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Your Brand Isn’t Your Logo: Building Clarity and Connection · Business Roundtable

0:13
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. My name is
0:16
Speaker 1: David Carr Founders do or Your Business, where we bring
0:18
Speaker 1: people together to accomplish great things, and we do that
0:21
Speaker 1: here on the podcast week after week, episode after episode.
0:24
Speaker 1: And I'm excited to have another brand new guest this week,
0:27
Speaker 1: Stephanie Simpson of Brandification. Welcome to the podcast. Stephanie.
0:31
Speaker 2: Thank you, absolutely absolutely, I'm excited to dig into this
0:36
Speaker 2: one because we're gonna do it a little different than
0:38
Speaker 2: we've typically done on episodes because you have such a
0:41
Speaker 2: great background in branding and marketing and positioning, and really
0:45
Speaker 2: what I wanted to have you come on here is
0:47
Speaker 2: like there's a really gap between companies about where they are,
0:50
Speaker 2: what they stand for.
0:51
Speaker 1: How do they show up in the world, and how
0:53
Speaker 1: do they diversify themselves. And I'm excited for you to
0:55
Speaker 1: come on the podcast today. We're going to do a
0:57
Speaker 1: kind of a working exercise. You're going to go through
1:00
Speaker 1: look at Stewart your business, and give me some great feedback.
1:02
Speaker 1: But before we jump into that, if you will, I'd
1:05
Speaker 1: love you to just talk to our audience about your
1:08
Speaker 1: journey in the branding space and why you created Brandification.
1:12
Speaker 1: Now this this fantastic to have you here. So we
1:15
Speaker 1: just walk us through a little bit of your journey, Stephanie.
1:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a long and winding road. But I started
1:22
Speaker 3: my career off at Warner Brothers in the marketing department
1:26
Speaker 3: at Warner Brothers Television and learned from a great marketer
1:30
Speaker 3: there who ended up being the head of the all
1:33
Speaker 3: of Warner Brothers marketing and she's incredible. And so I
1:38
Speaker 3: learned about branding and about the importance of, you know,
1:42
Speaker 3: showing exactly what you are so that you attract exactly
1:46
Speaker 3: who you want. So that was a great learning experience.
1:48
Speaker 3: And then over the years, I wanted to start my
1:51
Speaker 3: own business. And I'm a photographer and a cinematographer. I
1:55
Speaker 3: have a master's from an Art Center College of Design,
1:57
Speaker 3: and so I had a photography business for thirteen years
2:01
Speaker 3: and I concentrated on working with business owners and their
2:08
Speaker 3: visual brand. And what I know is over time is
2:12
Speaker 3: that business owners often don't understand their own business. And
2:17
Speaker 3: so it went from instead of like can I take
2:19
Speaker 3: a nice picture? Of course I can, but is it
2:21
Speaker 3: telling the story of your business? Is it the right
2:24
Speaker 3: picture to tell about your brand? And not everybody wants
2:28
Speaker 3: to be the face of their brand, so it's important
2:30
Speaker 3: to know, like, what's going to tell that story. So
2:33
Speaker 3: I learned. I started coaching clients on how to stand
2:37
Speaker 3: out in the marketplace and how to understand what their
2:41
Speaker 3: company's all about and what they're passionate about, and how
2:43
Speaker 3: to share that and communicate it. And over time I
2:47
Speaker 3: found that the deliverable of photography was not as satisfying
2:50
Speaker 3: as the deliverable of really helping people elevate their businesses
2:54
Speaker 3: and attract more clients and feel proud of themselves they
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Speaker 3: had really done something extraordinary, from nothing into something amazing.
3:02
Speaker 3: So that's kind of how that's my journey.
3:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I love it. But I mean, you are
3:08
Speaker 1: such a talented photographer too, Stephie. So you guys, when
3:11
Speaker 1: you go check out Gratification, you'll see some of her
3:13
Speaker 1: work and connect with Ephany were connected on LinkedIn as well.
3:17
Speaker 1: But I love that you st're saying, Okay, the photography
3:20
Speaker 1: was an outcome, but you you what I hear you
3:22
Speaker 1: saying is that your love of helping people understand what
3:25
Speaker 1: they are, what their businesses are really about, how they're
3:27
Speaker 1: really becoming, is really your passion. And that's where you've
3:31
Speaker 1: come to gratification. Now it's like, okay, more than Yes,
3:34
Speaker 1: images are important, but it's more than that outcome.
3:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's making people feel good about themselves and the
3:39
Speaker 3: things that they've created and nothing on. Business owners, like
3:43
Speaker 3: entrepreneurs were like such a specific breed of people, and
3:48
Speaker 3: we put our all and our hearts and souls into
3:51
Speaker 3: these businesses. And if it's just kind of met at
3:55
Speaker 3: the end and you're feeling a little bit of brand
3:57
Speaker 3: envy or you're just not attracting the right clients, and
4:00
Speaker 3: you think, what am I doing wrong? You know, I
4:02
Speaker 3: love my business, but I'm just not getting what I
4:05
Speaker 3: need out of it. And so most of the time,
4:09
Speaker 3: the problem is messaging. The problem is understanding what you're
4:14
Speaker 3: saying that's going to make you the obvious choice to
4:18
Speaker 3: your ideal customers.
4:20
Speaker 1: Well, I know you and I were talking before we
4:22
Speaker 1: recorded this podcast, and one thing I wrote down that
4:25
Speaker 1: you alluded to is that, you know, we were talking
4:27
Speaker 1: about I think business focus. I got to get the LLC,
4:29
Speaker 1: I got the formation, I got to get a website
4:31
Speaker 1: or a logo. And what you said that stood out
4:34
Speaker 1: to me was it really just a mirror back of like,
4:36
Speaker 1: let me be a mirror back and what are you
4:38
Speaker 1: really standing on? What is the foundation of what you're
4:41
Speaker 1: trying to create here? And I think people don't understand
4:44
Speaker 1: that they have some thought, possibly, but they get caught
4:47
Speaker 1: in the other minutia. And what I found is that
4:50
Speaker 1: they haven't spent the time necessarily working with somebody like you, Stephanie,
4:54
Speaker 1: and I loved even before we recorded this podcast, you
4:56
Speaker 1: gave me some more questions as the hohomework roll unpacked
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Speaker 1: to further get to the point of, like what do
5:01
Speaker 1: you stand for? What are you all about? What what
5:03
Speaker 1: makes you unique in the marketplace, because there's a lot
5:05
Speaker 1: of people that can do, you know, leadership development and
5:08
Speaker 1: other things that I do as part of your steward
5:09
Speaker 1: your business and I'm excited for you to unpact this
5:11
Speaker 1: with me today. Me too. Yeah. So with that, Stephanie,
5:18
Speaker 1: let's let you lead the conversation a little bit of
5:20
Speaker 1: like show us how you work, and we're gonna use me,
5:24
Speaker 1: David car steward your business as an example of like
5:28
Speaker 1: when you guys are working with the brand strategists like Stephanie,
5:31
Speaker 1: what that should look like and how Stephanie's unique approach
5:34
Speaker 1: with all of her background experience, So we're going to
5:36
Speaker 1: be opening up the hood. I'm just gonna be transparent,
5:39
Speaker 1: open here with you all. So you're gonna learn a
5:41
Speaker 1: little bit more about steward your business today and let
5:43
Speaker 1: Stephanie ask the questions and weren't have a dialogue back
5:45
Speaker 1: and forth so you can start to see are you
5:48
Speaker 1: applying these principles in your own business? And of course
5:52
Speaker 1: follow up with Stephanie. As you hear these things, you're like, man,
5:55
Speaker 1: I probably use her help. But Stephaniel, let you try
5:58
Speaker 1: to take it away. As you're working with the client,
6:00
Speaker 1: you're working with somebody, and you've looked at some of
6:02
Speaker 1: my resources, my website, and I know you've got a
6:04
Speaker 1: questionnaire that I filled out Once't you just walk us
6:07
Speaker 1: through kind of the journey working with you?
