Latest / The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson / The Branding Game Has Changed with Samantha McGinley

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The Branding Game Has Changed with Samantha McGinley · The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson

• 0:36
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: In today's fast-paced world, the rules of branding have been completely rewritten.
• 0:41
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Gone are the days when a catchy logo and slogan were enough to make your mark.
• 0:46
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: The brandy game has changed, and if you're not adapting, you're falling behind.
• 0:50
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: In this episode, we're diving deep into the new landscaping or the landscape of branding.
• 0:55
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: We'll explore how social media, customer experience, and authenticity have revolutionized the way businesses connect with their audiences.
• 1:03
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, understanding these shifts is crucial for your success.
• 1:10
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Today we welcome into the studio Samantha McGinley.
• 1:14
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Samantha is a visionary branding coach and marketing strategist with over eight years of experience in transforming brands and elevating marketing strategies, dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs to not only stand out, but also scale their ventures effectively.
• 1:30
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Her commitment to sculpting distinctive brands, mastering cutting-edge marketing techniques, and devising strategic social media approaches has consistently helped clients deeply understand their audience and attract their ideal customers.
• 1:47
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Welcome.
• 1:48
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Oh, it's so wonderful to be here.
• 1:50
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Thank you for having me.
• 1:51
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Absolutely.
• 1:52
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: I got a little tongue-tied there.
• 1:54
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: There's there's so much.
• 1:55
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: You do so much.
• 1:56
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: I'm like consistently.
• 1:59
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: I don't know why I always struggle saying that word.
• 2:01
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: I can't wait to dive deep into branding with you.
• 2:06
  Samantha McGinley: Oh my gosh, it's so fun.
• 2:08
  Samantha McGinley: I love branding and like the title of this podcast, branding has changed.
• 2:12
  Samantha McGinley: So let's get into it.
• 2:14
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: It has.
• 2:14
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: So for our listeners and for me, really, what is a branding coach?
• 2:20
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: What do you really do?
• 2:21
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Like at the end of the day, what is a branding coach?
• 2:24
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Totally.
• 2:25
  Samantha McGinley: So it's kind of like I would say it's newer, obviously.
• 2:28
  Samantha McGinley: It's I've only found like a few people in like the niche itself.
• 2:31
  Samantha McGinley: But branding coach for me and like what I focus on with my clients is how to find your ideal client, how to really idealize your ideal customer, like how to create that vision and bring it to life.
• 2:43
  Samantha McGinley: Because brands have changed in the sense of okay, we think of branding in the way of like logos, fonts, websites, and then also you think of iconic brands like McDonald's, even Lamborghini, Nike, like these iconic brands, but social media has changed that.
• 3:01
  Samantha McGinley: Social media has made it to where brands can be people.
• 3:05
  Samantha McGinley: So when we take that and basically bring that into concept, branding is all about how you represent yourself, how you're talking to people, your messaging, your overall foundation.
• 3:16
  Samantha McGinley: And so it's how you're putting yourself out into the world.
• 3:18
  Samantha McGinley: And so as a branding coach, I help people basically conceptualize that whole idea of like how they're talking to their audience, how they can bring out their entirety of themselves into their brand and make it their identity because brand is not just a business, it is an identity in itself.
• 3:34
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: And it's interesting that you brought up uh the colors and logos and fonts because that's what we traditionally think of as branding.
• 3:42
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Like, think of Coca-Cola.
• 3:44
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Yeah, you know, I can I can picture it.
• 3:46
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Like that's what we thought it was, but it's become more than that.
• 3:50
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Like you said, it's become uh especially as entrepreneurs.
• 3:54
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Yeah, no, it has.
• 3:56
  Samantha McGinley: It's crazy to see how much it's evolved, I would say, and to see how also it's a very new concept still, because it's like, like you say, logos, fonts, colors, it's a thing.
• 4:09
  Samantha McGinley: But then if you go into that even deeper of like your logos, fonts, and colors, what's the psychology behind all of that?
• 4:16
  Samantha McGinley: Right?
• 4:17
  Samantha McGinley: Because it's like your logos, your fonts, your colors.
