Invisible Details: Recent Episodes
Cory Miller and Kyle Adams
We’ve had an incredible first season of Invisible Details and we’re very proud of what we’ve created. Whether you’ve been listening since the beginning or just started recently, thank you! We hope you’ve received an incredible amount of value from our show.
In today’s episode we’ll explain a little bit about why we’re pausing the show and some of the exciting things we have coming up.
Logo? Check. Mission statement? Check. Target audience? Website? Check and check.
The external components of a brand are fairly easy to spot. You can get a sense of what you need to have in place with a quick Google search or a trip down our podcast archive.
It’s not that the obvious things are unimportant. On the contrary, every facet of what brings a brand to life holds great value.
There are also many unseen parts of a brand, and it’s a journey we like to take to find those invisible details. These are the things that keep the clock ticking and locked in time.
What is it that makes McDonald’s a stand-out brand in the fast food industry? What should you be reminding yourself (and employees) of as often as you can? What do you need to have written down and solidified so you aren’t caught off guard?
We’ll answer these three questions and more on today’s show where we talk about some practical things your brand needs that may not be as apparent.
When your business is not yet financially viable, you have to have something that pays the bills. Running a business is not cheap, plus with the fact that you need to keep the lights on at home, there has to be a means of income somewhere.
Not everyone has the luxury of being able to work on their business full time. Many people support their business ventures by working a day job or bringing in finances by some other means.
For some, this may work quite well. They enjoy their day job and it provides them the peace of mind that their expenses will be covered so they can work on their business on the side without concern. (This is one of the cornerstones of overlapping; be sure to check out the book at OverlapBook.com)
For others, their day job is one they dread every single day. It drains them and is a continual source of frustration. They may feel trapped, either because of the paycheck or the seeming lack of work elsewhere.
When you feel stuck in your day job and you feel like it controls you, you are doing a disservice to your business and passion.
So what would it look like to take control of your day job? What steps could you take to not only improve the job you have now, but perhaps even the company you work for? What sort of mindset would you need to transform yourself from getting burnt out at work to thriving and being fulfiled at your day job?
On today's episode, we talk about what it might look like to support your business with a day job (you don't hate!), how a simple mindset shift could change your actions and behaviors toward your day job, and why your business probably should be put on pause until you get your day job situation in order.
When learning to ride a motorcycle, one of the earliest things they teach you is to always keep your eyes focused on where you want to go.
“Don’t look too long to the left or to the right unless you want to go there,” the instructor says. “Your eyes will lead the bike to that point.”
It doesn’t even matter if your head is pointed straight forward. If your eyes wander too far away from where you want your motorcycle to be, your body slowly starts to lean in that direction, and it can obviously lead to devastating results.
Doing anything professionally requires much of the same focus. Too much deviation from your goal, too much sidelong glances at what others are doing and you might find yourself straying away from your objective.
If you’re truly helping people and you run your brand off the road, who suffers the most? The same people you’re trying to help.
Finding success doesn’t mean you have to be the best in the world.
On today’s show we’ll be talking about what it means to define your own success, ways to practice putting your customers first, and why slow sustained growth is better than a flash-in-the-pan success.
There is an interesting divide in businesses around the world when it comes to their various practices. Many companies seem to want to do anything it takes to make money, while others take pride in having some level of virtue and wanting to do the “right thing”.
The “right thing” can be incredibly subjective, not to mention controversial. If one business says they are doing something ethical, does that necessarily mean that any similar company doing the opposite is not?
The values of a company determine its direction. They define what you will and will not do as a business or a brand.
It’s one thing to set these values internally, but it’s another completely to make them a focused part of your external brand.
In today’s episode we’ll be talking about what it means to define your brand’s ethics, where ethics should sit in regard to the public, and how you can help consumers become more mindful when it comes to the things they buy.
There is often a confusion with the term “branding”. Many people often think a brand is what something looks like, how it’s made or presented. People often equate “design” and “brand”, even though it’s only part of the picture.
All that being said, design is an essential ingredient of a memorable brand, and the best cakes require the best ingredients (yes, I used a cake metaphor.)
Charli Prangley is a web and graphic designer who is passionate about helping designers do their best work. She currently works for ConvertKit, an email marketing service for creators who want to make a living. She’s built a massive audience on YouTube, where she makes quality videos about design.
Charli joins me on the show today to talk about how design and branding work together. We’ll also talk about when to invest in design for your business, when to hire out, and how to communicate your brand values through design.
Many of the conversations I have with creative professionals or people wanting to get started in business in some sort of creative industry usually come around to this question: “what’s holding you back?”
For most people, I’ve found that the biggest obstacle is putting themselves and there out there for the whole world to see and critique.
Sure, the possibility of success is there, but so is the possibility of rejection from the people you’re wanting to help the most.
The fear of rejection can be incredibly powerful. The idea that you might put an incredible amount of work and passion and time into something just for people to reject it can be absolutely crippling.
Why would anyone purposefully put themselves into a situation where the things they create could be mocked or put down by others?
What if you spend weeks, months, or years pouring your heart into a project or business only to have it met with poor reviews, negativity, or bad press?
The answer is: you might, and that’s okay because the solution is to plan for it. If you plan for the worst, you’re ready for when it comes.
This is a topic really close to my heart, and I want to encourage you. On today’s episode I’ll be talking about how to deal with negativity, poor reviews, bad press, and a general feeling that you’re just not good enough.
When you make the decision to shift away from your current pursuit to something different, sometimes the transition isn't too big. There may be some overlap and you may not have to rebuild your audience or following.
But what if you want to change industries completely?
What if you decide that what you have been pursuing is not what brings you fulfillment and you find a passion in something completely different? What does that process look like?
On this final part of our three-part series on reinventing yourself, I’m joined by my good friend Sarah Dayan (https://frontstuff.io) to talk about the process of changing industries (in her case from hand lettering to development), how that affects your brand, and how to make the switch even when it feels uncomfortable.
In the first episode of this three-part series, we talked about pivoting without throwing everything away. Pivoting is a process in and of itself and you can still bring along a lot of what you’ve already learned and built.
Starting from what seems like zero can be complicated, especially when you’ve been in your current industry for a while. People might know you a certain way, you may have built up an existing audience, and your network might still be comprised of the field you want to depart from.
You may still have some foundation from your previous direction, but there is a lot of new ground to cover. If you want to be known for this new thing, you have to take the steps to get there.
This episode is the second in a three-part series on reinventing yourself. In today’s episode we’ll be talking about how to take beginner steps even though you have a lot of experience, and where you should be focusing when you decide to take the big steps of change.
There may come a point in your career where it seems like there is a significant fork in the road.
Maybe the fork in the road has come because you’re not sure if you’re passionate about what you’ve been doing anymore. Maybe your business isn’t viable or major changes and shifts have happened that now require you to make a decision.
You can either continue down the same road you’ve been going or you can change directions. This might be a small shift, perhaps in business practice or something minor. It also could be as large as moving into another industry all together.
A move like this can be overwhelming at many levels. Does this mean all of the work you’ve done to date is useless? Do you have to just throw it away because it may not exactly apply?
On today’s episode we’ll be talking about how to make significant pivots in your life or business without completely throwing away what you’ve already made, accomplished, and achieved.
This is a short conversation that Kyle Adams and I had a few days after the launch of Instagram's new video service IGTV. It is raw, unscripted, and very on-the-spot from our perspectives on using the service and the future of the platform.
IGTV is an interesting subject of discussion because of its desire to take a piece of the long-form video market in a unique way. Its dedication to vertical video and insistence that users must adjust their consumption habits is incredibly thought provoking, which lead to this conversation.
Whether or not you prefer to consume content on Instagram, there's no denying that IGTV is making a large impact in the space already. There are certainly some concerns we have that are likely simply growing pains of a new service that hopefully will get ironed out over time, and it will be fascinating to watch it develop.
Today's episode is a quick show to announce that all of the episodes for Invisible Details are now public and free.
In the past, the majority of the shows on the seanwes network were available only to seanwes members, with the exception of the week's latest episode and a selection of hand-picked episodes from the show.
This is no longer the case, and we're excited to be able to share that all of the shows on the seanwes network are now released to the public.
This change is the the result of some changes to our business model happening at seanwes. There is a much more in-depth explanation over at seanwes tv e224.
I invite you to watch the seanwes tv episode linked above for a bit more context, but in this short episode I also talk a little bit about why the changes are happening and what you can expect going forward.
You've come up with an idea, you've validated it with your audience, and you know the story you want to tell. Now you have to sell your product.
The process of determining a price for your products can be difficult. Making sure the price is fair but also wanting to make a profit can be an endless cycle, not to mention the costs of actually producing the product itself.
Objectively you need to sell your product, and if you want to sell it you're going to need to figure out the final price.
In this final part of our four-part series on nice to haves, we'll talk about things you need to consider before deciding a final price, how packaging plays a role, and what you have to think about between making a product and getting it to your customer.
The worst mistake a business can make when talking about a nice to have product is to define its specifications...and that's it.
Certainly the features of a product are important, as many people in your target audience might be interested in those facts, but facts don’t sell nice to haves: stories do.