6:09
Speaker 4: Yeah?
6:09
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I think the important thing is to understand that
6:14
Speaker 3: a brand is not a logo or a color palette
6:16
Speaker 3: or the images that you use. It is who you are,
6:20
Speaker 3: who you want to attract, and what makes you stand out.
6:22
Speaker 3: And it's really really hard, it's so challenging to do
6:26
Speaker 3: that from within your business. You know, they say you
6:28
Speaker 3: can't see the label from inside the bottle well, it's
6:31
Speaker 3: the same thing, and it's really difficult to do for
6:33
Speaker 3: your own business to understand what makes me special, you know,
6:37
Speaker 3: and it's not something we really dwell on in our lives.
6:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, yeah, I can't even see you know,
6:46
Speaker 1: I can't see it, right, you said, I love that
6:48
Speaker 1: you can't see the inside the label and the inside.
6:51
Speaker 1: So I love that you're going to provide an outside perspective,
6:54
Speaker 1: having worked with so many different businesses and working with
6:57
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs to give us and give me perspective.
7:00
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the framework that I work with is what
7:04
Speaker 3: I call the five Pillars of marketing, and that's where
7:07
Speaker 3: we start to understand what those are and then how
7:10
Speaker 3: we're going to fill in the important information about you
7:12
Speaker 3: into those five pillars. So the five pillars, with this
7:16
Speaker 3: first one is understanding deeply your target audience, who specifically
7:21
Speaker 3: are you trying to attract. And it's very unproductive to say, like, well,
7:25
Speaker 3: anybody with a paycheck, you know, anybody with the yes, yeah,
7:30
Speaker 3: you know, that doesn't help us, and it doesn't help
7:32
Speaker 3: people refer us either, because they need to understand who
7:36
Speaker 3: we are and what we stand for. So when they
7:38
Speaker 3: see that person, they say, ah, I've got the person
7:42
Speaker 3: for you. So understanding your target audience is foundational. That's
7:46
Speaker 3: the most important first step. Second step is your messaging.
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Speaker 3: Understanding what to say to those people so that they
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Speaker 3: understand you and know what they're going to get out
7:57
Speaker 3: of the experience. This is yournch ciators. The things that
8:01
Speaker 3: help you stand apart in the marketplace, the things you're
8:03
Speaker 3: passionate about, how you want to who you want to attract,
8:07
Speaker 3: and how what's going to What can you say that's
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Speaker 3: going to make them say, Ah, they're the person that
8:13
Speaker 3: they said the thing that's what I want. Number three
8:17
Speaker 3: is content. Content marketing should be your foundational marketing. So
8:22
Speaker 3: we're talking about blog posts for SEO, social media posts
8:27
Speaker 3: for brand recognition and awareness, email for directly speaking to
8:32
Speaker 3: interested companies. You know, that's your traditional inbound marketing, but
8:36
Speaker 3: it can also be thought leadership, podcasts, it can be
8:39
Speaker 3: other forms of content that you create. Some people want
8:43
Speaker 3: to have content as the top of their funnel, so
8:44
Speaker 3: they want to create all kinds of amazing tools. I
8:48
Speaker 3: use HubSpot as an example. They offer all these amazing
8:51
Speaker 3: tools and amazing education and certifications and stuff, all to
8:55
Speaker 3: get you into their ecosystems, so that someday when you're
8:59
Speaker 3: ready pay for their very expensive tools.
9:04
Speaker 1: We've got to get you in somewhere, somewhere in the
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Speaker 1: product for.
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Speaker 3: You to grow to afford them, you know, to need,
9:10
Speaker 3: and that's a very smart way to go. The fourth
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Speaker 3: pillar is growth marketing. So that can be public speaking,
9:19
Speaker 3: it could be events, it could be affiliate marketing, it
9:22
Speaker 3: could be referral marketing, it could be all kinds of
9:25
Speaker 3: different things, but a system that you can use that
9:27
Speaker 3: you can scale up or back depending on your needs
9:30
Speaker 3: for acquiring new clients. So that's like sort of the
9:34
Speaker 3: real engine to to your marketing funnel. And then the
9:38
Speaker 3: last one is what I call infusion, which is really
9:43
Speaker 3: infusing who you are and what your brand stands for
9:46
Speaker 3: into everything that you do. That's the customer journey. That's
9:50
Speaker 3: how you speak to customers, how your team is trained,
9:53
Speaker 3: who you hire, it's everything that you do. So it
9:57
Speaker 3: could even be like I only buy recycled paper, or
10:00
Speaker 3: you know, I believe strongly in the environment, So these
10:05
Speaker 3: are the things that I'm doing to exemplify those and
10:08
Speaker 3: to so once you have all of those pieces in place,
10:13
Speaker 3: you are a rock solid brand. You are really speaking
10:17
Speaker 3: the right message to the right people and closing those sales.
10:22
Speaker 3: So that's kind of where I start, and so I
10:25
Speaker 3: want to start this sort of process with you and
10:29
Speaker 3: learn about your business and then how you can refine
10:33
Speaker 3: your messaging and it's showcase and shine a light on
10:39
Speaker 3: your differentiators. So first things first, I want to know
10:42
Speaker 3: all about your target audience.
10:45
Speaker 1: Sure, no, thanks, Stephanie. Well it's Stewart your Business. You know,
10:48
Speaker 1: we're all about bringing people together to accomplished great things.
10:51
Speaker 1: So it's all Stewart is a big important word too
10:53
Speaker 1: because meaning coming from my biological background working in environmental
10:58
Speaker 1: consulting services, industry, architecture engineering, my own consulting professional services,
11:04
Speaker 1: if you will, that's been part of my life's long
11:07
Speaker 1: journey of like how do we take care of resources?
11:09
Speaker 1: And so people are your greatest assets. So in that,
11:12
Speaker 1: Stewart your Business was formed in twenty twenty two as
11:15
Speaker 1: a way of helping business owners and individuals, particularly those
11:20
Speaker 1: on a leadership journey moving from a technical specialist subject
11:24
Speaker 1: better expert to manager and ultimately a leader within a company.