• 4:19
  Samantha McGinley: Those are still things I work on with clients, but I'm still like, who is your ideal audience and what is it that you're trying to represent through that?
• 4:27
  Samantha McGinley: Because I have clients that are like, I'm working strictly with men, mid-50s to early 60s, late like or like late 60s, and they're presenting the idea of sophistication, moving from mid-senior level to senior level positions.
• 4:42
  Samantha McGinley: And I'm like, great.
• 4:43
  Samantha McGinley: So then we're thinking about royal colors, we're thinking about blues, blacks, whites, yellows, golds, because those are the things that most men are attracted to, of just like that symbolism, because there's a lot like Michigan, Berkeley, big schools with big football teams have those colors, right?
• 5:00
  Samantha McGinley: And so, like, people are naturally drawn to them.
• 5:02
  Samantha McGinley: So when we're thinking about the energy of one concept of like what men like, what is drawn from that, there's so much more psychology behind it that people don't understand.
• 5:10
  Samantha McGinley: That it's like, okay, cool.
• 5:12
  Samantha McGinley: I'm not just gonna give you a PDF of just your brands, your fonts, your colors.
• 5:16
  Samantha McGinley: I'm gonna get into it.
• 5:17
  Samantha McGinley: I'm gonna be like, who are we talking to?
• 5:19
  Samantha McGinley: And why do they need those colors?
• 5:21
  Samantha McGinley: And why do they need to hear that and see that from you?
• 5:24
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: And that's a lot of research, right?
• 5:26
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: That has to go into first of all, let's back up.
• 5:30
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: So, your ideal customer, I uh in my world, I call it your ICA, your ideal customer avatar, who that is.
• 5:36
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: You first have to figure out who you're talking to.
• 5:39
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: How do you advise people to go about that?
• 5:43
  Samantha McGinley: One of my favorite things to say as a very interesting concept is okay, cool.
• 5:48
  Samantha McGinley: Maybe you're new in the world, maybe you're already established.
• 5:50
  Samantha McGinley: You have to go down to come up.
• 5:53
  Samantha McGinley: So breaking that apart in the sense of I love to do this exercise with my clients of to go down to go up is breaking it apart and using only your mind.
• 6:03
  Samantha McGinley: So, who is that person?
• 6:04
  Samantha McGinley: Like, if we're just sitting chit-chatting in the sense of like, what's their name?
• 6:07
  Samantha McGinley: What do they do?
• 6:08
  Samantha McGinley: Like, you know so much about your industry, you know who you're talking to.
• 6:11
  Samantha McGinley: But sometimes I take, I sit with someone for usually it takes me about an hour, hour and a half sometimes to really sit with them, conceptualize the idea.
• 6:19
  Samantha McGinley: Because it's like, what do they need from you?
• 6:21
  Samantha McGinley: What are they doing?
• 6:22
  Samantha McGinley: Are they a busy mom, like working?
• 6:24
  Samantha McGinley: And like, are they trying to supplemental income bring supplemental income into their household for their kids?
• 6:29
  Samantha McGinley: Like, what is it that they're doing?
• 6:30
  Samantha McGinley: What how are they struggling?
• 6:32
  Samantha McGinley: And that is a whole framework that I work on because AI is available, AI is fantastic, and I love using AI, but sometimes this is one thing that I'm like, I demand and I require that we sit and we work this out from simply just your creative side of like your brain of who you're talking to, because that is the first thing I start off with clients.
• 6:54
  Samantha McGinley: I'm like, who do you want to talk to?
• 6:55
  Samantha McGinley: Like, why do you want to talk to them?
• 6:56
  Samantha McGinley: And so AI can't tell you that.
• 6:58
  Samantha McGinley: No, and it's cool because once you do all of this, once I build out this framework with my clients of who this person is, then it's so much easier to pop that into AI and give a content calendar, give so many more ideas based off of that one person, because then you're talking to them exactly how you want to.
• 7:18
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: See, and that's the thing.