Story is what gives life to facts. It moves people beyond what we can see into what we feel, engaging parts of our mind that process the world differently. The inclusion of story in society is what gives us history and culture. Story is inseparable from life, and as such should be closely tied with your product.
Incorporating story into your copy and description is essential to getting people to care enough about your product to want to buy it.
This episode is the third of a four-part series. We’ll be talking about how build story into your nice to have product and attract the kind of people who will become customers.
An idea is just an idea. You can’t market, launch, or sell an idea, no matter if it solves problems or not.
If you want to sell something, you’re going to need to have someone willing to buy it. When it comes to products that are nice to have, you’re already starting with an uphill battle. This doesn’t make it impossible, but there is work that needs to be done.
Unlike problem-solving ideas where you can simply answer the question of, “do people have this problem?” you have to tackle viability from a different standpoint with nice to haves. The questions are different, and the answers can be more complicated.
Acquiring data is one of the most important parts of deciding to move forward with producing an idea. Without data, you’re flying in the dark and hoping that someone will want to buy it at some point.
This episode is the second of a four-part series. We’ll be talking through questions to ask, data you’ll want to collect, and how to better determine if your idea is actually viable.
Most businesses are built on a very understandable, palatable concept: find a problem, solve the problem, and sell it to the people who have the problem.
This is a surefire way to make money in the 21st century, because much of the upfront work has already been done.
While many people who want to make a living provide for themselves by solving direct problems, there is a vast number of others who want to make a living doing something that doesn't solve a direct problem.
How do you come up with a price for your art? How do you determine the value of those snazzy jeans you designed? Why do people spend their money on certain things and not others? What do you do when your product doesn’t provide any sort of monetary return?
This episode is the first of a four-part series. We’ll be talking about the subjectivity of value and how to start on the path to developing a brand based around what some would call “nice to haves”.
Keeping up with the modern trends can be an arduous task with great reward. Staying in business requires knowing your market and adjusting as things change over time.
On the other side of the coin is the idea of remaining consistent with your brand over the years. You’ve established yourself, you know what you’re about, and you’ve established solid patterns and systems.
How do you balance staying relevant with your target market while not compromising on what your brand is built on?
On today’s show we’ll talk about how to balance the natural evolution of a brand with remaining consistent to your core audience.
One of the lesser-appreciated but equally important parts of any business is research. Knowing your market, understanding your target audience, and analyzing your current status.
Taking a look at the numbers in any form can feel daunting. The moment you start looking over your site analytics, social media data, or the numbers from last month’s sales, lots of questions begin to spring up.
Knowing how to evaluate the data is a skill that takes time, but it also requires you to disassociate yourself from the numbers themselves, which can also be hard. What do you do when the numbers are less than what you want, or when they aren’t what you had expected?
It’s far too easy to get caught up in the calculations and the math and forget to see the realities of analytics. The “numbers” represent actual people, which is the most important focus.
In this episode, we talk about how we look at the numbers and analytics and how to work on staying objective while studying the data.
Any time you start something there is a desire to have that thing find success, whatever level of success that may be. Perhaps it’s completely passive income, making seven figures a year, having a certain amount of clients, or just having enough to do the things you really want to do.
Goals, dreams, and aspirations are all very important. Having a path in front of us helps to determine where we walk and what we do.
There’s a lot of advice out there about envisioning the future, deciding who you want to be and then modifying your behavior to fit that persona. We’re told to decide how successful we want our business to be and then “make it happen”.
While these pieces of advice can be helpful, it also introduces the problem of looking too far ahead and not looking enough at where you are right now.
Having a desire for success is important, but the process of building a brand is not one that grows immediately, and sometimes you have to step back and focus on your short term actions rather than what might happen in the future.
In today’s episode we’ll be talking about the decision making process for your brand, how to make short term decisions based on long term goals, and how to make decisions based on your current business situation.
The idea of putting imperfect work out into the world is unpleasant. You know if you worked just a little harder, just a little longer, you might be able to get it to where you envision.
Late nights, tweaks, updates, rehauls and refreshes. The bar for completion keeps getting higher and higher. Deadlines start coming up and the project is nowhere near the level you want it to be.
Sound familiar?
Maybe you’re working on a project and waiting to share it with the world until it’s done. You want to put the finished product on display and share it as people will experience it. You only get one shot at a first impression, right?
There’s a problem with this methodology, and the problem lies with humanity’s incredible ability to move on and move on quickly.
Knowing how to achieve the result of your vision is more important than the vision itself, and on today’s episode, we’ll be talking about how to keep yourself from procrastinating on shipping, why imperfect work can actually work perfectly, and why you may not want to wait until it’s done.
If your body seems to be having some sort of health issue, the first thing anyone does is attempt to diagnose it. You identify the issue, sort out the causes and symptoms, and even see a professional if need be.
Many people also have regular checkups with physicians or doctors, sometimes not because anything is externally wrong, but just to make sure everything is going well under the surface.
The process of evaluating something gives you the opportunity to ask objective questions and really get a sense for what is happening “under the hood”. Whether it’s your body, company, brand, or anything else, you now have a framework to get a sense of the health of that thing.
A brand is no exception, and in fact brand evaluation should be part of a regular schedule that you maintain throughout the year.
Without taking a good honest look at the status of your brand, you run the risk of overlooking symptoms of deeper problems that could be detrimental down the road.
In today’s episode we’ll talk about some methods you can use to evaluate your brand, how frequently you should conduct evaluations, and some easy steps to get started without getting overwhelmed.
It’s not enough to simply have an idea of what you want your brand to be or how you want to be perceived. In order to remain consistent and to truly communicate what your brand is, you need to construct your brand identity.
Whatever your brand projects is part of its identity. Words, imagery, color, tone, personality, it’s all wrapped up under the umbrella of brand identity.
Your brand identity is the tool that gives you assurance that what your audience is seeing is consistent with what you want your brand to be. It takes the philosophy and internal workings of your brand and externalizes it for people to experience.
On today’s show we’re going to provide an introduction to the idea of brand identity, how to develop a filter for what you already have, and some simple steps to get consistency fast.
Having a brand means having a certain kind of reputation. It means you are perceived in a certain way by someone else, whether positive or negative.
The requirement of any brand is having someone else on the other side of it: a customer, a target audience member, a competitor, and so on. If nobody knows about what you're doing, your brand doesn't exist.
Getting in front of people is not something that comes naturally to most. When you put yourself out there or when you allow your work or creativity to be public, it can be scary!
The best part is: you're not alone. There are a lot of other people struggling with putting themselves out there because building an audience can be nerve-wracking.
On today's episode, I want to share some of my experience with building and audience and help to alleviate some of the most prominent fears that hold too many people back.
Every few months or so people proclaim loudly that email is dead and [insert new platform here] is the future of communication. However for all of its flaws, email is not yet dead, and is nowhere close to being so.
Estimates show over 3.6 billion email accounts across the world, and research groups have estimated that over 236 billion emails were sent in 2017…per day.
Yes, that’s 236 billion emails a day, or 86 trillion emails in a year.
Of course, a response to this might be, “How can my emails compete with 236 billion other emails in a day? How does this matter?”
It matters because even though the scale is growing, people are becoming more and more sensitive to what comes into their inbox. Anything they want is purposeful, and what they don’t want is marked as spam.
Today’s show is not about methodology or a how-to on how to set up your automations, but instead a look as to why email is still relevant and how you can leverage your brand through email.
We don’t believe email is dead, and furthermore we believe that email can be one of your brand’s biggest assets. On today’s show we’ll talk about email automation, how to build trust through email, and why you should take great care with your audience’s inbox.
You might have heard the expression, “underpromise and overdeliver”. It’s the idea where you tell your customers or clients what they can expect, then giving them above and beyond what they expected.
Sure, the expression is a cute one, but the idea of overdelivering is an interesting one. What exactly is the promise? Is it just as simple as knowing what you’re going to make and holding back some information about it?
This episode is one of our conversational shows, exploring the idea of the promise and delivery, and if it actually pays in the end to overdeliver.
As hard as you may try, it’s impossible to please everyone that comes across your brand. Many people will love what you’re about, and some people will not resonate with it.
Of course, there will always be people who don’t trust or like you. Trying to convert those people is often a misuse of energy, so it’s typically more constructive to work on building trust between you and your actual target audience.
Building a brand is ultimately about building trust. When people trust you, they are more likely to stick around, both as a customer and an advocate.
But what happens when that trust is broken?
Broken trust and negative perception can come anytime and from anywhere, and it pays to be prepared for it. On today’s show we’ll be talking about how to prepare for the unknown and ways to show and prove to your customers that they can trust you again.
Everything you do for your brand should be associated with some sort of goal. When you sit down and take a look at the direction you’re headed and what needs to happen next, you set a point that you want to get to.
Goals come in many shapes and scales, from publishing the latest newsletter to shipping your flagship course to hiring your 100th employee. When handled right, they can provide incredible direction and satisfaction upon completion.
Once you start adding more goals to the list, however, they start to feel overwhelming if not handled or processed correctly. Which goal or task takes priority? How do you know when to work on one thing and not the other?
