ready at this specific stage." 

And I know that’s hard, but it's important to know that it’s going to look different for every business. 

It's completely different based on what you're offering. 
It's different based on your lifestyle and your personality. 
So no one can define when you're ultimately going to be ready.

But what happens quite often is that we are ready before we think we're ready. 

Sometimes we're looking for someone else to give us that permission slip to push go.

We need someone to validate and say, "You're ready!" And then suddenly it's like, cool, I got it. 

You're essentially always at a place where you can show up and build a community and build that know, like, and trust factor.

So you're always ready. But the question is, when is it most effective? 

With marketing, it can be tricky because you can market at any time. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs who will market right out of the gate because that works well for them while they're building their brand. 

But is that marketing the most effective? Most likely not.

The reason for this is that the brand foundations are not in place. These foundational pieces can be found inside of our branding program You! Branded.

For our clients, we find that once the brand is complete, then your marketing will be the most effective.

Now, let’s assume you’ve done the branding work either on your own or through You! Branded, where do we go from here.

These are three things that you want to have to make your marketing efforts the most effective. 

3 MARKETING STRATEGIES: TEMPLATE FOR MARKETING

GATHER AUDIENCE INFORMATION

Number one is to make sure you have a way to gather their information. 

You can be showing up and building a community on social media. 
You can be showing up and doing live videos every single day. 
You can be posting every single day. 
You can have followers joining you. 
You could be so excited, thinking to yourself, “I don't even know where these people are coming from. I don't even know who they are.”

But how do you plan on getting them off of the platform? 

How do you plan on keeping them engaged? 

And another level to this, how do you plan to confirm that they are ideal customers? 

Social media can skew our numbers quite a bit. And I know quite a few people who have giant followings and don't make money in their business. So it's not an indicator of a successful business.

If you're getting started with your marketing, a good rule of thumb is, while you're already getting started showing up and creating this content and building this trust, have a way to get them off said platform and into your community.

No matter what platform it is: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Instagram reels, Pinterest, blogging, all of it. It doesn't matter. You want a way to get them into your community. 

That's how you’re getting those quality leads. The people who are saying, "Yeah, I'm interested in what you're saying. I'm interested in what you're offering. Please tell me more.” It’s where you can build a better connection with your audience.

So if you're going to show up and do your marketing and you want it to be effective, then you want to make sure that you have a way to capture their information in place. 

That's typically through your lead generation. Having a way to get their name and their email address in exchange for a lead magnet, which could be a PDF, audio, a video, a training, a mini-course, a quiz, a discount code, a free knitting pattern, etc...

This is one of the fundamental elements of a strong marketing strategy and one of the first elements of the marketing work we teach inside of Brandmerry Academy.

HAVE A SIGNATURE OFFER OR FRAMEWORK

Another thing that I recommend having is an offer or at the very least a framework. 

This is one of the things that I teach inside of my program You! Branded because I truly believe that to market effectively, you need to know what the end result is. 
What are we ultimately selling? 
What are we leading people to with our marketing? 

It's why I don't believe in “just showing up” and creating content just to have something to post. That's not doing anybody any good. You want to make sure that the content you're creating is very effective as we're talking about and leading to something.

Now, maybe you're just starting out and you don't know what you want to sell just yet, or you haven't finalized your offer. That's okay. 

At the very least understand your framework or I often like to refer to it as your pillars. Those core things that you're going to be talking about and touching on because that's going to allow you to show up and market the result and build an audience interested in solving that specific problem.

So let's say one of my pillars is branding. Because I know that, I'm able to create content specifically to support my prospective clients with branding, and it's going to easily connect to my offer when I promote it.

I'm not creating all this content and marketing and promoting, and then there's no clear connection to what I ultimately want them to pay for. 

That's going to hurt. If you’re not clear on the result, what you want people to pay for, you’re going to create marketing that is ineffective to your bottom line.

KNOW YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER

You truly cannot market effectively if you don't know who you want to attract with your marketing. That's the point of marketing, right?

Inside of Brandmerry Academy, we focus on four pillars of marketing.

1. Brand Awareness - This is when you’re marketing so that new people know about your brand. They're gaining awareness of your brand and the work you do. You've taken this time to establish it. Let people know that it exists. 
   

2. Brand Attraction - The second part of marketing is the community attraction piece. So getting people who are now aware of your brand attracted to the community aspect, attracted to subscribing to your email lists, getting notifications when you go live, your Instagram posts, those different things. The community attraction piece is where the lead generation happens.
   

3. Brand Connection - And then the third part of marketing is the client connection. Building that know, like, and trust factor to fully connect with someone and moving them to the sale. 

This three-step process is the ultimate goal of marketing. 

How can you effectively market if you don't know who is going to be going through that process? 

How can you effectively market if you don't know who you want to spread brand awareness too, who you want to attract to your community, who you want to build a connection with to ultimately invest in your offer?

As I’ve mentioned most of this process, especially the ideal customer research and signature offer should be happening at the branding phase and will play an integral role in your marketing efforts.

3 WAYS TO START MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS TODAY

With these three foundational pieces and your brand in mind, I now was to give you a few of my favorite ways to start marketing your business today.

You've got these pieces: You understand your offer, at least a framework. You have a way to gather their info. You understand your ideal customer. 