11:28
Speaker 1: And what I found, particularly with small business owners, typically
11:32
Speaker 1: of less than fifty employees, is that they didn't have
11:35
Speaker 1: a strong leadership team underneath them, and they didn't have
11:39
Speaker 1: the people there that could run the business for the
11:41
Speaker 1: business owner. The business owner had to stay actively involved
11:44
Speaker 1: and they didn't have that. So, having been in that
11:48
Speaker 1: journey of building a company working with another company called
11:51
Speaker 1: Barcas for four and a half years, we went and
11:53
Speaker 1: took it from about twenty twenty five employees to over
11:55
Speaker 1: eighty employees in four years, generating a million in revenue
11:58
Speaker 1: our first year I came on board, and multiple revenue
12:02
Speaker 1: multiple millions over the next few years. So there's a
12:05
Speaker 1: lot of scaling challenges there to get the right people
12:09
Speaker 1: in the right place, equipping them to not just have
12:11
Speaker 1: technical skills, but to have leadership skills to address the
12:14
Speaker 1: challenges that they're facing as you grow a company. So
12:17
Speaker 1: that's where I start. Stephanie has been focusing on those
12:19
Speaker 1: businesses that have fifty employees or less, typically that are
12:23
Speaker 1: usually under several million in annual revenue. Some could be
12:26
Speaker 1: as high seven or eight million in avenue revenue. You're
12:28
Speaker 1: still having this challenge of growing a leadership team underneath
12:31
Speaker 1: you that know their place, know their voice, know how
12:34
Speaker 1: they work together with the team and that's where it
12:38
Speaker 1: have been and what's excited about stear of your business
12:41
Speaker 1: has been growing this particular in twenty twenty five is
12:43
Speaker 1: to offer that for those I love working in the
12:46
Speaker 1: business owners and their teams, but subsequently that there's one
12:49
Speaker 1: avatar the other avatars for that individual that is the
12:52
Speaker 1: up and coming. There may be the new department head,
12:55
Speaker 1: director or the group manager, and they have they're solid
12:59
Speaker 1: on their technical skills because that's why they got promoted up,
13:01
Speaker 1: but they don't have the leadership skills. They haven't developed
13:04
Speaker 1: an awareness perhaps even of their understanding of who they are.
13:08
Speaker 1: And this is my own journey. So I'm speaking to
13:10
Speaker 1: the people that I've been in this journey because I
13:12
Speaker 1: was in this place and so they're they're throwing everything
13:15
Speaker 1: that they can in that in the business, trying to
13:18
Speaker 1: do the right things of the business or where they
13:20
Speaker 1: think a leader should be, only to be frustrated that
13:22
Speaker 1: people aren't following along, they're not trusting them, they're not
13:25
Speaker 1: getting them the credibility that they want to have. And
13:28
Speaker 1: meanwhile they're burning that. They're just focusing on that, and
13:31
Speaker 1: you know, they're letting other areas of their life that
13:33
Speaker 1: might you know diminish as well because they're trying so
13:35
Speaker 1: hard in one area. So we try to look at
13:37
Speaker 1: it holistically because I've been there. I've been married twenty years,
13:39
Speaker 1: got teenagers, been through this process. So it's both that
13:42
Speaker 1: business owner and their team and the individual. Those are
13:46
Speaker 1: the people I strive to serve, Stephanie.
13:48
Speaker 3: So is the individual paying for their own coaching or
13:53
Speaker 3: is the company paying for the coaching?
13:56
Speaker 1: So too prong It could be both. It could be both.
14:01
Speaker 1: Typically though it's been the business owner because they're able
14:04
Speaker 1: to afford it, they can have there's a higher ticket
14:06
Speaker 1: offer there, and I'm doing coaching and consulting with them. However,
14:11
Speaker 1: seeing that there's a need and not every businesses unfortunately,
14:14
Speaker 1: we'll cover that. I have been growing a group coaching
14:17
Speaker 1: program so individuals can also invest in themselves Stephanie and
14:20
Speaker 1: have that as another option, another way for them.
14:22
Speaker 3: To work with me, and that would be a different
14:24
Speaker 3: price point than if through a company. Okay, correct, yes,
14:29
Speaker 3: all right, So you're that business owner and you want
14:34
Speaker 3: to grow and scale your company, but you can't duplicate
14:36
Speaker 3: yourself yep. Would you say that that is the pain point,
14:40
Speaker 3: that's where you want to grow but you're stuck at
14:44
Speaker 3: a level because you can't do everything yourself. Is that
14:49
Speaker 3: fair to say? That?
14:50
Speaker 1: Absolutely is fair to say. I mean most of the busines,
14:53
Speaker 1: especially in this particular industry, Stephanie, they started because they're
14:55
Speaker 1: very smart at what they do. Technically, they started a business,
14:58
Speaker 1: and that's great an of us do, but then there's
15:01
Speaker 1: a certain point of scalable or they hit a wall.
15:03
Speaker 1: I'm working with a client right now, just to your point, Stephanie,
15:06
Speaker 1: woman on business where she's bringing on the team because
15:08
Speaker 1: she's like, I want I want to sell my company
15:11
Speaker 1: at some point. And professional services company is only as
15:14
Speaker 1: valuable as the team, the systems, and the processes you
15:17
Speaker 1: have in place. If the owner is that the lynchpin,
15:19
Speaker 1: it's really not worth very much at the end of
15:21
Speaker 1: the day. Yeah, other than the revenue can create right
15:24
Speaker 1: now for you. But once that, once you stop, that
15:26
Speaker 1: goes away.
15:27
Speaker 3: Right once you've left the business, you have not left
15:30
Speaker 3: it in a place where you can exit gracefully and
15:32
Speaker 3: the things will go on as usual. Would you say
15:36
Speaker 3: that a good portion of your CEOs are in that
15:40
Speaker 3: position they're looking for their exit strategy or to grow.
15:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, definitely, I think the ones that are
15:46
Speaker 1: forward thinking. Absolutely, Stephanie, I think that those are the
15:50
Speaker 1: ideal clients because they already recognize that I have a
15:54
Speaker 1: network with Synergy Partners, I would say, and so when
15:56
Speaker 1: I were talking with people that work in murders and
15:58
Speaker 1: acquisitions or private equity. When I talk with these companies,
16:02
Speaker 1: one of the things they look at when they are
16:03
Speaker 1: looking to buy or sell a company is what's the
16:05
Speaker 1: strength of the team. And so that's another way I
16:08
Speaker 1: look at bringing in clients potentially through them if they say, hey,
16:12
Speaker 1: look they need to develop their team. But where I've
16:15
Speaker 1: been working mostly with clients has been engineering, biological firms,
16:19
Speaker 1: others that don't have that leadership team yet that can
16:21
Speaker 1: do the project management, that can do the business development,
16:24
Speaker 1: that can work cohesively with their administrative team and their
16:28
Speaker 1: technical people that are in the field, and so there's
16:30
Speaker 1: a breakdown and they're really if they don't have key people,
16:34
Speaker 1: the company really is going to it won't be able
16:38
Speaker 1: to survive other than the business owners really trying to
16:41
Speaker 1: keep prop it up, and that's not sustainable. They get
16:43
Speaker 1: burned out. Absolutely, So would you say.
16:46
Speaker 3: It's fair to say that one of your client avatars
16:49
Speaker 3: are people looking to set up their business for sale
16:53
Speaker 3: in the next five to seven years.
16:56
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yes, okay.
16:57
Speaker 3: So I would identify that as a as a main
17:01
Speaker 3: avatar so that you can then take that person and
17:05
Speaker 3: speak directly to that person. So some of your marketing
17:08
Speaker 3: should be involved in, you know, education on when to
17:12
Speaker 3: do that. You know, should you start three years isn't enough,
17:16
Speaker 3: you know, you need more time to build up your team.
17:19
Speaker 3: So if you're starting to speak directly to that CEO
17:23
Speaker 3: of a company, they want to scale it, maybe they
17:25
Speaker 3: want to give it to a family member, maybe they
17:27
Speaker 3: want to sell it, maybe it could be absorbed into
17:30
Speaker 3: a larger company. That what will they need to do
17:33
Speaker 3: to achieve that goal. That's where you step in and
17:37
Speaker 3: can help them transition. Particularly with the fact that you
17:40
Speaker 3: are targeting aec and environmental businesses, that gives you a
17:48
Speaker 3: niche into that world as an avatar. So that would
17:51
Speaker 3: be out.