Having a process to manage your goals, prioritize your projects, and actually accomplish anything is important for the health and focus of your brand.
On today’s episode, we’ll be talking about some of the ways we approach goals and projects and offer some suggestions to get you deeper focus and see results faster.
You’ve probably never heard of Gary Dahl. Gary had an idea in the 1970s that would go on to make him millions.
The idea? The Pet Rock.
It was literally a box with a rock in it that people bought for $3.95.
Originally created as a joke, Gary’s ridiculous idea resonated with the culture of the time and it became one of the weirdest business stories of our time.
And that’s just one story.
Determining the viability of a product or service can lead to a lot of sleepless nights. “Would people even buy this? Should I pursue it? Is this a waste of time?”
There’s a disconnect between you and your idea. If you’re not overwhelmingly sold on it, it’ll be tough to sell anyone else on it.
Here’s the good news: your idea is probably not as awful as the ones we’ll be talking about today!
In today’s show, we’re going to be talking about some of the weirdest business ideas you’ve ever heard, and how the right idea at the right time can make all the difference to the right person.
Do you remember the last time you had an experience with a brand that made you absolutely delighted? What was the circumstance? How did it make you feel?
We so often look at business with only the transactional side of things in mind, when most customers remember primarily the feeling of the transaction. When you add delight into the mixture, you improve the chances of that feeling being a positive one.
Sweating the details can look different for different situations, but in every case it is an important factor of building a positive brand image.
On today’s episode, we’ll talk about how much time you should spend on the details and offer some suggestions to make your customers’ experience delightful.
Today marks a big milestone for Invisible Details: we’ve reached our 100th episode!
To celebrate, we turned on our cameras and opened up the broadcast to all of our listeners for a special public live show.
On today's show, we talk about our favorite brands, things we can learn and bring into the new year, and our hopes and plans for the next one hundred episodes of Invisible Details.
One of the best ways to measure the success of your business is to set goals and track your progress to achieving those goals.
Your goals might be conversions achieved, sales numbers, contacts subscribed, or any number of other things. In most cases, your customers or audience members have to perform some sort of action to hit these overall goals.
Customer actions are the building blocks to accomplish your brand goals. For example, in order to hit a revenue goal, you have to have a customer take a certain action and purchase your products.
As you list out the customer actions your business requires, you may start to see barriers or blocks a visitor might experience between first encountering your brand and performing the action.
This is called friction, and friction often reduces the chance a person will actually do what you want them to do.
On today’s show I’ll be discussing a few examples of friction, how to reduce friction, and how to improve the experience to turn potential customers into paying customers.
Ideas are worthless. The only thing that matters is actually doing something about those ideas. Taking action is the variable that counts.
Once you have an idea, you might start to work on it. You put in some work here and there, but realize after a while the scope of what you want to do is larger than you originally anticipated.
You start adding to your process, revamping what you have. You redesign, you scrap and start over, you lie awake at night because it's simply not done.
Why does it seem to be such a long time between having an idea and actually putting it out there? Why does taking action become paralyzing so much of the time?
On today's show we’re going to talk about getting your ideas off the ground and avoiding the feeling of paralysis when it comes to taking action.
Your going to love todays episode.
Language is a fascinating topic, and along with language comes the conversation about spelling, grammar, and overall structure of your communication.
There has been an interesting observable trend over the last decade or so, a trend that has slowly diminished both the social requirement of good writing and increased the necessity of speed in our communication.
The results are apparent and incredibly interesting as you study the nature of how people connect on the internet. Typos are just part of the charm, right?
Not only this, but the internet has also connected people from all over the world, providing easy access and communication between peoples of multiple languages and cultures.
This means there are more people speaking more languages in more contexts. If you are writing copy in a language that’s not your first but is the language of your target audience, the pressure is higher than ever to get it right.
How you present yourself to the world influences how they see you, think about you, and feel about you. Today we’re going to talk about the role of spelling and grammar in your messaging, how much it matters in what contexts, and what to do if you’re writing in a language that isn’t your native language.
A business relies on cash flow. In order for a business to survive, there has to be some source of income.
This can look like product sales, services, donations, investors, or other means of financing. The common denominator is that there is income coming in (see what I did there?).
The internet has brought about a lot of opportunities for businesses to thrive online, but it has challenges of its own. Hosting your business on someone else’s platform or building your income streams solely off of someone else’s business model is easy, but comes at a cost.
For example, many creators on YouTube have attempted to build businesses on the platform through ad revenue. A viewer sees an ad, the ad counts toward an impression, and the creator gets paid after a certain amount of impressions.
Yet over the last year, this type of monetization has become inconsistent at best. Creators blame the “adpocalypse” and that YouTube is to blame for their decrease in income from ad revenue. Is it really YouTube’s fault, though?
Today’s show will touch on the YouTube and platform controversies but we’ll also be talking about different ways to build toward having multiple sources of income, separating your various “income eggs” into different baskets, and keeping the future of your business in your own hands.
Today’s show is going to be a bit different. Today we’re talking about video games.
Video gaming can be a bit of a controversial topic here and there, but we’re not necessarily talking about the content of video games as much as some of the lessons we can learn from some of the philosophies applied to gaming.
Why do people buy games? Why is there such a huge investment by consumers into consoles, computers, games, and micro-transactions? What can we learn from a $100 billion industry about building brands, and how do we apply that?
On today’s show, we’ll talk about some of the lessons we’ve learned from the gaming industry, and we might just have a little fun along the way.
One of the first things we learn to do in life is to recognize faces. Some research suggests that babies are able to recognize their parents within only a few weeks of being born, and that it could only take a few months of repeated visits from friends or family to recognize them as well.
As we grow older and learn to study and memorize our surroundings, this process gets easier. We can instantly spot our friends from across a large room because we have learned to process what their face looks like into a specific response.
Instant recognition is one of the main reasons why companies take great care in their visual branding. They want consumers to immediately know what they’re looking at and the company it’s related to.
Without the luxury of massive scale like the larger companies, what can smaller businesses do to build recognition among their target audience? Is it better to be the front person and be the recognizable one, or have someone or something else the thing everyone remembers?
On today’s show, we’re going to talk about the recognizable features of your brand and how you can leverage a simple picture of yourself to make all the difference.
One of the questions we ask on this show most frequently is, “Who is it you’re trying to reach? Who do you want to help?”
Establishing who your target market is arguably required homework at the start of your brand. It defines your methodology, messaging, and focus. If you have no target, you have no direction.
Target audience can cover any number of factors, from varying demographics, business levels, industries, and deeply specific niches. Knowing who you’re trying to reach brings great clarity to everything you do.
But what if your business is not necessarily tied to a single target audience? What if you can actually reach multiple kinds of people with your products or services? What if you have several products and each of them work for a person in a completely different market?
In today’s show we’ll dive deeper into establishing a clear target audience, if it’s okay to have multiple target audiences, and how to evaluate how far your reach can go.
When it comes to the overall look and visual identity of your brand, it can be easy to fall into the trap of the endless redesign. Whether it’s been six months since your last logo update or the website you just can’t bring yourself to ship yet, redesigning can be paralyzing.
On the other hand, your visual identity may actually need an update or a refresh. It might have been a few years and the way your brand looks doesn’t necessarily match the way it’s naturally evolved over time.
Either way, if you’re basing the decision on your own subjective feelings about how everything looks, that may not be a good enough reason.
When does it truly make sense to update your brand’s visual identity? How do you know when the redesign is ready?
In this episode we talk about preventing the endless redesign cycle and how to plan and prepare for the longevity of your brand’s visual identity.
A new alert appears on your screen. You have a new subscriber! You get that warm fuzzy feeling as you click into their contact profile.
They’ve put in their first name so you know what to call them, and there’s even a little avatar that was pulled in from their social media. They’re an actual person, someone who was interested enough to sign up and follow you.
You’re excited. There seems to be some growth happening.
Then things seem to plateau. You’re still getting subscribers, but people are dropping off. That steep upwards curve you once had seems to be leveling off, and there’s no apparent reason why.
Self-doubt starts to creep in. Was it something you said or did? Are you no longer relevant? Are you actually helping the people you want to help?
There’s really only one way to find out what’s happening with your audience growth, and that’s by getting good old-fashioned data. There are plenty of ways to get data, but certainly the most rewarding is through relationships. On today’s show we’ll be getting practical on how to interact with your audience so you can get the right kind of data to help the people you want to help.
Having a website in this day and age is nearly non-optional, as more and more people get connected around the world and are searching for solutions to their problems.
While the internet may seem oversaturated with offerings, products, websites, social media accounts, and services, it is still the primary way that most people get their information.
If someone is interested in you or your business, they’re going to search for you on the internet, and you need to be ready for that moment.
This of course raises the important question: what should be on your website?
While we aren’t going to be talking specifically about web design or how to develop a website, it is important to understand some of the philosophies of website strategy and content.
In today’s show we’ll be talking about some of the fundamental principles of an effective website, how to position your content around your target customer, and why your website isn’t really about you, even though it is.
Last week Kyle and I were in Austin, Texas for seanwes conference 2017. Because we were traveling and putting on the conference, we didn't get a chance to record an episode together, but there was a conversation we had recently that we wanted to share.