• 7:19
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: I I think for me, like getting in the heads of the people that you see as your customer, but you're a third party, which helps because when you're in it, you go, Well, I think this is the person.
• 7:34
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: And you know, my shopper is this, this is what they like to do, but is it really?
• 7:39
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Like, you know, the questions to ask, to take it, you know, from my perspective to a branding perspective and say, let's let's dig this out of you.
• 7:48
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Let's figure out who your customer really is.
• 7:50
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Because it for some of us, it may not be who we think it is.
• 7:55
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Do you ever have that happen?
• 7:57
  Samantha McGinley: I do, because actually we end up thinking more of ourselves than we think about our clients, which happens a lot because burnout happens so often when we're creating brands, building brands, building businesses, like when we're generating content, everyone has burnout.
• 8:12
  Samantha McGinley: But the one thing I I've noticed consistently is that burnout happens when you start posting or start creating for yourself instead of for your client.
• 8:21
  Samantha McGinley: So I often I have a couple of those checks every like every month or so of like, hey, how's your content going?
• 8:26
  Samantha McGinley: And how are you feeling?
• 8:27
  Samantha McGinley: And how is the the thing that you're building feeling with your audience?
• 8:31
  Samantha McGinley: Because if it's feeling you're starting to get that burnout feeling, let's readjust.
• 8:35
  Samantha McGinley: Like, let's reclaim that because recentering to your target audience makes it so much more effective.
• 8:42
  Samantha McGinley: And because at the end of the day, we all got into this line of work of being an entrepreneur to help people.
• 8:48
  Samantha McGinley: So we can't be in the mindset of ourselves, we can't get stuck in thinking about what we would need to see, how we would talk to ourselves, because at the end of the day, we're not our client.
• 8:59
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: So I I have an interesting question in the respect of you have a business owner, an entrepreneur who has been doing this one thing for a long time.
• 9:09
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Then they decide, you know, I'm not just defined by that brand.
• 9:13
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Okay, I need to become the brand of me.
• 9:16
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: They become the brand of me, but they need to relay to their audience that the person that owns this business is, yes, this person owns this business, but they also have their own identity out here who's trying to do something else.
• 9:34
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: So kind of pivoting the message.
• 9:37
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Have you seen that, worked with that?
• 9:42
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: How what advice would you give to somebody who needs to or wants to pivot their message to something else, all while still maintaining the image of I'm the owner of this company, but I'm becoming my own brand as well?
• 9:55
  Samantha McGinley: Totally.
• 9:56
  Samantha McGinley: The one thing that comes to mind to first say is that when we're building something, we have to know that not everyone likes change.
• 10:08
  Samantha McGinley: So you're always going to see a decrease in engagement.
• 10:11
  Samantha McGinley: Like you're always going to see a slight downfall in whatever you do.
• 10:16
  Samantha McGinley: Because in actuality, in what I've done and how I've observed things, it takes fully about a year to just have the brand recognized and to reach, I call it like different stages of brand development.
• 10:27
  Samantha McGinley: And so about a year to really be in the zone.
• 10:30
  Samantha McGinley: But when people want to build their own personal brand, I say great.
• 10:35
  Samantha McGinley: So if you have this established business and you want to build out your personal brand, how you do that is you start to do the things you have to identify what you want to do with that first.
• 10:45
  Samantha McGinley: Is that building another business?
• 10:48
  Samantha McGinley: Is that just lifestyle content?
• 10:49
  Samantha McGinley: Is that kind of coming along with me?
• 10:51
  Samantha McGinley: And one example that I can think of is a very dear friend of mine who owns a salon and she has her personal brand.
• 10:58
  Samantha McGinley: She's been on a show and has gotten very well recognition from the show that she's been on.
• 11:06
  Samantha McGinley: And so she's built her personal brand off of being on that show.
• 11:11
  Samantha McGinley: And so when she started posting more content about the salon or about two salon owners, it wasn't resonating on her personal brand side.
• 11:19
  Samantha McGinley: And so she had to start listening to her audience and being like, okay, they want to see more lifestyle content of what I'm doing and more days in the life.
