Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How To Live Your Brand with Olivia Thomas

Transcript

How To Live Your Brand with Olivia Thomas · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  3, 2, 1, 0, ignition.
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  Lift
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  off.
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the small biz chat podcast with the number 1 small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's your host, the small Biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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  Have you subscribed to the small bizchett podcast?
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  Well, it's time every Wednesday we offer listeners bite sized actionable tips to start
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  and grow a successful small business.
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  And just 20 minutes or so a week you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel your
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  business forward.
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  Be sure to subscribe to the small beachhead podcast Today.
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  Welcome back to the small fish shaped podcast I'm Melinda Emerson small business lady, your
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  host.
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  And now I'm here with my guest, Olivia Thomas.
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  And Olivia's gonna talk to us about brand building.
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  Olivia is known as the brand counselor, and she specializes in empowering seasoned founders to
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  elevate their businesses through strategic branding, as the founder of Winensional
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  Development Company, Olivia is dedicated to crafting compelling brand strategies that
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  resonate with her customer's dream clients.
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  Olivia's mission is to help women in business build lives and legacies through the telling of
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  captivating brand stories.
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  She helps founders connect authentically with their audience paving the way for sustained
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  success as their businesses mature.
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  For more information, head over to intentional.com.
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  That's when tensional.com.
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  Alright.
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  So, Olivia, welcome to the small business chat podcast.
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  Hi, Melinda.
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  Thank you so much for having me.
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  Alright.
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  First of all, tell me
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  how you became like this, like, the brand counselor.
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  Tell me what that is and how you became that.
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  Absolutely.
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  Oh my goodness.
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  I started off doing public relations.
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  I started my company right out of college, and I was chasing a dream, and I realized that I
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  was not very connected with the work.
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  I was actually quite sad.
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  I was making money.
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  I was paying people's bills, and I was, you know, doing all the cool things that you should
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  do as a founder, but then I found that I was actually disconnected and just all around not
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  happy.
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  I realized that I had to work on my own personal mission, vision, and values before
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  even thinking about what the business needed to look like.
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  I was way too focused internally, looking at what should happen because of other people.
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  And I realized that I needed to be my own competition, and that changed the game for me
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  entirely.
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  I love it.
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  I love it.
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  So tell me, how can women, business owners, establish a solid foundation for their brands?
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  Ensuring that clarity and consistency is in their messaging.
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  Absolutely.
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  I think the first thing we need to do is actually be honest with ourselves.
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  About who we are and what we want.
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  Like I said, we're often looking outside of ourselves for what our competition is doing,
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  and we're emulating it in a way that may us almost look like them as opposed to thinking
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  about what our own motivations are.
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  Once we dig into our personal mission, vision, and values, then we can take the success that
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  we're seeing from them and put our own spin on it.
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  It's really hard to maintain something.
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  If it's not actually true to who we are.
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  We need to take the time to know and manage and take care of ourselves first, as we're building
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  the business so that what we're saying is authentic and real and sustainable.
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  Well, how does your deep understanding of the target audience contribute to your effective
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  brand position.
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  Cause there's one thing to think about what it means to you, but don't you have to really
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  focus on what the client needs and what the client is saying?
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  You do, and it's a beautiful intersection.
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  It's a beautiful marriage.
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  Actually.
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  Right?
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  So in the same way where we have friendships or boyfriends or girlfriends or marriages, it's
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  not all about us.
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  Obviously, we have what we bring to the table, which is Really cool.
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  But we have to know the person very intimately to know what it means to actually make them
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  happy as well, to solve their problems, and to meet them at the things that they're actually
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  needing and wanting to grow in.
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  So making sure that we not only know them demographically, I think we focus on the
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  demographics, which is you know, the the quantitative things that they're very
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  important, probably a little more than the qualitative things or the psychogram we need to
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  know who they are aspirationally, not just who they are now, but who they wanna become.
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  And as we have a better understanding of who they wanna become, Also, what they've tried to
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  do to become that and why it hasn't really worked out, we can fill in those gaps for them.
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  We really need to know them so that we can show up as their very best friends.
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  So I I see a lot of people on online, on Instagram, in particular, You know, because I
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  think that social media is just people's personal highlight reel anyway.
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  But I see a lot of what I call brand posing out here, right, people living the fabulous life
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  with beautiful clothes and and, you know, private jets and and and, you know, fancy cars
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  and kind of stuff.
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  And those people aren't making any money.
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  And I and I don't but it's amazing how there are a lot of people that fall for people, not
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  for their expertise, but because they want their lifestyle.
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  And so can you talk to me?
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  I know that you're big on having people live their brand.
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  But I feel like people are living their aspiration and they're pretending because
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  they're trying to look successful as opposed to actually be successful.
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  So can you talk about that?
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  I sure can.
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  So I think there's a point where we all got caught into the hype machine that is social
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  media.
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  It's now a 24 hour news cycle, and we think that we are constantly the news.
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  But, you know, we're not, and we don't have to be.
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  Unfortunately, it creates a pressure for a lot of people to create a facade of what, you know,
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  should be versus what actually is.
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  If we are allowing ourselves to show the truth of who we are instead of kind of like
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  ruminating in the shame of where we are right now, then we'll be able to have more authentic
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  connections with the people who are there.
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  If we're measuring our success by, you know, doing better today versus yesterday, then we
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  can tell that story to our audiences.
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  And it'll resonate and they'll connect in a way that makes them feel like they can grow and
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  change too as opposed to just showing them the big things that mature businesses already have.
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  Because we're all on the same timeline and all on the same platforms, we think we need to show
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  up and look like all of those companies that have been around for 10, 20, a 100 years, but
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  we're not them.