Giving things away for free is a great way to attract new leads. It opens up reciprocity, of course, but it also allows you to truly give someone value.
Whether the content is freely available and shareable on your website or if it's a lead magnet someone has to give their email address for, it's never a bad idea to give.
Our conversation today is about a different sort of method when it comes to giving products away for free. It's not necessarily a solution, but it's an idea worth exploring.
Whether you’re in business to sell products or services, at some point you’ll need to decide what exactly you’ll be selling. Not only that, but as you grow you’ll need to decide what happens if you want sell more than one thing.
If you do decide to start creating more things to sell, it can be easy to lose focus on the bigger picture, which is understandable because you want to sell the best version possible.
Fragmentation starts to creep in, and while you’re busy making sure your new thing gets off the ground well, everything else just sits to the side, not being taken care of.
Knowing how to assign priority and where each new product or service fits can make or break the “structural integrity” of your business.
In today’s show, we’ll be talking about the importance of having multiple offerings or products and how to stay focused on what you’re doing when there are many things fighting for your attention.
You’ve probably heard the saying, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” It’s a nice sentiment, but like most platitudes, it lacks any sense of practicality.
Not only that, but the phrase “it’s who you know” might imply that you’re only getting to know people in order to gain something from them, which is remarkably disingenuous.
How then is it “who we know”? Do you just try and find the biggest names possible and try to become friends so you can get a favor later on?
Spoiler: no.
Relationships vital to the success of your brand, not only the ones on the inside but also the outside connections you have. How you build your brand usually comes as a result of the people who help you.
In today’s show, we’ll be talking about the importance of building relationships inside and outside of your brand, and how to leverage the relationships you already have.
You have an idea.
It might sound crazy, but you believe that with hard work and dedication, your idea can be successful. Maybe you’ve been building this idea for years, but it’s time to finally get serious.
Whether you are just starting out as a brand or have been building your brand for many years, it is always important to know where you’re from and where you’re going. Asking specific questions will help to lay the building blocks that will help you define your brand.
Getting started can sound complex and intimidating. Surely you have to have everything completely figured out before starting, right?
A brand is the culmination of a lot of things, certainly, but it starts from simplicity. A simple idea with a simple vision.
In today’s episode I’ll be taking a look into some of the simple questions to ask as you’re getting started, or if you’re looking for deeper clarity as you go forward.
Building a company, product, business, or organization requires a lot of knowledge, hard work, and determination. You have to be sure that what you’re building matters and that you’re doing the right thing.
When you believe you’re doing the right thing, you assume a level of confidence that you need to have to push forward. You believe in your brand, and you are sure that you are right as you proceed.
Confidence, as you may have heard, is key when you’re a leader. You know how to move forward, how to ask questions, how to direct your brand in the way it needs to move. You’re sure of yourself, your goals, and your methods.
Yet…is that arrogant? Is it arrogant to believe you have the right solution, that your work is quality, and that you have the solution for your customers? What is the difference between looking confident and arrogant?
In today’s show, we’ll be talking about looking confident without coming across as arrogant, and how to uphold yourself and your brand in ways that attract people rather than repel them.
To make your brand stand out above the rest, you’ll have to create great content. But ideas seem so hard.
Even if the ideas you have are relevant to what your brand is all about, they can seem lousy.
If your content ideas are lacking, you’re not destined for failure. You just need a new perspective.
In today’s show, Kyle Adams takes over to talk about how you can take those seemingly lousy ideas and turn them into epic pieces of content your audience will crave.
Over the years of building a brand, growing a business, or pursuing a passion, everything comes in cycles. Just like in life, there can be seasons of plenty and of need, times where it seems like success overflows and times where it seems you can’t find any.
Our experiences often swing in pendulum, with varying amounts of time between the extremes, and sometimes we find ourselves in the most difficult seasons with no apparent relief.
The stress feels endless, there’s too much work, too many projects, too many expectations, too many deadlines, not enough time, not enough resources.
Other times it may just be difficult to stay the course. You’ve been working hard for years and you haven’t seen the results you want.
How long do you keep showing up when it’s hard? How do you find purpose in the difficult times?
In this episode, I want to talk about three primary reasons I believe consistency is important, especially in the hard times.
The universal aspect of business is at some point you’re going to have to deal with another person, and if you’re trying to stay in business, there will have to be some sort of monetary exchange.
Even if you have a product or service that you give away for free, you’ll still need to have people using it. That’s the point, after all.
When you have people buying your product or using your service, at some point you’ll have to deal with an unhappy customer.
It could be a product that was damaged in shipping, a tool that doesn’t work as expected, issues with the service, website downtime, or any infinite number of problems. Support tickets, refund requests, and angry emails become more likely as more people encounter your brand.
It’s not fun, it’s unavoidable, but it can be a great tool if you know how to handle it correctly.
In today’s show, we’ll be talking about how to deal with unhappy customers, critical emails, refund requests, and why your process for handling these things is important for your brand.
Feel like you haven’t been able to expand how you want? Seems like you’re just spinning your wheels and hustling but you’re looking for another push?
It might be time to consider collaboration.
Collaboration is when two parties unite together to produce something that will appeal to both of their audiences. This can open up a lot of opportunities and work to benefit both you and the other brand.
There are a lot of ways you can seek out collaboration, and in this show we’re going to go over some ways you can seek out collaboration with others.
One of the realities of doing anything in this world is that you’re always building up a perception about yourself. People are going to feel and think things about you, no matter what.
Naturally this means that everyone has a brand of some kind, whether or not you have a business or are trying to build anything.
Connecting this to what you’re doing, however, carries a lot of weight.
What is a personal brand, anyways? Is it as simple as slapping your name on something and calling it good?
On today’s show, we’ll be talking about personal branding, how to scale when it’s just you, and some of the perks (and challenges) of the personal brand.
Let’s talk about haters.
If you’ve been around the internet for more than five minutes, you might have seen or heard someone complaining about “the haters” or saying catchphrases like “haters gonna hate”.
It’s generally used to describe a negative or critical person, specifically in relation to you or your brand. It’s not even just complaints or frustrations, but any sort of criticism that might come at you, both online and offline.
Can you escape it? Is there a magic way of preventing this kind of criticism?
On today’s show, I want to talk both about what to do when people are negative towards you or your brand, and also why I believe the term “hater” can be more harmful than helpful.
In most cases we like to make each show on this podcast as timeless as possible, so we tend to talk about more high-level brand concepts. Today, however, we want to talk about Uber.
Uber is a self-defined “platform” that acts as a middleman for freelance car drivers and people who need a lift. It is in dozens of countries around the world and hundreds of cities, and its drivers have collectively completed several billion rides.
While the company has seen incredible growth and success over the last eight years, it is also subject to an incredible amount of controversy. The Uber brand has taken a significant hit, and there’s a lot we can learn from its history.
In today’s show, we’ll be discussing the Uber brand and both its successes and failures, and see what we can learn from a company whose past and future are quite shaky.
Whenever you see a successful brand come to light, you usually only see the external results. A new product is released, a company is purchased, another venture begins.
For these brands, however, everything you see is the result of careful planning, execution, and unified goals.
We’ve talked about goals in the past, but today we’re going to zoom out and talk big picture.
In today’s show we’ll be talking about the difference between mission and vision, why they’re important, and what it looks like when you have incredible harmony between the two.
Achieving what you want in life or in business requires a lot of good old fashioned hard work. There are no shortcuts, no remarkable hacks, just getting into the middle of things and moving forward.
Working to accomplish what you want takes more than a willingness to start or to work, it also requires direction. Knowing what you want is just as important as knowing how you plan to get it.
We talk a lot about goals on this show and for a good reason. Goals are the not only the milestones of your journey, they are the lanterns along the path that help you get to your end destination. They are meant to guide and direct, making sure that you’re staying on track.
In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about how to set better goals, why goals are actually not the end result, and why setting the right goals is imperative to your success.
You want to reach success, whatever that may look like for you, but it seems like everyone you look up to got there instantly.
Why aren’t you one of the chosen few that doesn’t have to work to be known?
Spoiler alert: you’ll have to work hard. In fact, just about every “overnight success” has worked for years to build something great.
As you work on your brand and how you want to present it to the world, communicating the heart of what you're about is at the top of the list.
Eventually you'll be able to share your vision and mission with your audience, but how do you get their attention and interest first?
In today's episode, Cory examines the qualities of an effective tagline and how to capture people's attention quickly.
“Create content,” they say. “Make sure you have content marketing in your strategy,” they say.
So there you are, sitting in front of a blank screen, trying to come up with content and a strategy because you have to put a check mark next to that task.
It becomes an endless process, day after day, week after week, trying to come up with new and interesting things to create, hoping that it will fit the grand marketing scheme you were told you needed.
Content is not the problem, and lack of content is not the problem. So what gives? Is there such a thing as too much content? Is it a never ending roller coaster of creating and production, one that leaves you exhausted every time you even think about making something else?
In today’s show we’ll be uncovering some commonly flawed ideas of content marketing and discussing the point of purposeful content in your own brand strategy.