• 11:27
  Samantha McGinley: And so when she made that shift, it changed her whole personal brand.
• 11:32
  Samantha McGinley: And then her business is now her team.
• 11:35
  Samantha McGinley: And that takes a lot when you're when you've built something and allowing for that almost not even delegation, but just that freedom for your team to be like, we've got this.
• 11:45
  Samantha McGinley: Like it's just come in it as you please, like come in it as you want.
• 11:50
  Samantha McGinley: And so, as watching her with her all like with her team, it's so fun to see how much more free she feels because her personal brand is on this whole other side and she can run her business.
• 12:03
  Samantha McGinley: So I would say it just takes some time of what you really want to do with that personal brand in the sense of are you kind of moving towards that content creator influencer model, which isn't a bad way to do it because it's like brand deals are an opportunity.
• 12:16
  Samantha McGinley: You can go for more lifestyle content, more days in the life of being just an entrepreneur.
• 12:20
  Samantha McGinley: Or are do you want to build something else?
• 12:23
  Samantha McGinley: It just is a matter of that lens of figuring out what direction you want to go.
• 12:27
  Samantha McGinley: And so for me, I'm like just think about your audience, who you want to talk to in that realm of building your personal brand as you start to step away, but also know that it takes time.
• 12:36
  Samantha McGinley: And within that time, you might feel like you lose a couple of people, but that's okay because you're gonna call in the people who really want to know you.
• 12:45
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: So let's say you don't know, you know that you want to create your personal brand, but you kind of have an idea of who you what you want to do.
• 12:55
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Let's say you step from owning a business to then you know, the the linear thing would be coaching.
• 13:01
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Okay.
• 13:02
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: I want to coach other small businesses.
• 13:04
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Going from that that's not as big of a leap, I guess.
• 13:10
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Uh, but but you don't know what that looks like.
• 13:13
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Is it fine to just start creating and just start putting one foot in front of the other?
• 13:18
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: And you know, a lot of people say start before you're ready.
• 13:20
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Do you just start creating content without having that clear vision as to who the end user is gonna be of it?
• 13:27
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Or do you really have to take a step back, wait until you know that to start creating?
• 13:35
  Samantha McGinley: I say within the first three months of when you're just kind of figuring things out and like what you want to do, I like to call it I'll keep it clean, but it's just kind of just like your your your effort period.
• 13:48
  Samantha McGinley: Like just come just completely just mess around, go find the thing that is resonating with your audience and use 90 days.
• 13:58
  Samantha McGinley: Because if you're just posting like content in the sense, so with TikTok, like the algorithm itself, sometimes it thinks about it takes a while for you get out to get out of like 200 views on TikTok, which it because it's just trying to figure out where it wants to put you.
• 14:13
  Samantha McGinley: Think about it in the same way of just when you're producing content for the first couple of months, think about which way is resonating more.
• 14:21
  Samantha McGinley: How are you finding your audience and where do you want to go?
• 14:23
  Samantha McGinley: Because sometimes you end up finding a love for filming one content versus another.
• 14:29
  Samantha McGinley: And so, if if in this example, if you're pivoting into just solo coaching and wanting to help other businesses, that's kind of again coming down to go up because you have to think about the foundational work of building a mission statement, building an avatar, building your brand again.
• 14:49
  Samantha McGinley: And it seems so repetitive, but I constantly remind my clients that that coming down is the same way that you would climb up a peak, right?
• 14:57
  Samantha McGinley: You're like, okay, to maybe get to the tallest peak of where you want to go, which would maybe be success, you have to go through a couple of peaks just to get there, just to see the ultimate view.
• 17:33
  Samantha McGinley: But when you get to the first peak, you're like, oh, this view is great, this is fantastic, but I want to go there.
• 17:37
  Samantha McGinley: So more often than not, what do you have to do?
• 17:39
  Samantha McGinley: You have to go down to go back up.
• 17:40
  Samantha McGinley: Right.
• 17:41
  Samantha McGinley: And so it's that same thing of take 90 days, even if it was before like work with someone like me, or before you work with someone in marketing or whatever, to just find what resonates with you.