17:52
Speaker 1: That's a real insight because I haven't I haven't I
17:54
Speaker 1: don't think, like you said earlier in your pillars, haven't
17:56
Speaker 1: stressed that as much extremely. I mean, I know it intrinsically,
17:59
Speaker 1: but we're saying, as you're peeling back layers, run hearing
18:02
Speaker 1: and saying, hey, make sure that you get that differentiator
18:04
Speaker 1: out there, right.
18:06
Speaker 3: I'm also trying to find the thing that's going to
18:08
Speaker 3: cause them to want to buy now, the want to
18:11
Speaker 3: sign up with you now, and they need a reason
18:15
Speaker 3: for it to be today. And the hard thing with
18:18
Speaker 3: CEOs and the people who are running and doing most
18:21
Speaker 3: of the heavy lifting with their companies is they're not
18:23
Speaker 3: going to say, gosh, you know, I need some leadership
18:26
Speaker 3: coaching because it's just not something that they're going to
18:29
Speaker 3: want to invest time in. So you have to give
18:31
Speaker 3: them a reason to want to buy now. So let's
18:35
Speaker 3: think about some of the other avatars that you serve.
18:39
Speaker 3: So let's say that overwhelmed person who wants to scale,
18:42
Speaker 3: like maybe they've bumped up against a million or five
18:45
Speaker 3: million that can never get above that level. What is
18:51
Speaker 3: a pain point that's really specific that's going to cause
18:56
Speaker 3: them to want to take action? Think about that person,
19:00
Speaker 3: what is the pain point? Is it that they're always overwhelmed.
19:05
Speaker 3: I don't want it to be a feeling. I want
19:06
Speaker 3: it to be like a reason an outcome for their business,
19:10
Speaker 3: because we don't take action for feelings.
19:13
Speaker 4: Yeah right, Well, I will say for the business owner
19:21
Speaker 4: that particular person where they're running up.
19:23
Speaker 1: Besides, well you talked about selling their company. That's one way.
19:26
Speaker 1: I think a lot of them do really care about
19:28
Speaker 1: their employees Stephanie, and they recognize they're doing their employee
19:32
Speaker 1: as a disservice because they can't provide the support that
19:35
Speaker 1: they need. And what I found is there's a quiet
19:38
Speaker 1: quitting sometimes or they're losing good people. And so I
19:42
Speaker 1: don't think business owners recognize the cost. Maybe they theoretically
19:47
Speaker 1: do it when I talk about talent recruiters things like that,
19:52
Speaker 1: about the cost of finding a person, onboarding them, getting
19:55
Speaker 1: them all trained up, and they have all this knowledge
19:57
Speaker 1: and information. Right if that person and leaves, it's very comton.
20:03
Speaker 1: You lose production. You have to find somebody else. Even
20:05
Speaker 1: if you find somebody else, they take they take time
20:07
Speaker 1: to get up to speed. So what I find is
20:10
Speaker 1: you create a competitive advantage in the marketplace when you
20:14
Speaker 1: have a strong culture, a strong team that works very
20:17
Speaker 1: very well together, and every day that they stay together
20:20
Speaker 1: you have you're you're going to be ahead of anybody
20:22
Speaker 1: else that tries to get it in the game. So
20:23
Speaker 1: from a business owner perspective, it's in their best interest
20:26
Speaker 1: to make sure that that team feels either they we
20:29
Speaker 1: talk about feeling, but they have a holistic approach. They
20:32
Speaker 1: have there's trust, there's relational trust, there's alignment, right, so
20:36
Speaker 1: that they can then okay, then it can scale and
20:38
Speaker 1: there's people that want to come here and it's it's
20:41
Speaker 1: a place that they are leaving a legacy, you know
20:43
Speaker 1: that they're like, Okay, this is something really good, and
20:45
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that it continues on, especially
20:48
Speaker 1: beyond me.
20:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, so okay, I still want to dig into that
20:53
Speaker 3: a little bit deeper because it's still kind of amorphous,
20:57
Speaker 3: you know, doesn't have a specific shape to it, and
21:00
Speaker 3: I wanted to be pointy to be sure. So let's
21:06
Speaker 3: think about that that inciting incident, Like we're thinking about
21:12
Speaker 3: a script. You know, there's an insert book. There's an
21:14
Speaker 3: inciting incident that you know all had breaks. So you've
21:17
Speaker 3: got the CEO and they they they're overwhelmed. They can't
21:24
Speaker 3: do everything if they're going to grow, So they need
21:27
Speaker 3: to duplicate themselves, right, So that could be a question,
21:30
Speaker 3: do you need to duplicate yourself? How do you train
21:34
Speaker 3: up people you already have, or how do you identify
21:37
Speaker 3: new candidates that can do what you do, so that
21:41
Speaker 3: you can concentrate on the scaling piece and they can
21:44
Speaker 3: do your operation, you know, in the business, not on
21:48
Speaker 3: the business kind of kind of stuff.
21:51
Speaker 1: So that might be duplication is huge.
21:53
Speaker 3: That might be a word that would cause people, oh
21:57
Speaker 3: my gosh, magic, can I duplicate myself? That's what I need.
22:01
Speaker 3: Every business owner that's overwhelmed wants to be able to
22:04
Speaker 3: duplicate themselves so that they can concentrate on the things
22:07
Speaker 3: it's actually going to make the company grow. You know.
22:09
Speaker 1: No, that's a great point, jehany Well, even even I
22:12
Speaker 1: work with a couple of clients that they have people
22:14
Speaker 1: and then maybe they've quote unquote duplicated themselves to a degree.
22:19
Speaker 1: But also what I found on these small companies that
22:22
Speaker 1: that's good to a certain group, but then they have
22:24
Speaker 1: only one person that kind of is still a keyholder,
22:27
Speaker 1: like they know all the information at SILOED. So we
22:30
Speaker 1: have to have redundancy. And I've known this over the
22:32
Speaker 1: course of my career. So what's the redundancy that they
22:34
Speaker 1: have in place? Maybe they can't do one hundred percent,
22:36
Speaker 1: maybe it's seventy five eighty percent of whether you could do.
22:39
Speaker 1: But if that person gets sick, they could leave. Something happens,
22:42
Speaker 1: You're not going to be sunk in your business. And
22:46
Speaker 1: so you know that that is really critical to maintain
22:50
Speaker 1: their companies that they don't fall behind.
22:52
Speaker 3: Yes, so what if there's three questions? Question one would
23:00
Speaker 3: be sorry for me in my brain? How can you
23:06
Speaker 3: duplicate yourself? Number two would be what if your right
23:11
Speaker 3: hand person leaves? How can you structure your company so
23:15
Speaker 3: that you can keep going and you're not going to
23:17
Speaker 3: pull your hair out?
23:18
Speaker 1: Yeah?
23:19
Speaker 3: And three, I want to I want to exit my
23:27
Speaker 3: business in five to seven years or five whatever however
23:32
Speaker 3: you want to say. So those would be three avatars
23:38
Speaker 3: with really specific questions that would cause them to pull
23:43
Speaker 3: the trigger and hire you. Yes, and you're such a
23:47
Speaker 3: good you're such a good outreacher, and you met so
23:50
Speaker 3: many people and you have a lot of consistent leads.