Culture is defined as a set of characteristics, behavior, and knowledge of a particular group of people. Different cultures have different languages, histories, social structures, protocols, habits, and everything in between that make up that culture.
This definition of culture can easily scale down into micro groups of people, in this case companies.
The collective personality of the people who make up a company is one of the defining ways a brand is created. A brand is shaped by the people within it, and the culture of that group of people will further define how that brand is shaped.
Whether you’re on your own, in a twelve-person company, or leading 300 employees, a healthy company culture is vital to the success of your vision.
On today’s episode we’ll talk about why a healthy company culture is important and how to shape it into something that others will want to be part of.
It’s easier than ever to connect with people around the world, and if you’re working on building a business or brand you’re probably wanting to dive deeper into producing great shareable content.
While it’s incredibly important to create and share evergreen content like videos, images, and blog posts, live streaming has been growing in popularity and is a great medium to connect with your audience.
This is even more important for businesses that are primarily online, because people are only going to buy from you if they trust you. How can you build greater trust if you’re hidden behind the walls of the internet?
On today’s show we’ll talk about the benefits of live streaming and connecting with your audience face to face, even if it’s through a screen.
You have an amazing idea. You’ve thought about it for a while, you think you’re onto something, and you really believe that it will really help a lot of people.
You start to work on the product.
Stop.
Don’t do that. I’m serious.
If you haven’t spent any time actually validating your product, you’re wasting your time. The only way you’re truly going to know if a group of people is going to buy what you’re selling is if you validate your product.
There are many different ways to validate your product, a few of which we’ll discuss in today’s episode. More important than the method is the mindset. The greatest (and most successful) product you can create is not based on a whim or “idea,” but it will come from an intimate understanding of who you’re trying to help.
In today’s show, we’ll talk about the importance of validating your product and some practical methods to make sure you’re not wasting your time.
Competition is one of the best things for business. It affirms an actual need and market for the industry or niche you’re in, and it encourages innovation and creativity.
There is a tendency to hold competition in a specific light, and it becomes easy to look at what the competition is doing rather than to focus on innovation or actually solving a problem. Rather than striving to be creative, you just try and catch up with what other people are doing, hoping to gain some of the same traction.
Copying is easy and following trends is simple, and there’s a better way to build your business than to only look at what others in your industry are doing.
On today’s show, we’ll be talking about the alternative to focusing on “what everyone else is doing” and improving your offerings in ways that make your competition’s methods irrelevant.
To some, discounting a product means more customers and easy sales. To others, discounting damages brand perception, which can have negative long-term results.
Whether you like discounts or not, there comes a point when you simply can’t rely on that strategy in a way that makes sense for your brand. You want people to notice your product, but you don’t just want to spam people with, “Hey, my product is still for sale!”
It isn’t hard to find “marketing gurus” who swear by discounts but never actually teach anything useful. Discounting is the easy way out, and if you want a brand perception that is rock solid, it’s time to get creative.
On today’s show we’ll be talking about ways to build interest in your product or service even past launch date and practical ways to market what you’re selling without resorting to discounts.
We talk a lot about the “invisible details” of a brand on this show, but there are many characteristics of a brand that display themselves in an external way. People are attracted by what is external and they are moved by what is inside.
As you work to make your vision a reality, you’ll need to make a decision about how you want your brand to “speak” to your audience. The words you write, the replies to send via email, and even the imagery you use comes from this singular idea of tone.
How you communicate your message is just as important as the message itself.
In today’s show, we’ll talk about how to define the tone of your brand (and sub brands) and why having a clear concept of your brand’s character is important for the longevity of your message.
We are at an incredible point in human history. Technology is advancing faster now than it ever has, and the world is changing by the minute. In almost every situation, you must keep up with the times or be left behind.
Yet whenever advancement happens, we see nostalgia emerge. People begin to crave the old way of doing things and are captivated by reminders of memories and stories from “before.”
It’s easy to find examples of this nostalgia in a modern context, and it certainly begs the question of advancing for advancement’s sake or maintaining the traditions that have made your brand what it is.
In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about how to remain relevant with your target audience, whether you plan to go all out on the latest and greatest or if you decide to continue your brand in the way things have always been done.
Whenever someone uses the saying, "It was right under my nose," they're referring to the idea that something was so obvious but they couldn't see it because they were so close to it. In fact, you can see your nose at all times, but because you're so used to it, you never realize that you can actually see your nose all the time.
When you're really close to your business, it's easy to start missing things because you're too close to it. It can get harder and harder to maintain any level of objectivity because of the time you've spent crafting your brand and putting in the work.
In order to truly evaluate your brand, you need objectivity. You need a way to get a high-level view of what you're doing so you can make the best decisions going forward.
In today's episode, we talk about how to get that objective feedback and the importance of realizing you can't do it all on your own.
You’d love if people paid above and beyond your competition to get your product or work with your business. What wouldn’t feel great about someone saying they’d be happy to pay more to work with you?
But what if they said they opposite?
What if someone said they were more than happy to pay extra to not buy your product?
That would feel, well, a little less great.
In today’s show, we’ll talk about how to identify problems that would cause people to want to avoid your brand, and how to address the issue of conflicting values between you and your target customers.
Everyone wants to scale, whether it’s in profit, audience size, influence, skill, or some other type of gain. Scale prevents stagnation, so in order to remain relevant, you must grow or improve in some way.
How you do business changes as you scale, and the details that were once easy to implement are now much more complicated. Because the nature of your business changes, the ways you interact with your customers and clients must also change.
A lot of companies have had this experience: when they were smaller, they could give every order the care it deserved and treat each customer like they were their only one.
However, as they scaled, and as twenty orders a month became a hundred orders a day, they simply couldn’t give the kind of attention to each order as they used to.
It’s the same if you have a smaller audience. While it was once easy to respond with multiple paragraphs to every email that came in, your inbox sits cluttered and covered with cobwebs because it’s dozens if not hundreds every day.
Aaron Dowd joins the show to discuss how to do the “unscalable”, how to make every customer feel like they’re the most important person to your company, and what the unscalable things do for your brand.
So who defines what your product is worth, anyway?
If you go back far enough, you’ll find all levels of trade and exchange, ranging from gold, animals, servitude, and more. In more modern times, we use paper, metal, and digital bits as currency to exchange for the things we want.
Business happens because at one point it was agreed between people that a thing had certain value and could be traded for other valuable things.
At its essence, you might say that the value of something is determined by what someone is willing to exchange for it. But is that all there is to it?
Knowing how to price your product can be very complex, so in today’s episode we’re going to talk about evaluating the value of your product and who actually determines what your product is worth.
Have you ever heard the phrase, “What comes first, the chicken or the egg?”
It’s a silly question based on the idea that a chicken has to lay an egg in order for there to be an egg, but the chicken has to come from an egg at some point.
We often do the same thing when trying to figure out what we want our businesses to be.
Some people start with who they want to help and figure out how to do that later, while others start with what they want to do and then figure out who they can help with that.
In today’s episode we’ll look at both paths and how to go about pursuing one if you start with the other.
Does it ever feel like you promote your product but nobody cares?
Have you ever launched a product and kept refreshing your browser, excitedly waiting for the sales orders to come in, and a few did but then just seemed to fizzle out?
Maybe you’re just about to start marketing your product, and you’ve spent hours thinking and writing out why your product is the best there is.
I’m going to go ahead and spoil the show for you.
If you’re talking about your product more than you’re talking about the customer’s life as a result of your product, you’re making a mistake.
In fact, if your marketing plan includes a disproportionate focus on the product instead of on your customer, you’re making a mistake.
And it’s a mistake rookies make.
This might seem counterintuitive, but it’s true. In this episode, we’ll be talking about how to avoid this mistake and how to improve your copywriting to boost sales.
The history of business has always moved and evolved from one generation to another. Values change, focus changes, and the way of doing things continues to adapt to the new consumer.
One of the biggest changes that has happened over the last decade or two has been the emphasis on transparency. The general public is no longer satisfied with simply buying products. They want to know what’s happening behind the scenes.
This is why there has been an increase in transparency reports and “drawing back the curtains” of how a business operates. Even huge corporations are not immune from this, and many have found the need to change business practices because their customers are demanding they be held accountable.
Regardless of the size of your brand, it’s important to understand what your audience values, and as the growing trend of transparency becomes more and more relevant, it’s time to think about what transparency looks like for your brand.
In today’s show, we’ll be talking about what brand transparency means, some practical ways to be transparent, and some great (and not so great) examples of brands doing transparency right.
Do you know why you’re building an audience? Do you have explicit reasons for increasing your number of followers or subscribers? Are these reasons vague in any way?
Building an audience is one of the best ways to increase revenue and grow a business online. It is a method that is tried and true, and while the steps themselves can seem complicated, the goal remains.
But “build an audience” is not the end goal. It is a means to an end.
If you’re building a list but aren’t really sure what you’re building it for, this episode is for you. If you feel like you need to send out tons and tons of emails but it’s not leading to anything and you don’t have any idea of what it could lead to, this episode is for you.
On today’s show we’ll be talking about defining your reasons for building an audience and why the implications of vaguely growing a following without purpose can be detrimental to your brand.