• 17:51
  Samantha McGinley: But then also remember that building a foundation of your mission, your avatar, and all of the other things at the baseline is going to help you grow because that's where it all starts.
• 18:01
  Samantha McGinley: And without that, you cannot build your brand effectively.
• 18:05
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: And you know, I think as entrepreneurs, we get very impatient and we kind of forget what it was like when we built our first business and how slow it actually was.
• 18:16
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Yeah.
• 18:16
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: But then when you build your second business, you're like, I don't understand why it's not happening like right now.
• 18:22
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: And it's not happening right now because your first business didn't start that way, but it's been so long for a lot of people that they don't remember that.
• 18:31
  Samantha McGinley: And it's it's funny.
• 18:32
  Samantha McGinley: I was sitting and talking with another coach not too long ago, and I was telling, I was asking him the very question of like, how do you explain to clients of that same phrase of you have to go down to go up?
• 18:42
  Samantha McGinley: And he gave me the example of a Christmas tree, of how it almost gets shorter as it goes up.
• 18:49
  Samantha McGinley: Because as you continue to build brands and make businesses, the first like leg of the bottom of a tree is like really long, right?
• 18:56
  Samantha McGinley: But then every time you do something, it gets shorter and it builds up the tree.
• 19:00
  Samantha McGinley: So that's kind of the same way as that in the sense of how I look at the four stages of brand development.
• 19:07
  Samantha McGinley: First, you have the recognition of like your team and maybe some of the people around you.
• 19:12
  Samantha McGinley: The second stage is your audience kind of starts to get that idea of who you are and what you do.
• 19:19
  Samantha McGinley: The third stage is your peers, so friends of friends.
• 19:23
  Samantha McGinley: So they're like, oh, hey, I've seen her content, I know her.
• 19:26
  Samantha McGinley: Like I can start telling her about it.
• 19:27
  Samantha McGinley: It's when you get personal referrals and all of those things.
• 19:30
  Samantha McGinley: And a lot of the times, people, it takes a while to get from the second stage to the third stage.
• 19:35
  Samantha McGinley: Your audience really has to understand you.
• 19:38
  Samantha McGinley: And it's incredibly important.
• 19:41
  Samantha McGinley: But taking that into consideration, when you get to the fourth stage, that's mass market.
• 19:48
  Samantha McGinley: Like that's Jen Gottlieb level, that's Gabby Bernstein level, that's you can sell anything and be at that point where your audience is like, okay, I'm in.
• 19:58
  Samantha McGinley: Like I already know who you are and what you do.
• 20:00
  Samantha McGinley: And also, it doesn't matter what you do, I just know your brand.
• 20:03
  Samantha McGinley: So when you think about it like that, it just takes some times to go to each level.
• 20:09
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: And a lot of people look at, and I know we've heard this saying in in all of the circles that we're in, right?
• 20:14
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Don't compare your chapter one to someone else's chapter 20.
• 20:17
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Yes, you know, and it's true because we do, we're human, and we see somebody, you know, the big names in the world posting on social media, and we're like, I want to be them, and we think that it just happened overnight, you know, and it really didn't.
• 20:35
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: It took a long time for them to, you know, what you're saying go down to go back up.
• 20:41
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: It's taken many of those cycles, but we don't see that.
• 20:45
  Samantha McGinley: Exactly.
• 20:46
  Samantha McGinley: And Gary B highlights that a lot too.
• 20:48
  Samantha McGinley: He's like, you guys just look at me now, like of where I am and where my brand is, but you don't think about 10, 15 years ago when it was nothing.
• 20:57
  Samantha McGinley: Like I wasn't, you know, I was I was where you guys are just building things, and I just put out a lot of content.
• 21:04
  Samantha McGinley: I just put out mass amounts of content and saw and tried to see what stuck.
• 21:09
  Samantha McGinley: And that's why he's so successful now, is just he's built his brand over time.
• 21:13
  Samantha McGinley: But I we were even having this conversation with one of my other clients who works in like image consulting, and she was talking about people, they just want to get to the stage of billionaires where they can wear like flip-flops and t-shirts and shorts.