23:53
Speaker 3: But you know, to have somebody say this is the
23:56
Speaker 3: problem I need to solve today. It can't be a feeling,
23:59
Speaker 3: can be a morphist. It can't be leadership or you know,
24:04
Speaker 3: synergy or alignment. You know, like those aren't real things,
24:09
Speaker 3: real things. I need another me and I need somebody
24:13
Speaker 3: as a backup in case I want to go on
24:15
Speaker 3: vacation and those two can still run the company, you know,
24:18
Speaker 3: like it's a practical need. Okay, so let's start with that,
24:24
Speaker 3: and then you can also add your manager. Do you
24:30
Speaker 3: want help training them up to become one of those
24:33
Speaker 3: you know, number two or number three on the totem
24:35
Speaker 3: pol or do you need to bring somebody up? And
24:39
Speaker 3: then as a separate avatar if you want to, you
24:44
Speaker 3: could have it for individuals and say, maybe are you
24:48
Speaker 3: never making it up the ladder. You're still a manager,
24:50
Speaker 3: but you can't get to director. You're a director, but
24:53
Speaker 3: you just get the VP and you can't find you know,
24:57
Speaker 3: all the jobs you've been offered or lateral moves, that
25:00
Speaker 3: kind of thing. Then that would be individuals coaching, So
25:04
Speaker 3: that could be an ARM two of your business. You
25:07
Speaker 3: have ARM one for the business and themselves and ARM
25:10
Speaker 3: two for more like professional coaching. Yeah, absolutely, okay, so
25:17
Speaker 3: we're we're good on those.
25:19
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, that's great.
25:21
Speaker 3: Now let's talk about differentiators. So now now that you
25:26
Speaker 3: have those three that are really specific and really hooking
25:31
Speaker 3: the person, you.
25:31
Speaker 1: Know, yes, why you.
25:35
Speaker 3: There are a million coaches out there and there's lots
25:38
Speaker 3: of people that are there to help you scale and
25:39
Speaker 3: growth and a line the teams. YAA, but why you
25:43
Speaker 3: what is it that you're passionate about that are like
25:46
Speaker 3: you really believe in that. It's like meaty goodness that
25:50
Speaker 3: they can like you know, sink their teeth into.
25:53
Speaker 1: No, absolutely, Stephanie, I love that. No. I mean, like
25:56
Speaker 1: I said earlier, you know, spending twenty five plus years
25:58
Speaker 1: in this industry. I've been there from the literally from
26:02
Speaker 1: out of college just starting my career environmental consulting and
26:06
Speaker 1: marking my way up. So it's not that I've just
26:10
Speaker 1: gone out and got some certificates and said I want
26:12
Speaker 1: to be a coach and you know, hey, this is
26:14
Speaker 1: my own personal journey and so I have done that.
26:17
Speaker 1: And for those of you who connected me on LinkedIn,
26:19
Speaker 1: you can kind of see my journey A very active
26:22
Speaker 1: involvement with organizations, not just my organization. I've worked at
26:26
Speaker 1: small firms, large firms, you know, worked at the County
26:30
Speaker 1: of riverside of public sector. I've worked at volunteered with nonprofits,
26:35
Speaker 1: and so I understand organizational structure very well. I was
26:40
Speaker 1: the user group leader for del Tech Vision, which is
26:43
Speaker 1: an enterprise resource planning software here in County La County
26:46
Speaker 1: for many years. I helped found that group because I
26:49
Speaker 1: understand the value of project management a member of Project
26:52
Speaker 1: Management Institute, among others. So I'm very actively involved in
26:56
Speaker 1: professional organizations understanding what they're dealing with on a day
26:59
Speaker 1: to day basis, Stephanie. So this is you know, tried
27:03
Speaker 1: and true, tested and worked on very you know, multi
27:06
Speaker 1: multi million dollar large projects, working with companies, power companies,
27:11
Speaker 1: and all sorts of different industries. So they're getting all
27:13
Speaker 1: of that in addition to the tools. And that's where
27:16
Speaker 1: I've worked with the existing clients because they know me.
27:19
Speaker 1: I know the industry, I know the language, versus coming
27:21
Speaker 1: out and having something coach that doesn't know that. You know,
27:25
Speaker 1: I know my that's my my lane. So if you
27:27
Speaker 1: asked me to do this, could I help in manufacturing? Probably,
27:30
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to be effective because manufacturing is
27:33
Speaker 1: not where I spent my career and I don't know
27:35
Speaker 1: the workflows of exactly what they do or let's just say,
27:39
Speaker 1: you know warehousing, right, So it's really the professional services
27:43
Speaker 1: space I'm very familiar with.
27:45
Speaker 3: Okay, I mean that's great background, that's you know, that
27:49
Speaker 3: sort of is the validate like the base layer of validation.
27:54
Speaker 3: But what why did you go into environmental consulting? Why
28:04
Speaker 3: the environment? Like I want to know, Like I don't
28:08
Speaker 3: want your resume, I want to know you.
28:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I saw. I saw the challenge of being
28:15
Speaker 1: a technical person and having to step up into number
28:21
Speaker 1: one management role and number two U technical leadership role.
28:26
Speaker 1: And so what I saw was the challenge that people face,
28:29
Speaker 1: including again myself, using myself as the avatar of I
28:33
Speaker 1: didn't understand these skills and I still see the many
28:36
Speaker 1: people to come out of college and they'll have technical skills,
28:39
Speaker 1: but they don't have these other skills of who they are,
28:43
Speaker 1: defining who they are, what they beyond their technical skills,
28:46
Speaker 1: whether they're innate talents, skills beyond their technical skills, abilities,
28:52
Speaker 1: and how to articulate those Well, so I did that
28:55
Speaker 1: through a personal journey. But what I found is that's
28:58
Speaker 1: why I targeted this industry engineer. They're very smart in
29:00
Speaker 1: the head. They're very subject matter experts, biologists, archaeologists, cultural resources.
29:05
Speaker 3: Uh.
29:06
Speaker 1: They even physical therapists have are physical therapists. It's kind
29:09
Speaker 1: of getting out of there there that left side of
29:11
Speaker 1: the brain and to the right side and helping unlock
29:13
Speaker 1: them if you will, uh, And that's a.
29:17
Speaker 3: Passionate end, like what's you're unlocking them to? What end?
29:22
Speaker 1: To understanding and putting value language and value about who
29:26
Speaker 1: they are innately, instead of trying to put on errors
29:29
Speaker 1: or trying to behave or show up in something that
29:32
Speaker 1: what I call it outward expressive behavior versus how are they?
29:35
Speaker 1: How are there inly naturally designed? And I think a
29:38
Speaker 1: lot of people show up because oh, this is what
29:41
Speaker 1: society tells me to be, or my parents said I
29:43
Speaker 1: should be a doctor, So I'll be a doctor. And
29:45
Speaker 1: they can learn the technical skills and they can be
29:47
Speaker 1: very effective in that, but the reality is to be
29:49
Speaker 1: a leader you have to go beyond technical skills. And
29:53
Speaker 1: maybe they have good management, if they've got a good
29:55
Speaker 1: standard operating procedures, you can fill the boxes. But the
29:58
Speaker 1: reality is what I found, as many people that can
30:01
Speaker 1: get to that point start to not feel fulfilled. They
30:05
Speaker 1: feel like a kind of a cup half empty, they
30:07
Speaker 1: feel drained, they don't feel truly alive and living in
30:11
Speaker 1: their full purpose. And so that's where my passion is,
30:14
Speaker 1: or how do we create that space for them to
30:16
Speaker 1: feel abundant instead of drained. And they know how to
30:19
Speaker 1: they know how to work the system, they know how
30:21
Speaker 1: to make money to a degree. You know they're successful.