As much as some people want to deny it, change is part of life. We get older, our physical appearances change, our personalities evolve over time.
The world around us is constantly changing.
But what if you don't resonate very will with the brand of your own business? What if your customers or audience live completely different lifestyles than you do? What if your competitors or peers seem to have certain ways of doing things that you don’t agree with?
Sometimes you may have to adapt and change with the flow of your business, and other times you may need to fight against the “status quo” and the pressures of changing who you are.
On today’s episode, special guest Cory McCabe joins the show to talk about the idea of maintaining your sense of “self” as you grow and how to protect against the pressures of unnecessarily changing who you are to fit some predetermined mold.
Connecting with people online is primarily a visual endeavor, full of color, images, video, and words. If someone is on your website, there’s a good chance they’re experiencing it visually.
This isn’t limited to online experiences, either.
Brick-and-mortar shops and retail businesses thrive on trying to catch your attention a thousand different ways when you come into the store, attempting to use clever marketing tactics and “color psychology” to sway you into buying.
There’s enough on this subject to dedicate entire college courses to it, so today we’re going to be talking about some basic principles and why you should take extra care when choosing colors and images to represent your brand.
There are many instances where a name change for your business is inevitable or an improvement toward achieving your goals. It could be a minor technical change, or it could be a complete overhaul.
Even though it might sound intimidating, there are a lot of reasons you may want to change your brand name, all of which come with great benefits as well as challenges.
Change is difficult for most people in general, so these things have to be handled with great care and intentionality.
In today’s show, we’ll talk about how to bring your audience along with a name change and how to communicate your plans effectively.
There’s a saying among backpackers and campers, “Leave it better than when you found it.”
It’s a call to explore and enjoy nature, but leave it as undisturbed as possible. After you pack up your campsite, you clean it, remove all traces of your being there, and continue on.
The saying originates from a man named Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the modern Scouting movement, who once said said, “Try and leave this world a little better than you found it.”
This is the essence of a brand vision. It’s how we want the world to be, whether big or small. It’s the reason we started in the first place.
In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about how to define your vision and how to get other people excited about it and invested in it.
It’s pretty common to hear that business is built on solving problems. If you want to make money, solve problems. If you want to have a successful brand, solve problems.
But then there’s the moments when you realize what you’re trying to build doesn’t really solve any problems. You hear the term “nice-to-have”, and you adopt that term into your mindset.
“My product isn’t a necessity.” “What I do doesn’t solve a problem.” “It’s just art.” “I don’t know how to tell someone how this thing benefits their life.” “It’s just a nice-to-have.”
If this is you, you’re not alone, and you’re not breaking new ground.
That’s because “nice to have” doesn’t exist.
Today’s episode is a crash course on how to market and brand something that doesn’t solve a direct problem, something that people might refer to as a “nice to have”. We’ll even show you how companies are making billions every year even though they aren’t solving problems.
Talking about your brand can be a heavy subject. Once you bring in target audience, funding, mission statements, content marketing, and all the millions of other things, it certainly can feel like you’re carrying a giant on your shoulders. Or two.
Today, we’re going to lighten up a bit and talk about how to determine if your brand should be serious, funny, both, neither, or a combination of all four.
If you’ve ever put a lot of work into something, you know what it takes. You know the long hours it takes to get results. You know the investment of time and money it takes to accomplish your goals.
And then there comes those times when you need to make a choice: do you keep investing and pushing and working, or do you let it come to an end?
Nobody wants to be called a quitter. The idea of wasted time, money, and energy is enough to make any of us uncomfortable. How do you stop, pivot, or end something with grace and confidence?
On today’s episode, we’ll be talking about knowing when to call it quits, when to double down, and times when we personally decided to end something to make way for other things.
Target audience is one of the hardest parts about building a brand. It not enough to simply make something and hope people get excited about it.
Even if you already have a definition of your target audience or customer, you may find yourself hitting a wall and not understanding how to deepen your connection with the people who follow and buy from you.
You need Deep Audience Clarity. You need to know your audience better than anyone.
In today’s show, we’ll be talking about the kind of clarity that will take you from a surface-level definition of your target audience to a place of deep understanding.
When a new idea pops into your head, or the vision of another product or different direction sets in your mind, it’s easy to follow the “shiny object” and forget the other things that are happening.
How do we know if we’re chasing the right things? How can we determine if the idea we’ve just had lines up with our brand’s mission, values, and purpose?
It’s time to get practical.
In this episode we’re going to be talking about The Brand Consistency Test, a straight-forward formula of specific questions designed to help you make a decision faster and with greater confidence.
Using this test will help you clarify if what you’re doing is beneficial to your target audience, your overall brand goals, and the direction your brand is headed.
I’m going to be frank: there are a lot of mixed messages out there about whether or not your work should or can be original.
It can be hard to get the attention you want your brand to have, and it can be doubly as difficult to innovate and produce original work. It’s why we find advice to create concepts based on what already exists and why we’re okay with “stealing ideas.” Regardless of where this advice originates, it can be very misleading.
As your brand develops, you’re working to produce assets, things you own that are useful in generating income. The less you own, the less control you truly have over your income, and the more uncertain the future of your brand becomes.
In today’s episode, we’re discussing the ideas of building original assets to utilize for your brand, when copying is okay, and why you should steer clear of relying upon someone else’s success.
When it comes to creating anything of value, whether it’s products or content, there are usually two trains of thought: produce as much as you can and ship it quickly, or produce in smaller quantities with higher quality.
The “ship much, ship quick” mindset is about expanding fast, reaching as many people as possible with as many things as possible. It promotes having a minimum viable product and getting something out the door as fast as possible.
The “ship fewer, ship better” mindset emphasizes quality and care, putting more time into perfecting what you do put out there, but may limit how many people you can actually reach.
This also applies in a larger way to audience reach. You may be able to “reach” large amounts of people, but the trade-off might be the quality of what you can produce.
On today’s show we’ll be talking about finding balance between quality and quantity and how to tell if you’re diluting your brand by reaching too far.
Domain name. Hosting. Logo. Business plan. Employees. HR. Hardware. Software. Training. Property rental. Video gear. Money to pay for it all.
Building a brand sounds like a great idea until you start thinking about all of the things that need to be done.
What was once an exciting idea has become a mountain to climb, and you don’t even know what to pack for the journey. It seems unconquerable because there are so many things.
Someone once said the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. In today’s episode, we’ll give you some ideas for defining that first step so you can get started.
Most brands seem to have this great history attached, some great obstacle or problem that was overcome, or a daring innovation that truly changed the face of history as we know it.
Not every brand has that, though.
Some brands started out by having an idea and then simply acting on it. Others just had the company handed to them. Others still are built upon a single person’s desire to put something in the world.
How does a brand produce something as important as a story if there’s really nothing about the brand that stands out?
In today’s episode, I’ll give you some ideas on how to craft a brand story and produce something inviting and intriguing, even if your brand story is “boring”.
The purpose of a brand is to create a specific perception about your company, product, service, or anything else you’re creating. As time goes on, it can be easy to think that the brand is about the thing itself.
Unfortunately, the more the focus of your brand turns inward, the more your audience is going to feel unwelcome and ignored. People are looking for what is going to make them better, not what is going to make someone else look good.
Spoilers: Your brand is not about you. It’s not even about the thing it represents. It’s about the people who are going to be engaging, interacting, and connecting with it.
In today's episode, we explore what it looks like to build a brand that is centered around other people while maintaining the heartbeat that you bring as an individual.
The internet is an incredible invention that has effectively facilitated the global connectedness of cultures and countries around the world. It's nearly impossible to have an online presence that is not encountered by someone from another culture.
With this deeper worldwide connection comes complications. People want to consume your content and interact with your brand, but they may speak other languages or not understand the nuances of your brand.
Figuring out how to interact with people from other cultures has a lot of implications, and having a plan for how you can accommodate other cultures might be exactly what your brand needs.
In this episode, we discuss the responsibility that the modern-day brand has to figure out where it fits in the ever-connected world.
Your brand has a message you are trying to communicate with your audience, a story you are trying to convey through words, imagery, and the like. You have a mission and a purpose, and you're working hard to reach the right people with the right message.
But something's not quite right. You're not really sure why, but it doesn't seem like your message is very effective. You may not know how to actually communicate correctly with your audience, and you know it's hurting your brand. You might struggle finding the right words, or you might struggle with finding any words at all.
Without clarity, a brand is lost. How can you communicate your message without knowing how your audience is going to respond to it, and what can you do to improve your communication skills?
In this solo episode, Kyle shows you how you can improve your brand message, provide clarity in how you communicate, and reach your audience better than you've been able to yet.
A healthy brand requires a significant amount of focus in specific areas. Certain seasons of your brand’s life may look different than the others, and you may end up building out different things throughout the years.
Times will come when you need to evaluate where you are spending your time and money. Are your purchases aiding your goal, and is the time you’ve allocated toward certain things actually building your brand in the right direction?
You have to take a step back every once in a while and assess the situation. Regular evaluation times are a necessity for a healthy, growing brand.