• 21:25
  Samantha McGinley: And I'm like, you think about how long somebody wore a suit before they can do that, and it's the same thing with brands.
• 21:32
  Samantha McGinley: You think about how long someone has to get there before they can just sell whatever, be whatever, have people behind them.
• 21:40
  Samantha McGinley: So that's where it's it's like it's okay.
• 21:43
  Samantha McGinley: Like, what are we in a rush for?
• 21:44
  Samantha McGinley: Like, I know that we're we want we want to make money and we want to be successful, but that's why I emphasize to a lot of my clients of you have to remember your why.
• 21:54
  Samantha McGinley: You have to remember why you got into this, because at the end of the day, we built a business to help people, so we need to remember that.
• 22:02
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Absolutely.
• 22:03
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: And you know, I love the Gary Vee conversation because you're right, like we totally don't see any of that, nor do we care because all we see is what we see now.
• 22:16
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Exactly.
• 22:17
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: And we want to be that.
• 22:18
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: So is the personal brand something that's here to stay?
• 22:25
  Samantha McGinley: I think so, yes, because as I mentioned kind of at the beginning, social media changed that.
• 22:32
  Samantha McGinley: It really did, because YouTubers like it's no longer a business name that needs to hold recognition in order for people to get things, like Alex Earl, for example, or even Mr.
• 22:44
  Samantha McGinley: Beast on YouTube, or any famous influencer, TikTok, or whatever.
• 22:49
  Samantha McGinley: They have millions of followers, and those people will buy whatever that person says, and that's why they're called influencers, creators, because they're being influenced to to show other people what they're doing, but because they've made such a strong personal brand that it doesn't ultimately matter what they do.
• 23:08
  Samantha McGinley: They'll always they're always gonna have people behind them because they took someone along with the journey.
• 23:12
  Samantha McGinley: So, yes, personal brands are here to stay, especially.
• 23:16
  Samantha McGinley: I mean, as long as we're in the social media sphere, yeah, it's always gonna be a thing.
• 23:21
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Something interesting that I've I've thought about with the influencer area.
• 23:25
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: So I remember back in the day when as a business owner, I basically paid an influencer um money or product to influence their followers to my brand.
• 23:39
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: I and I'm gonna let you speak to this, but I'm gonna give my opinion.
• 23:46
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: I feel like it seems as though it's kind of going the other way around a little bit right now.
• 23:53
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Like influencers are important, but the influencers has really they've really built up their brand and um put themselves out there, and they're more apt to be very careful as to who they endorse and and what they do and what they don't do and and those kinds of things.
• 24:14
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: But I I don't know why I feel like I would be less apt to believe somebody that I know is getting paid.
• 24:22
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Does that make sense?
• 24:24
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Is that really the case or am I making that up?
• 24:28
  Samantha McGinley: I think you're observing a yeah, I think you're observing a much larger shift amongst the marketplace.
• 24:35
  Samantha McGinley: Um, I was having this conversation with a coach not too long ago, too, where there's a huge shift to where the sales market of how we've given people things for so long, it used, you know, flashy sales, cheap sales, things that were just almost guaranteed, but just fast.
• 24:54
  Samantha McGinley: Um, what's the word, sticky, um, just all of those types of sales, they just don't work anymore.
• 25:01
  Samantha McGinley: People want to trust you.
• 25:03
  Samantha McGinley: And I think that you're absolutely in this in the sense of I want to be able to trust someone before I give them my product or pay them to like actually influence it or like bring it out to their market.
• 25:14
  Samantha McGinley: Because right now it's just people are just want they want authenticity, they want real people.
• 25:20
  Samantha McGinley: And I tell that to all my clients of who are stuck feeling like they want to create content and everything like that.
• 25:26
  Samantha McGinley: It guys, it's just in the background of things, people want to see you, they want to know who you are, they want to trust you because we have been played for so long.
• 25:34
  Samantha McGinley: And we talk about that in the marketing industry too.
• 25:36
  Samantha McGinley: It's just when did marketing become scheme?