30:24
Speaker 1: They've had some level of success, right, it's just how
30:27
Speaker 1: do we be successful holistically, like you said, living the
30:31
Speaker 1: life that they really want?
30:33
Speaker 3: So clusion to that problem finding the right people who
30:37
Speaker 3: can do the tasks and love doing the tasks that
30:40
Speaker 3: you hate doing, so that you can spend more time
30:42
Speaker 3: doing the things that you love to do. Is that
30:44
Speaker 3: the That's.
30:46
Speaker 1: That's that's definitely part of it. That's one of the task.
30:48
Speaker 1: What's one of the activities we actually do, Stephanie, I
30:50
Speaker 1: work with them is like we break down what are
30:51
Speaker 1: the things you're doing and one of the things that
30:53
Speaker 1: are in your zone of genius that you love doing
30:55
Speaker 1: that really fit with you, and then how do we
30:58
Speaker 1: delegate again me being the connect here and bringing the
31:00
Speaker 1: right people. It's like, Okay, well maybe you should not
31:03
Speaker 1: be doing that anymore. We need to shift that. Even
31:05
Speaker 1: though you can do it right, it's not the best
31:08
Speaker 1: use of your time and energy. So let's get you
31:10
Speaker 1: and what you're in being when you're in your zone
31:12
Speaker 1: of genius, when you're in your zone of what you
31:14
Speaker 1: do best, You're going to make more money, You're going
31:16
Speaker 1: to create more opportunities for yourself. It's just it's a
31:19
Speaker 1: natural law in the world. And then you're going to
31:22
Speaker 1: also help other people. But there's there's a lot of
31:24
Speaker 1: fear and an anxiety of people that I found, Stephanie,
31:27
Speaker 1: that they want to hold onto position because they feel like, well,
31:29
Speaker 1: this is what I've got, this is defines me, this
31:31
Speaker 1: is my role, this is my title, and so they
31:33
Speaker 1: hold very tightly to that only to their own you know,
31:36
Speaker 1: demise if you will, because they don't realizing if you
31:39
Speaker 1: can let go of those things and realize there's a
31:41
Speaker 1: bigger picture. There's there's just an abundance of regeneration if
31:46
Speaker 1: you will, over and over again. So it's me helping
31:48
Speaker 1: them unlock that and knowing that that's what I've done
31:50
Speaker 1: in my own personal journey.
31:52
Speaker 3: Okay, I mean I like everything that you're saying, but
31:57
Speaker 3: it still doesn't give me a thing that makes you
31:59
Speaker 3: stand out the marketplace and make you the obvious choice.
32:02
Speaker 3: I mean, really, why are you? We want to know, like,
32:05
Speaker 3: why are you the obvious choice? And it can't be
32:08
Speaker 3: systems and processes, it can't be it can't be your journey.
32:14
Speaker 3: It needs to be something less deeper than that. Like
32:19
Speaker 3: you know, you have a super passion for the environment,
32:22
Speaker 3: or you have a super passion for builders, you know,
32:25
Speaker 3: because they're creating something from nothing, or you or you
32:31
Speaker 3: have a you have a way of pulling out the
32:36
Speaker 3: talents out of the people that like the that's the.
32:39
Speaker 1: Connector that's that's the that's the connection, like I said,
32:41
Speaker 1: the foundation of like where you bring people together to
32:44
Speaker 1: accomplish great things. So oftentimes you have people working in silence.
32:47
Speaker 1: There's a great ted talk about called super chickens where
32:49
Speaker 1: you have people that are isolated. This often happens in
32:51
Speaker 1: an organization, or you have people that are siloed, or
32:54
Speaker 1: you promote only one person as a high up and
32:56
Speaker 1: then they kind of dominate. It's really it's I like
32:59
Speaker 1: to use the Ghostbuster analogy, Stephanie, I am the person
33:02
Speaker 1: that suggests, why don't we cross the streams? You know,
33:04
Speaker 1: they're trying to take out the marshmallow man, right, and
33:07
Speaker 1: they're all shooting. It's not working, And it takes one
33:09
Speaker 1: person to say let's cross the streams and then, oh
33:12
Speaker 1: my goodness, there's a multiplying effect. So that's where I
33:14
Speaker 1: come into the multiplying effect exponentially when we take those
33:17
Speaker 1: people that are trying to do everything and I come
33:19
Speaker 1: in as a connector and I say, let's bring these
33:21
Speaker 1: things in together and start to unlock. People like, Oh,
33:24
Speaker 1: I didn't even think about that. I would know I
33:26
Speaker 1: should be talking to that person. I'm like, yeah, absolutely,
33:28
Speaker 1: you guys could actually have more effect together than you
33:31
Speaker 1: would isolated in a loan just trying to push grind through.
33:35
Speaker 3: Okay, here's a question. Would you say that you're able
33:39
Speaker 3: to do that, execute that and sense the team and
33:42
Speaker 3: understand the fields that are going on because you have
33:45
Speaker 3: a very high emotional intelligence, yes, say that that is
33:49
Speaker 3: like ingrained in you emotional intelligence. Yet you also have
33:54
Speaker 3: a technical mind, which is why you like working within
33:58
Speaker 3: that industry because it's very technical and science y, and
34:02
Speaker 3: very often you have sciencey people who are not high
34:04
Speaker 3: emotional intelligence people. So maybe you're the blending of the two.
34:08
Speaker 3: Would it be is that your secret soft Well, that.
34:12
Speaker 1: Definitely is yeah, yes, I mean I've done that. That's
34:15
Speaker 1: how I did. That's how we grew the company from
34:17
Speaker 1: you know, twenty five to eighty employees over four years.
34:20
Speaker 1: As the connector. I was that person working well, very well,
34:23
Speaker 1: Like I said, systems and processes to the point Stephanie
34:27
Speaker 1: wore and I left that company after about six months
34:30
Speaker 1: of being gone. That a person was very systems oriented,
34:34
Speaker 1: good person, very just very systems oriented, but not the connector.
34:37
Speaker 1: And systematically, one by one people left the company. They
34:40
Speaker 1: didn't feel the connection. They didn't feel even though they're
34:43
Speaker 1: doing the technical work. And that's what I find a
34:45
Speaker 1: lot of these companies. They don't realize that they don't
34:47
Speaker 1: they need both. They need both the's two sides of
34:49
Speaker 1: a coin. We need systems and processes, we also need
34:51
Speaker 1: the connection and helping people that view that.
34:54
Speaker 3: Okay, as you were talking, the image that came into
34:56
Speaker 3: my mind was two halves of the brain and the
34:59
Speaker 3: bundle of nerves and synapses connect to the two sides
35:03
Speaker 3: of the brain.
35:03
Speaker 1: Is that you I like that? Yes? Yes, okay.