You may have to make some hard decisions. You might need to cut things out of your life. You may need to stop spending money in an area that is more fun than others because it’s not actually helping your mission.
In this episode, we’ll be talking about how to consistently and regularly evaluate how you are investing in your brand, and how to reposition your focus to accomplish your goals.
Being a “jack of all trades” is exhausting. You do all of the heavy lifting, the administrative work, the uploads, the phone calls, and there never seems like there’s enough time in the day.
The problem isn’t that you can’t do everything; the problem is that you can. Why hire a web designer when you took a $3,000 web design course two years ago? Why hire an accounting firm when you can just buy a program you can learn how to use?
When you do everything yourself, you’re going to hit a ceiling. You can only get so far by running your brand by yourself. Maybe that’s your goal, and maybe you’re okay with keeping things as they are. But if you want to keep growing, you are going to need to outsource.
Outsourcing can look different to different brands: hiring employees or virtual assistants, partnering with a call center, working with a designer to create your next run of t-shirts, or maybe hiring an editor for your videos.
In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about how to determine when to bring on outside help to accomplish your goals and what that can do for the health and longevity of your brand.
There are over a billion websites on the internet. In the chaos of everyone scrambling to be noticed online, instant-website solutions with trendy templates have become incredibly popular.
The result is an overwhelming number of websites that look exactly the same. It can be truly difficult to set yourself apart online without investing a lot of time or money.
You have to be creative when it comes to your website, and not just in the way it looks. Engaging with your audience is more than the colors of your website. It’s about how it works, the way it functions, and how it speaks to your visitors.
In this episode, we’ll be talking about how to look at your website with fresh eyes and craft a meaningful, memorable, and engaging experience for your users.
One of the obvious building blocks of having a brand is having people who interact with you. Customers, subscribers, followers, and fans are inevitable parts of your brand.
You might decide to sell t-shirts or something else to bring in some extra income, or perhaps you decide to build a new membership website for your content.
No matter how good you are at running your business, you’re probably going to run into issues that will affect your customers. Orders get dropped, payments don’t go through, web pages don’t load, and somewhere down the line someone will have a bad experience.
How you respond in these situations will dictate the relationship between you and your audience. It’s not just about customer retention, it’s how you are you allowing your brand to be perceived.
In the episode, we’ll be sharing stories of exceptional customer service and how to apply that to your brand.
If you’re a business that has any kind of presence on social media, you’ve noticed the various changes that have been taking place on those platforms. Algorithm changes to promote friends and family over advertisements, businesses, or media outlets has many people scrambling to adjust.
Every time a major social media platform makes a change, there is a massive outcry. Change is difficult, especially on places that are known and loved.
The hard part is when businesses and individuals who have placed their whole business model on these platforms become disoriented and affected negatively by the change. Algorithm changes can come out of nowhere, and they can hurt the bottom line significantly.
The truth is this: if you don't own the code, you don't get to complain.
In this episode, we’ll be talking about how to prepare for unforeseen changes to the way social platforms work and why you should never rely on someone else’s platform.
On Invisible Details we talk about a lot of brands, from giant, well-known corporations to local coffee shops. We’re not afraid to talk about the popular ones, and we absolutely love the unknown ones.
This show is going to be a little different. You’re going to get a fly-on-the-wall experience as Kyle and I have a conversation about our own brands—what we’ve learned, what we want, the struggles we face, and some of our big dreams.
In the episode, we’ll be talking as if we just sat down for coffee and weren’t streaming live or recording. You get a special, behind-the-scenes look at how we run our brands, what our goals are, and how we're working to accomplish those goals.
The way we communicate to our audiences online is typically referred to as messaging. The copy you write, the images you use, and the overall direction of your brand material is sending various messages to the people who see it.
Today’s online audiences have statistically short attention spans. It takes less than 5 seconds for a visitor to determine if they are going to stay on a website or find something else to do. If they aren’t convinced they need to stay, they won’t.
There are a lot of reasons people may not be staying longer on your website, or why they’re not reading your promotional material. The fault doesn’t lie with their attention spans, it lies with your messaging.
Everything about your content needs to draw in your target audience. It has to be attractive, it has to be specific, and it needs to meet them where they are at.
In today’s episode we’re going to be talking about how to audit your brand’s copy to determine if it’s chasing users away, and some of the problems to watch out for so you can convert more prospects into buying customers.
No matter where you go in the world, you’ll find that people have their favorite places. One coffee shop is better than the other five, there’s a particular restaurant you should go to, and there’s even a better place to change the oil in your car.
We have preferences for where we shop online and which websites we read the news. Everyone has their favorite everything.
So what makes a brand “favorite”? Why are we attracted to some and not to others, and why is there a disconnect between what we like and what others like?
Like a magnet, a brand has the power to pull in the ones who are attracted to it. There is a direct correlation between how a brand expresses itself and who is drawn to it.
In today’s episode, we’ll discuss how to determine if your brand is attracting the right people and how to adjust your brand for the right people.
Over the last few years, crowdfunding has surged in popularity, from product campaigns to funding personal trips to monthly donations to keep the lights on.
Something incredible about crowdfunding is its ability to bring the idea of investment to a lower level. Previously investment seemed daunting and so far away, when it required thousands upon thousands of dollars to pour into stocks or bonds or real estate. Today, it seems so simple.
Unfortunately, many people do not view crowdfunding as investment. It’s easy to see a new product that could be and pay for it, viewing it as a purchase instead of as a risk.
When your brand or product is based on crowdfunding, you are producing brand equity and perception. You are creating an environment for your customers to see you in a certain way, and you must be prepared for however that unfolds.
In today’s episode, we’ll be discussing the pros and cons of crowdfunding to help you evaluate if it’s right for your brand.
Communication is everything for a brand. It's how you deliver information to your audience, it's how you invite them into your story, and it's the way we connect and develop relationally.
There will always be people at varying levels of relationship to your brand, all the way from being first introduced to your industry to being someone who's been around longer than you. You have to learn how to communicate in a way that reaches as many people in your audience as possible.
This is possible by understanding the four tiers of brand language: introductory, basic, advanced, and fluent. Knowing the different levels will help improve your writing and bring clarity to your messaging.
Today's episode is a little shorter, but packed with information on the four tiers of brand language and how you can connect better with your audience with clearer communication.
Comparison is the root of discouragement and frustration. Achieving our desired level of success seems so far away when it appears that everyone else is doing so much better.
Only if you look at what everyone else is doing.
Self-reflection is important as your brand grows, and simply moving the focus back to your own work is key to your future success.
In today's episode, we talk about how to look at how far you've come so you can build up momentum to continue looking forward.
Iconic brand names like Tesla, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola seem to stand out among the competition, carrying such incredible meaning and history. You only have to hear the name and you immediately know what they’re about.
It’s easy to assume that there is some secret formula for producing a brand name that will stand the test of time. So many of us have spent countless hours at the drawing board, pouring over iterations and variations of names, and we’re just waiting for the perfect one to jump out at us.
The truth is there isn't any secret. There are no magic steps, no perfect formulas, and no easy blueprint to follow.
Today we’ll be talking about what’s in a name and some principles to keep in mind while deciding the name of your brand.
Transaction is one of the building blocks of civilization. Business and commerce is built on transaction, where two parties participate in a trade that they both deem fair.
When we think about currency, it’s easy to think about money, gold, or other things that are physical, but there’s another currency that every human being has: time.
There’s an old saying that says, “Time is money”, but in reality, they are not the same thing. Time can be traded for money, and vice versa.
As a brand, it can be easy to think that our biggest asset is money, because it allows us to grow and expand—but without a healthy view of time, money is irrelevant.
On today’s episode, we’re going to explore the relationship between time and money and how skill and value come into the conversation.
At the beginning of every project, it’s easy to manage all of the things that need to get done. A small business is no problem when it’s just an idea.
Then the customers begin to show up. The taxes need to be filed. Inventory needs to be sorted, labeled, and shipped.
Before you know it, everything has started to slip through your fingers because someone told you that “wearing a lot of hats” was admirable.
As your brand grows, there will be more responsibilities and moving parts to attend to. Your time will be spread thin if you’re not careful. You need to focus on the things that really matter and will move your brand goals forward.
In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about how to manage your productivity levels and maintain balance, while also looking at a few ideas on how to scale your brand in a healthy way.
Brands are built by and for people, which means at some point your brand will necessarily need to interact with other people. At some point, you're going to start receiving feedback.
No matter what your brand is, there will be people who love your brand and people who don't. Some will give you a "thumbs up" on your post, others might leave a nasty comment, while others yet simply ignore the hard work you've put in.
Have you noticed it's easy to base the worth and value of our brands on the opinions of others? The positive feedback makes us feel great, while negative feedback makes us doubt everything we do.
Yet feedback is inevitable. It's going to come whether you want it or not.
The way you handle and use feedback is vital for the health of your brand, even if it’s negative. In this episode we talk about the various forms of feedback and how to deal with it when it comes.
It can be absolutely heartbreaking to watch a business go under. Knowing that someone poured their heart and soul into something that ended up going out of business is very sobering.