TIP #1: SHARE YOUR STORY

This is a fantastic way to get started marketing, especially before you have an offer that's completely fleshed out before you're asking them to do anything. It's a great way to start building a connection from the beginning as you're bringing in prospective clients.

There's a lot of different ways that you can share your story. Here are a few:

1. Share your mission. If you don't know how to figure out your brand mission, go listen to episode one of the Brandmerry podcast.
   

2. Share your brand value. Start creating content specifically around each of your values. While posting your values on your website can be beneficial, what I’m suggesting is sharing stories about your values and why they are important to you.
   
   If you don't know about brand values, go listen to episode three of the Brandmerry podcast.
   

3. Share your brand story, your founder story. What led you to create your business in the first place? Why are you passionate about this work? Why do you want to serve the client that you want to serve?
   
   Start sharing your story behind the brand. There is an entire episode on the Brandmerry podcast where I talk about writing your About Me page and how to craft your brand story for that page to help you get started.

Additionally, you can talk about the purpose behind your business and your goals for your business. So you can create stories around those pieces, start showing up and start building that brand connection with your audience.

TIP #2: INTRODUCE YOUR FRAMEWORK

The second thing that you can do to get started with your marketing is introduce your framework. As I mentioned before, I recommend that you at least know the specific offer or the product, or at the very least the framework or the pillars for what you're leading your clients to. 

You can start creating content and marketing around your framework. You’ll want to identify the following:

• What's the problem that your audience is facing? 

• How can you create some content to help them through their problem? 

• How can you create some content to connect with them about their problem, to just let them know, "Hey, I know that you've got this. I want you to know that you are seen, heard, and understood," which is all we want as consumers.

Start creating content about how you specifically solve the problem, as opposed to somebody else in your industry. I do this a lot when it comes to brand storytelling. 

There are a lot of people offering branding advice. There are a lot of people offering branding support. I have a special way of doing that and it's through the art of storytelling. So that's how I solve it specifically and I make sure to share that often with my content.

If you have your framework mapped out, I recommend you break up each individual piece and share that. 

At Brandmerry, we could do weeks of content on branding. 
We could do weeks of content on marketing.
We could do weeks of content on systems. 

So having these pieces of your framework mapped out will give you content ideas to start sharing. I have a podcast episode coming out in October where I talk a little bit more about free versus paid content and the difference between those, so make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss it!

When you're thinking about sharing your framework in terms of content, think about why those different pieces are important and what those different pieces are. Not so much how you're going to teach them to do the individual pieces. That's in the paid offer.

TIP #3: ANSWER QUESTIONS

The third thing that you can do to start marketing and creating content is to just answer questions important to your audience.

If you have an audience, you can survey them. Even if you have 10 people, survey them. Ask them what they need support with. If you've got email subscribers, send them a form asking the following questions:

• What are you struggling with right now? 

• What support do you need?

•  If we were sitting down for coffee and you could ask me one question, what would you ask me?

As the different questions come in, create content to answer them. You can also post questions using tools like Insta Stories as well. 

In addition, you can also use free tools like Ubersuggest, which I've talked about multiple times on the Brandmerry Blog including this recent Youtube video where I shared my content creation process for 90 days of content, or AnswerThePublic where you can see what specific questions people are asking via Google and you can answer those in your content as well. 

You’re creating content that answers some of the top questions that you're getting. It takes a lot of the mystery out of what to post and what to talk about. 

Remember, the key to marketing is to start small, start very specific and intentionally, and then scale from there. 

This is incredibly important when it comes to where you’re posting your content.

It’s important to be realistic about what you can handle within your schedule. Thinking you’re going to blog three days a week, show up on Pinterest, make two Youtube videos, a podcast, and show up on Instagram daily is just not going to happen unless you have a team.

This is why you want to be very intentional with where you’re showing up and harness the power of repurposing. Something I talk about in great detail in this Youtube video. 

CONCLUSION

If you need me to give you a permission slip about when you're ready, it's when you at minimum, have a way to gather information, name, and email address from people who are following you, who are finding out about you from your marketing. 

You have your offer, or at least a framework mapped out so you can share content that's related to the result. 

And you understand your ideal customer. You've done the market research.

I wanted to share with you that one of the things that I focus on with my clients is clear, simple, and strategic marketing. It is something that I offer inside of my membership Brandmerry Academy.

But I also work one-on-one with clients to master their marketing, to streamline their marketing efforts, to understand what they're selling, to understand what they're messaging, to understand where they should be showing up, how they can show up effectively, all of those different pieces.

I typically do this in the form of an intensive. My VIP intensives are a 90-minute strategy session, followed by 30 days of implementation and support. Meaning that I'm not going to just cut you loose at the end of our intensive. 

We're going to talk about the gaps that need to be filled in your marketing strategy. 
We're going to map out your marketing strategy moving forward. 
We're going to get those systems and those workflows in place, and then I'm going to help you bring it to life. 

A lot of marketing support misses the implementation piece and it’s incredibly important. You don’t need to know another strategy, you need to utilize that strategy and understand how it applies to your business.

If you're interested in learning more about this, you can go to Brandmerry.com/intensive. 

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Brandmerry podcast? I release new episodes every Thursday on topics around branding and marketing! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at brandmerry.com/podcast

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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.