• 25:39
  Samantha McGinley: When did everything become a play to get money?
• 25:42
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Right.
• 25:43
  Samantha McGinley: When when did all of that happen?
• 25:45
  Samantha McGinley: It it's just so many people have changed their direction of just wanting to build trust with someone else before they invest in something else.
• 25:53
  Samantha McGinley: So I think, yeah, it's it's drastically changing in this sense that people are just absolutely craving authenticity from someone else.
• 26:02
  Samantha McGinley: So before you offer a product or invest in something else, just be honest with the fact of okay, I might not get a return.
• 26:09
  Samantha McGinley: It's the same thing with like what we say about giving other people money, right?
• 26:13
  Samantha McGinley: I might not get that back, but I'm just gonna give it because I feel like it might be good, right?
• 26:18
  Samantha McGinley: And you just kind of have to just put it out there.
• 26:20
  Samantha McGinley: And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
• 26:21
  Samantha McGinley: But at the end of the day, I think everyone's feeling that same way in marketing, in influencer levels, it's just everyone wants someone authentic and to just actually trust someone.
• 26:34
  Samantha McGinley: So that's why building a personal brand and building a brand off of integrity and off of your personal values is really a game changer.
• 26:41
  Samantha McGinley: Because if you do that, then people are gonna want or people are gonna gravitate towards that and people are gonna want to work with you and influence whatever you have in any way that you they can because they see the vision.
• 26:51
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Does that make sense?
• 26:52
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: That totally makes sense.
• 26:54
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Now, if you had three strategies, just three high-level strategies that you could give our audience on the importance, the important keys of building a personal brand.
• 27:07
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: What would be three key takeaways that our audience could use to build their personal brand?
• 27:13
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Maybe a do and don't list or a do list.
• 27:16
  Samantha McGinley: Totally.
• 27:17
  Samantha McGinley: I would I would say the first one be as raw and real as you feel like you can, because showing the journey and the process helps a lot more.
• 27:29
  Samantha McGinley: I think even on my page, and I talk about this from so long ago of literally not even my brand has shifted a lot too.
• 27:38
  Samantha McGinley: So, not even like maybe August of last year was I really just wanting to be faceless.
• 27:44
  Samantha McGinley: Did I really want to like not show my face and like wanted to build my brand in that direction?
• 27:48
  Samantha McGinley: But then really meeting people who are like, No, I need to see your face, like I want to trust you, right?
• 27:54
  Samantha McGinley: So you have to show up, like, and I've watched some of my clients show up and just show on camera and be feel the uncomfortableness and just be honest about it.
• 28:03
  Samantha McGinley: And they've attracted people because of that same thing.
• 28:05
  Samantha McGinley: Because there's a lot of people who just don't want to be on camera and don't want to do the thing and don't want to get up and make content every day because we all feel like it sometimes.
• 28:14
  Samantha McGinley: Yeah, so it's it's on at the end of the day, be real, be authentic.
• 28:19
  Samantha McGinley: That would be my first one.
• 28:21
  Samantha McGinley: The second one is find the things that you can bring in to almost your everyday life.
• 28:29
  Samantha McGinley: So if you're going for personal brand kind of influencer model, if you have a skincare routine, if you have things that you just do every day that kind of allows people to bring it in, just bring them in.
• 28:39
  Samantha McGinley: Like show them the things that you're doing, obviously within boundaries, like find the areas where you feel comfortable showing.
• 28:44
  Samantha McGinley: But when you showcase a lot of the things, and you can obviously you can attract brand deals, you can attract the people that want to do the products or see the products that you're using and all the things like that.
• 28:55
  Samantha McGinley: And that actually combines with travel and that combines with coaching and that combines with businesses because you can get brand deals with hotels, you can get brand deals with air like airlines, you can build out the things.
• 29:09
  Samantha McGinley: So when you're thinking about your everyday, unpack it.
• 29:13
  Samantha McGinley: Unpack your everyday and how you can bring in the things that are just natural to you because then it doesn't feel forced, it doesn't feel like you're becoming an influencer and it just feels natural.