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  So we shouldn't show up like them.
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  It's okay.
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  You know, I recently saw, a an Instagram clip where Serena Williams who had just come back
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  from getting this, like, international icon award had her baby in her hand, and she was
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  taking her wig off her head.
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  And she and she was, like, you know, sort of like rocking a baby as if to say, come on,
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  y'all.
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  This is what it really is.
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  I got a brand new baby at home, Yes.
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  I might be a style icon, but this is what it's like when I'm at home.
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  Somebody's throwing up on me.
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  You know?
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  And she got so much favorable comments for, you know, keeping it 100.
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  So is that what you're talking about when you say live your brand?
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  That is what I'm talking about.
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  I think that our brand is an extension of how we how we think, how we feel, and also how we
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  allow ourselves to show up in the world.
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  The reality is there's not much different from, you know, one person delivering a service to
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  the next person other than the actual person delivering the service.
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  So we need to know that it's okay to resonate as Emerson that we are because someone is out
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  there looking for our story, our voice, but if we don't ever use our real voice, they can't
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  hear it.
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  So when you are developing a personal brand, how can you leverage storytelling to really
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  establish trust?
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  Oh, absolutely.
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  There are different kinds of stories.
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  So there are authority stories and there are, acquaintance stories.
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  Right?
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  So we're telling stories that make people know that they are affiliated with us, and they can
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  get to know us as the individuals that we are.
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  And then we also use additional stories, authority stories to talk about our expertise.
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  We need a mix of both of those for people to understand why they're even on our pages.
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  And I know a lot of times people will have their social media strategy, and they'll say, I
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  don't know why people aren't buying.
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  And it's like, well, you have a lot of acquaintance or affinity stories.
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  So you're telling very personal things, but you're not telling anyone what to do with the
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  info information.
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  So you need to share your authority as well, letting them know why you're the expert in the
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  area or how you're becoming the expert in the area too.
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  People also wanna join on that journey as well.
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  Now let's talk about some mistakes that people should avoid when building a brand because I
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  think there's a bunch of those out there too.
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  Yeah.
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  There's a lot.
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  There's definitely a lot.
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  So only focusing on the algorithm is a big mistake right now.
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  I think a lot of us are only thinking about what visibility looks like and trying to get in
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  front of people as much as we possibly can.
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  So like, only thinking about what the what the algorithm will actually put out for us.
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  But if it's not something you'll actually do consistently, then you shouldn't attempt to
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  even try to make that a part of your brand story because the only thing that matters with
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  your brand really is consistency, right, the integrity and the consistency of what you're
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  actually doing.
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  So the lack of consist agency is actually a really big deal, which again kind of goes back
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  to the whole, we really need to take care of ourselves as individuals kind of thing, because
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  the more we're able to actually allow ourselves mistakes.
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  We can allow ourselves consistency as well.
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  Consistency is not perfection.
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  We're showing up with excellence.
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  But it's not always perfect.
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  So let's say we have a mishap.
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  Let's say there is a a a stake that is made online.
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  How can you basically how can you repair a reputational challenge while preserving sort
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  of, like, your brand integrity.
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  Yeah.
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  Absolutely.
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  You have to address it.
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  So sometimes people will have a mistake online, and then they want to kind of, like, go on as
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  if it never happened.
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  But the unfortunate truth is or the beautiful truth is actually, the level of our apology
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  should be at the level of our offense as well.
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  So we tell them,
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  this is
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  a mistake that we made.
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  This is something that is against our values.
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  We keep operating within our values.
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  And then if we're talking about repair, we need to tell them what it looks like step by step
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  that we will be doing to repair from here on out.
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  And then making sure that this is something that they can see and that they can feel and
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  say like, okay.
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  They've checked off everything on the list, and they've continued in integrity, we can forgive
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  them.
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  Often times people want to either get very defensive and say, well, I'm only human, and I
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  didn't mean to do this.
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  Or, like, just not really addressed it at all, but this is all about building relationships.
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  And if we don't have trust in relationships, that you're gonna do what you said you're going
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  do or at least grow along the way, then we can't actually continue to grow together.
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  So making sure that people know that you are well aware and you are accountable and that you
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  will continue to move on better than ever.
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  I love it.
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  I love it.
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  Alright.
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  Best business advice you ever got.
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  Oh my goodness.
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  There's been so much.
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  I never lose.
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  I win or I learn.
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  That's that is the biggest thing that came from you.
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  And it's the truth, no matter where you are in business and your maturity journey, There are
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  gonna be some things that come to you that hurt, but it's another opportunity for growth.
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  Take it.
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  Absolutely.
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  Absolutely.
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  I appreciate that.
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  Thank you all for joining me for this episode of the small biz chat podcast.
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  If you are an author speaker or you wanna become 1 or a coach, I wanna let you know that
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  brand and demand 2 is coming The second cohort of my branding demand 6 month coaching program
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  starts March 20th.
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  So if you are interested And finally, becoming a national brand, I want you to consider
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  joining me because it is amazing.
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  So if you head over to smallbizladyuniversity.comforward/brandintamandashgroupcoaching,
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  dotcom.
• 13:14
  That's what you need, dash group coaching.
• 13:17
  That's what you want to get the information and my second cohort starts March 20th.
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  So I can't wait to see you all there.
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  Now I have one last thing for you.
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  If you want to grow your business.
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  You have to grow yourself.
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  Alright.
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  Thank you all for joining us for this episode, and god bless.
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  Thanks for listening to the small biz chat podcast with Emerson.
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  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday for more
• 13:52
  fantastic information and interviews.
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  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
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  website succeed as your own boss.com.
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  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.