35:07
Speaker 3: So when when I'm a technical person a technical job
35:12
Speaker 3: and I'm having a hard time with managing all the
35:16
Speaker 3: fields of the people that are working for me, they're
35:18
Speaker 3: driving me nuts because it's like all the fields and
35:21
Speaker 3: you know this person and YadA YadA, and they just
35:24
Speaker 3: they want to wash their hands of that as that
35:27
Speaker 3: is not their core strength. Their core strength is the
35:30
Speaker 3: thing that brought them into this very technical world to
35:35
Speaker 3: begin with. They didn't get there from being emotionally intelligent.
35:39
Speaker 3: But they need to have those skills in order to
35:41
Speaker 3: be a superior leader, and they want to be a
35:43
Speaker 3: superior leader and they want those problems to go away.
35:46
Speaker 3: So they either have to hire somebody to do that
35:49
Speaker 3: and help them facilitate that, or a team or HR
35:53
Speaker 3: or you or whatever, or they have to learn those
35:56
Speaker 3: skills so that they can head off those problems before
35:59
Speaker 3: they begin. So like if you can do you see
36:04
Speaker 3: how presenting yourself as that bundle of nerves between the
36:09
Speaker 3: two hemispheres means that you speak both languages fluently and
36:15
Speaker 3: you can help guide that that journey. Does that resonate
36:19
Speaker 3: with you? Oh?
36:20
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, because I've learned to appreciate the differences where
36:24
Speaker 1: before they were, like you said, irritants, and you can
36:27
Speaker 1: create a toxic and even work environment if you don't
36:30
Speaker 1: understand how everybody works in appreciating that and drawing the
36:34
Speaker 1: best out of each other. So that's where, yes, my
36:36
Speaker 1: strength was in being able to grow and scale the
36:39
Speaker 1: previous company I was with now and helping other businesses
36:42
Speaker 1: unlock that. Absolutely.
36:44
Speaker 3: Okay, So now we need to connect the dots. So
36:46
Speaker 3: now you've got your three avatars, and you've got your
36:51
Speaker 3: differentiator of being that connector between right and your left
36:56
Speaker 3: brain thinking people, the ability to bring empathy to the technical,
37:01
Speaker 3: to be able to bring structure to the to the
37:06
Speaker 3: people that are are more flowing and less rigid. So
37:11
Speaker 3: you're able to do that and facilitate that with a
37:15
Speaker 3: deep understanding of that work environment because you have all
37:20
Speaker 3: of those years of experience in environmental and AAC and
37:25
Speaker 3: you have the proof of concepts that you have grown
37:27
Speaker 3: a company in that way. Then you have the pain
37:30
Speaker 3: point of I want to grow my company so I
37:33
Speaker 3: can exit, or I have the pain point of I
37:36
Speaker 3: need to duplicate myself and I don't know how to
37:38
Speaker 3: do that. So if you take all of those pieces
37:41
Speaker 3: to me, that starts to create a cohesive brand. And
37:46
Speaker 3: so now the question is does all that resonate with you?
37:50
Speaker 3: You feel like, yes, yes.
37:51
Speaker 1: You've done a great job pulling pulling it out. I
37:54
Speaker 1: love I love how I'm getting this and and thank
37:57
Speaker 1: you Stephanie. I hope you guys are enjoying this. The Becau.
38:00
Speaker 1: Stephanie is just a master at this, so you're getting
38:01
Speaker 1: a masterclass here.
38:04
Speaker 3: Well, now we need to think about how to execute.
38:07
Speaker 3: How do you how do you bring that to life? Now?
38:09
Speaker 3: One thing about your website is it has a lot
38:12
Speaker 3: of content on it. There are many many words on
38:15
Speaker 3: your website. But I did not notice anywhere on the
38:20
Speaker 3: website that says that you work with environmental consulting firm,
38:24
Speaker 3: your AEC companies. That didn't see any of that. I
38:27
Speaker 3: also didn't see a pain point that would cause me
38:30
Speaker 3: to say that I need that, I'll pay for it.
38:34
Speaker 3: And so if you can take the tone down all
38:37
Speaker 3: the words so that I don't have to read as much,
38:40
Speaker 3: I don't want to have to work on a website
38:43
Speaker 3: to have to work to figure it out. So if
38:46
Speaker 3: right off the bat it is duplicate yourself, grow your
38:52
Speaker 3: company for your eventual exit and and grow to you know,
38:59
Speaker 3: fi fold, where your business five fold, like oh okay,
39:04
Speaker 3: that's something different than aligning teams and synergy, which is
39:09
Speaker 3: not very specific. So if you can change your messaging
39:12
Speaker 3: to be more talking directly to those three avatars and
39:17
Speaker 3: then your additional you could do a separate page for
39:20
Speaker 3: your professional individuals for individuals, but your main customer, that
39:25
Speaker 3: core customer is going to be those three avatars that
39:29
Speaker 3: we talked about, So now you need to talk to them.
39:31
Speaker 3: Are you this This is what I do, and you
39:34
Speaker 3: can have a future of the brain and this is me.
39:36
Speaker 3: Lookge right there, put your face right there.
39:39
Speaker 4: Right.
39:41
Speaker 3: So it's memorable and something fun. And you know, because
39:45
Speaker 3: you're you're not a super serious guy, You're.
39:49
Speaker 1: You got to employ this. It's not I don't want
39:51
Speaker 1: to be absolutely right, and you're.
39:54
Speaker 3: A nice person, and we don't want to see that
39:56
Speaker 3: you're going to talk about like execution and executing and
40:00
Speaker 3: you know, like you're going to be a lot more
40:04
Speaker 3: holistic about your approach. So if you can talk those
40:08
Speaker 3: people in the simplest terms possible, that really says, yeah,
40:13
Speaker 3: that's me. I see myself there, and I now know that.
40:16
Speaker 3: That's why I want to spend money to hire you.
40:20
Speaker 3: I'm not going to hire you because I'm feeling something.
40:23
Speaker 3: I'm going to hire you because I have a specific
40:26
Speaker 3: business need and I don't know how to do it.
40:30
Speaker 1: Yes, but you do.
40:33
Speaker 3: So that gives you your audience and your messaging and
40:39
Speaker 3: then your content needs to speak directly to those people.
40:42
Speaker 3: I need to know it. For sure. You've got a
40:44
Speaker 3: lot of content on your LinkedIn, You've got a lot
40:46
Speaker 3: of content on your website and your blogs, but I
40:49
Speaker 3: don't know who you are. I just know that you're
40:52
Speaker 3: active online.
40:54
Speaker 1: MM.
40:55
Speaker 3: I want to be able to know these are the
40:57
Speaker 3: people that I serve, These are the you know, repeat it,
41:00
Speaker 3: repeat it, repeat it like I could do in networking meetings.
41:05
Speaker 3: It's every time. Well it doesn't hurt to do that
41:09
Speaker 3: online like it seems like we're repeating ourselves, but really
41:12
Speaker 3: we're educating our audience about what makes us different.
41:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. And I was to to say,
41:19
Speaker 1: as you say that, Stephanie too, I think we get
41:22
Speaker 1: like kind of I don't say numb to it, but
41:24
Speaker 1: we like, Oh I think that because we heard it.
41:26
Speaker 1: But many people haven't heard this. In fact, I was
41:28
Speaker 1: talking to a gentleman that didn't eat three year email
41:30
Speaker 1: campaign in Stephanie, and he said he would this, he would,
41:33
Speaker 1: And he said this guy was on his email list
41:35
Speaker 1: for probably nine or ten years, I don't know a
41:37
Speaker 1: long time. He said, I just got your email, which
41:39
Speaker 1: he probably got multiple times, but he didn't. But he
41:44
Speaker 1: kind of got it in years past, but he didn't
41:46
Speaker 1: do anything about it. But for this time he saw
41:48
Speaker 1: it again or it came up and he got it.