• 29:21
  Samantha McGinley: So it's like authentic, authentic energy all the way around.
• 29:24
  Samantha McGinley: Bring in the brand deals that work with your everyday life, whether it's business, coaching, personal, whatever that may be.
• 29:31
  Samantha McGinley: And then third, really, I cannot like say this enough of just know your audience, know who you want to talk to, and take the time to build a build an avatar.
• 29:43
  Samantha McGinley: And I'll give this in the sense of I have it all over my Instagram too.
• 29:47
  Samantha McGinley: The exercise that I start with my clients of just sit down and pen to paper, or if you like to type, type it out.
• 29:54
  Samantha McGinley: What's their name?
• 29:55
  Samantha McGinley: How old are they?
• 29:56
  Samantha McGinley: What do they currently do?
• 29:57
  Samantha McGinley: Why do they need you?
• 30:00
  Samantha McGinley: How can you help them?
• 30:01
  Samantha McGinley: What are they just struggling with?
• 30:04
  Samantha McGinley: And how can you bring that messaging to life?
• 30:08
  Samantha McGinley: How can you pull all of that information out of them in order to tell them exactly what they need to hear?
• 30:13
  Samantha McGinley: And it's cool when you do this pen to paper, computer to keyboard, whatever it may be.
• 30:18
  Samantha McGinley: If you put that information into Chat GPT and have it write a diary entry for you, like the diary entry really gets me.
• 30:26
  Samantha McGinley: Like that's one where you can almost just pretend to be in the mind of another person.
• 30:31
  Samantha McGinley: And so if you know your audience and you know who you're talking to, that's a game changer.
• 30:37
  Samantha McGinley: It really is.
• 30:39
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: So three steps be real or three tips be real, incorporate everyday life.
• 30:45
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: I loved your saying unpack your everyday, and then know your audience.
• 30:50
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Yep.
• 30:51
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Powerful but simple.
• 30:54
  Samantha McGinley: So simple.
• 30:55
  Samantha McGinley: And that's where it's we were talking about yesterday.
• 30:58
  Samantha McGinley: It's very funny that podcasting today with you, and I was with a group of people yesterday of an image consultant, a videographer, and just me.
• 31:06
  Samantha McGinley: And we were talking about how much brand has changed, where it's like your visual representation and then your outward appearance, and then your online presentation is literally everything that you need to understand because that's how people are gonna know, like, and trust you.
• 31:25
  Samantha McGinley: And at the end of the day, everybody wants to feel seen, heard, and appreciated.
• 31:30
  Samantha McGinley: Everybody does.
• 31:31
  Samantha McGinley: So when you know your audience, you're so super real, and you just bring in the things that attract your everyday life.
• 31:37
  Samantha McGinley: Who is not gonna want to work with you?
• 31:39
  Samantha McGinley: Because the people who really do, they're gonna find you.
• 31:41
  Samantha McGinley: Right.
• 31:41
  Samantha McGinley: They sometimes just showing up as yourself.
• 31:43
  Samantha McGinley: And that's so much easier than having to feel like you have to pretend to be someone else.
• 31:47
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Way easier, that much less energy, right?
• 31:50
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: So much less energy.
• 31:51
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: Samantha, it has been a pleasure having you on today.
• 31:55
  Jennifer Ann Johnson: If our listeners would like to get a hold of you, how may they do so?
• 31:58
  Samantha McGinley: Yes, I'm on Instagram at Sam the Branding Coach.
• 32:01
  Samantha McGinley: Super easy.
• 32:02
  Samantha McGinley: Sam the Branding Coach is mostly all of my platforms sent shoot me and DM.
• 32:06
  Samantha McGinley: I'm around.
• 32:07
  Samantha McGinley: I always love to hop on um and do Instagram audits, like social media audits.
• 32:13
  Samantha McGinley: So if you need one, just shoot me a message.
• 32:15
  Samantha McGinley: Wonderful.
• 32:16
  Samantha McGinley: Thank you so much again.
• 32:17
  Samantha McGinley: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 32:19
  Samantha McGinley: Absolutely.