41:50
Speaker 1: He was like, oh my gosh. So to your point,
41:51
Speaker 1: I think it's important to like remember that not everybody
41:55
Speaker 1: is seeing I mean, we've got a lot of stuff
41:56
Speaker 1: going on, so things. You know, you could post something
41:59
Speaker 1: and you missed it, so maybe reposted again or you know,
42:02
Speaker 1: and then you know if it's meaningful and it's on
42:04
Speaker 1: point right Stephanie, or.
42:06
Speaker 3: Just repeat it and everything. I'm this and this is
42:09
Speaker 3: my job or I'm the person you know, I'm the
42:11
Speaker 3: two halves of the brain. I'm you know, whatever your
42:15
Speaker 3: slogan wants to be. And then I'm gonna encourage you
42:17
Speaker 3: for in your H one title tag at the top
42:21
Speaker 3: of your website above the fold, I want that to
42:23
Speaker 3: be searchable so that right now it's not very SEO friendly.
42:28
Speaker 3: Nobody's going to look for stewarding vision, like you're not
42:33
Speaker 3: going to google that. So think hard about like how
42:36
Speaker 3: somebody would google you, because I feel like a lot
42:40
Speaker 3: of people say, well, I don't really get my clients
42:43
Speaker 3: from Google. But what happens is, oh, I saw that
42:47
Speaker 3: guy and he was in one of my things where
42:49
Speaker 3: I was at a I was at a public speaking
42:52
Speaker 3: thing and there was that guy. I don't remember the
42:54
Speaker 3: name of his company. What if I just googled what
42:57
Speaker 3: you has, maybe I'll find him, you know, and suddenly
43:01
Speaker 3: you become findable by that person. Think to take your
43:05
Speaker 3: card or whatever. One last thing I know that you
43:10
Speaker 3: are doing public speaking, do you have a way of
43:14
Speaker 3: capturing people's emails during those events?
43:19
Speaker 1: Yes? Yes, although it could be improved. I'll just put
43:21
Speaker 1: it that way. It's a little clunky.
43:23
Speaker 3: So a lot of people who public speak forget that.
43:26
Speaker 3: This this amazing time. Like, even if you can't sell
43:29
Speaker 3: from stage, which is completely fine, you can still offer
43:32
Speaker 3: a free download and put a QR code on the screen,
43:35
Speaker 3: get people to get into your funnel, and then they
43:38
Speaker 3: get the free download and return for their email address,
43:41
Speaker 3: and suddenly you've got you know, the forty people in
43:43
Speaker 3: that room or the one hundred people in that room.
43:45
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, I'm going to be speaking here next month.
43:47
Speaker 1: So that's a great prompt that I can.
43:51
Speaker 3: Create a code and then all they have to do
43:53
Speaker 3: is give their give their email and they can see
43:56
Speaker 3: it right then and there.
43:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, and.
43:59
Speaker 3: You know, it should be valuable content that relates to
44:03
Speaker 3: whatever it is you were speaking about.
44:06
Speaker 1: Wow, this has been great, Stephanie. I mean you've given
44:08
Speaker 1: me a lot of good things to think about. Consider.
44:10
Speaker 1: I hope everybody you know I'm putting myself out there
44:13
Speaker 1: because here's the thing. I want to be a better
44:15
Speaker 1: business owner. I want to help steward your business reach
44:17
Speaker 1: more people. And Stephanie here, thank you for sharing your
44:19
Speaker 1: insights and perspective. I want to make sure you guys
44:22
Speaker 1: go to gratification. You guys can check that out online
44:25
Speaker 1: or of course connect with Stephanie on LinkedIn. You know, Stephanie,
44:29
Speaker 1: we've covered a lot of different things. So if a
44:30
Speaker 1: business owner is coming this, you went through your pillars.
44:33
Speaker 1: But what would you encourage them to do if they're
44:36
Speaker 1: listening to this of you know, in their own business,
44:39
Speaker 1: where would you have them start?
44:41
Speaker 3: I would start, for sure, I would say two steps. One,
44:44
Speaker 3: really think hard about your target audience and why would
44:47
Speaker 3: they hire you? You know, what's a reason, real reason
44:51
Speaker 3: that they would hire you? And then the next thing
44:54
Speaker 3: is think about your differentiators. What am I passionate about it? Like,
44:58
Speaker 3: I feel super strong that messaging is the key to
45:01
Speaker 3: all of this, Like I feel passionate about it, So
45:04
Speaker 3: you know, that's my differentiator. Like I'm not looking at
45:06
Speaker 3: marketing with impressions and downloads. I'm looking at it from
45:11
Speaker 3: what is it You're saying, it's going to connect with
45:13
Speaker 3: the people you want to want to work with, So
45:16
Speaker 3: I feel strongly about that. So if you can really
45:18
Speaker 3: think about, like what you feel strongly about, like, it
45:21
Speaker 3: can be hard to stand out if you're an accountant
45:23
Speaker 3: or a realtor, or you know, or something you're the
45:26
Speaker 3: services you're providing are often the same as the next guy.
45:30
Speaker 3: But if you can figure out, like, well, I'm the
45:32
Speaker 3: person who does this, I feel strongly about this, or
45:34
Speaker 3: I offer my clients tools that they can use, or
45:37
Speaker 3: or I'm I only offer this kind of service.
45:40
Speaker 1: You know.
45:40
Speaker 3: I have a friend who offers she has a sales
45:43
Speaker 3: tax business. I mean, there's nothing less sexy it is business.
45:50
Speaker 3: But she makes it interesting because she's super passionate about
45:54
Speaker 3: helping small business owners with this like very difficult hurdle
45:58
Speaker 3: and their businesses. And then she puts all kinds of
46:00
Speaker 3: amazing pictures on the Internet and it becomes it becomes
46:06
Speaker 3: a really interesting profession.
46:08
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely. Well, I'm so grateful that you came on
46:12
Speaker 1: the podcast today. We're gonna have to have you come
46:14
Speaker 1: back for sure, because I think this is fantastic and
46:17
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got more insights. We just get everything.
46:19
Speaker 1: But I'm glad that I could. You could walk me
46:21
Speaker 1: through and you give me some number of actionable items
46:23
Speaker 1: that I can do, and I appreciate that because at
46:25
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I want to be able
46:26
Speaker 1: to reach more people, help leverage the resources experience I've had,
46:31
Speaker 1: and so you're giving me the ability to do that.
46:34
Speaker 1: So thank you so much. Stephanie.
46:35
Speaker 3: Oh this was so fun. This is what I love
46:37
Speaker 3: to do, and this is exactly what I do for
46:39
Speaker 3: all my clients.
46:40
Speaker 1: You just got to like, you go there, you go.
46:45
Speaker 1: Oh fantastic. Well, everybody, I hope you will follow along
46:56
Speaker 1: for Stephanie, whether it's on YouTube or LinkedIn or wherever
47:00
Speaker 1: you find this on your favorite podcast platform, share it
47:03
Speaker 1: if you have value in this, and of course come
47:05
Speaker 1: back and enjoy another episode the next time on the
47:09
Speaker 1: Business Around People podcast. Thanks everybody. Thanks again, Stephanie. Next
47:12
Speaker 1: time much Hi