Running a business is difficult. Working to sustain a brand can be the most rewarding thing, but it can also be the most exhausting thing. One day you feel like you're on top of the world, and the next you realize that you have no idea how to pay the bills next month.
It’s been said 9 out of 10 businesses fail in the first year, and out of the ones that remained, 4 out of 5 fail in the first five years.
Are these businesses failures? Maybe. Maybe not.
In this episode, we talk about why your failed brand doesn't have to be a failure, and that it is ultimately what you make of it.
A healthy brand is truly a balancing act. On one side, you have to actually execute on your idea and build a sustainable brand structure, creating and focusing on building a healthy business. On the other side, a healthy business doesn’t matter if nobody knows about it.
There are plenty of articles online saying to build an audience, gather a list, and always create content. But if that focus on outside attention leaves you neglecting the structure and cohesiveness of your brand behind the scenes, it might be time for a re-evaluation.
We often refer to the brand as a personality on this show, with an outward expression of what’s happening on the inside. Yet if one is neglected, it can have a negative impact on the other.
In today’s episode, we talk about how to evaluate whether or not you’re focusing too heavily on one side or the other, and how to know when to work more on the internal health or the external reach of your brand.
The art of balancing short and long term goals can be tricky. It’s easier to look out a few days, weeks, or even months than it is to estimate where you want to be in the next few years.
Think about who you were ten years ago. How have you changed? How has your direction in life evolved?
Building a brand is more than just trying to maintain a profit through the next few months. It’s about deciding where you want to be and working hard to get there. It is a constant evaluation and forward motion to get to what’s next.
In today’s episode we’re going to talk about setting short and long term goals, how to work backwards from where you want to be, and dreaming bigger.
Billions of people around the world are using the internet every day. New sites are created, new social platforms are launched, and at every turn we are asked to enter in our usernames and passwords for a new account.
Unless you have an uncommon name, it can be very difficult to get the same username on every platform you sign up for. How many of us have tried to sign up with our usual username, and then realized that someone else already had it?
It may seem like a strange subject, but there are quite a few reasons to make sure that you have a consistent username across the many websites and platforms you connect with your audience on.
In this episode we talk about preparing, personalizing, and managing usernames online for better consistency, and what to do if it's nearly impossible to have a consistent username.
In most cases, a brand has a single tier with one mission, purpose, and set of values. The brand foundation is where the products stem from, how the services are handled, and points everything back to the parent brand.
Sometimes a product has the ability to stand on its own, to create a personality above and beyond the brand it comes from. It develops its own mission, purpose, and values, and tells its own story.
Not everyone should have a sub-brand, but there are some instances where it might be beneficial to create one.
Brand is all about personality and connecting with your audience on a deeper level. A sub-brand is about focusing into your audience and offering a segment of those people something different.
In this episode, we dive into brand architecture and talk about when you might consider developing a sub-brand.
Building a successful brand is all about understanding people. The most successful companies in the world are there because they strategize and think deeply about how people are going to connect with their brand.
Without human connection, your brand has nothing. There’s no one to read your content, buy your products, sign up for your membership, or employ you to solve their problem. Humans want to connect with other humans.
One of the most fundamental methods of connecting with people is through story. We tell stories all day long, and not just historical or fictional stories, but even relating to people about how our days went, or what our goals are for the future.
Special guest Jeff Urke joins the show to talk about the elements of storytelling, why story is important in human connection, and how designing stories can help push your brand even further.
News flash: You’re probably not the only person in the world doing what you’re doing. What sets you apart? Why should someone pay money for your product or service when they could just find someone cheaper?
Building a brand is about fostering an identity and finding a place in this world. It’s about finding what makes you tick and what sort of expression you want to display.
Part of that expression is determining what makes you unique. As someone in a noisy, brand-saturated world, how are we supposed to stand out when it seems like everyone else is doing something similar?
In this episode, we’ll be talking about how to figure out what your unique advantage is and how to leverage it to make your brand stand out.
We’ve all heard the saying “jack of all trades, master of none”, and usually when people say it, they wear it as a badge of honor.
As a brand, the biggest asset you have with your audience is trust. Without trust, you have nothing. Building trust takes a lot of work, and it certainly doesn’t come easy.
Specialization gives you the edge to not only build trust in your field, but also to deepen the specific skills that your brand requires. Focusing on becoming incredible in your niche allows you to become the best, which ultimately builds the trust you need.
In this episode, we talk about how specialization builds trust, strengthens your specific skills, and why narrowing your focus will take your brand further.
Whether you’re a designer who decides to give your website an overhaul every couple of months or a business owner who is never satisfied with the last set of print materials you had made, we have a message for you: stop redesigning everything.
It’s one thing to have a business card that needs a redesign, but it’s another to wake up every six months and decide to redesign everything from the ground up.
There are lots of reasons to conduct a redesign of a website, product, or print materials, but before anything begins, it’s time to take a moment and consider what really needs to happen.
If you're a chronic re-designer or you find yourself never satisfied with the latest published iteration, this episode is for you.
You might remember what it felt like when you just got started: the rush of adrenaline when you launched, the feeling of your first order, the plans you laid out for your first years of business.
But now it seems like it’s stagnated, and what you used to be happy to wake up for is difficult to get excited about. It’s a tough place to be.
Stagnation is the enemy of progress, and if you're feeling like your business, passion, or goals have slowed to a crawl, it's time to do some evaluation.
In this episode we talk about strain, burnout, and evaluating what has caused you to lose the momentum you started out with.
When it comes to building a brand experience, is it better to build your own platform or to use someone else's?
There are a lot of bigger platforms claiming to have everything you need, from product drop-shipping services to third-party apps, rental spaces to all-in-one design solutions. Building your brand on another platform has its benefits, but it also has its costs.
When you build your own platform, you control the entire experience. You make all of the decisions, you control the time table, and you can fully customize everything your customer experiences. Of course, this takes a lot of time, capital, and infrastructure.
In this episode, we look at what a platform is and how you can leverage your platform to enhance your audience's experience, whether you use your own or a third-party platform.
It's easy to want to update the look of your brand or to make sure that you're up to date with the latest visual trends, but rebranding is more than just slapping a fresh coat of paint on a building and calling it good.
There are a lot of stories of big brands spending millions of dollars on rebranding their image, only to realize that they made a huge mistake. Some have even reverted to their old brand identity!
Rebranding can be exciting, but it can also lead to unwanted outcomes if not handled correctly. Rebranding is more than just changing a logo or updating a website, it’s redefining and refocusing on your goals.
In this episode we talk about the weight of rebranding and how to count the cost of a rebrand to make absolutely sure that doing so would be in the best interest of your audience and customers.
Like counts. Followers. Page views. Impressions. Favorites. Retweets.
It seems that you can't go to any website or app these days without seeing some form of voting system. Vote for your favorite image, double tap to leave a heart, favorite, and subscribe.
The problem is that it's easy to attach personal value to these numbers. If your latest picture on Instagram got less likes than the last one did, you immediately start wondering what went wrong and why you messed up.
But the numbers don't matter.
What would you do if you had just one follower? What about 1,000? What about 100,000? What changes between 1 and 100,000?
In this episode, we talk about how to avoid equating personal value with the numbers that are coming in, and ultimately why numbers don't matter.
Every time a new year rolls around, people immediately start making resolutions and new goals. Going to the gym, finally learning that new skill, finishing the project they started but never finished.
Of course, as we all know, not all of those ever actually happen. Maybe a few months go by and we stick with it, but inevitably we've set ourselves up to fail. Why? Because we didn't approach our goals and plans with intentionality.
Staying true to who you want to be in this next year requires specific direction, and it may even involve sacrificing some things you didn't know you needed to. This episode will help you break through some of the fog and finally get some clarity about how to make this next year the best one yet.
It seems that everyone has a million-dollar idea these days.
You have an amazing concept for the next big company, product, or startup, and so you scribble your thoughts out excitedly on a piece of paper. Over the next few months you write up a business plan, get other people excited about your idea, and you can't wait to make it happen.
Then something happens.
The planning stage never seems to end. A few months go by but you're not quite ready to get into production because you want it to be absolutely perfect. You want the best end result possible, and so everything has to be just perfect. Except now it's been three years and you still haven't done anything about that idea, and five other companies have risen up in your place, leaving your million-dollar idea obsolete.
Planning only works if we act upon the plans and actually do something about it. The greatest inventions of all time weren't birthed out of someone just looking at the blueprints: the inventor actually had to move forward and create it.
In this episode we dissect some of the common reasons for the paralysis that keeps us in planning mode and how to finally move forward and achieve our goals.
What you say and produce is incredibly important, but it’s important to take into consideration the environment that you find yourself in. It might be the kind of platform you use, the language you’re writing in, or the sort of market you’re selling your product to. Understanding what “surrounds” your brand and your message will make you more effective at reaching the right people.
Content is about resonating with the right message, context is about resonating at the right moment. You could have the perfect content, but without the right context, it might mean absolutely nothing.
In this episode, we examine the power of understanding the context surrounding your work and the methods you can use to become the expert in your context.
Storytelling is a tool to take people beyond than what they see, to open their minds and engage with them on a deeper level. It's more than stating the obvious, it's about inviting your audience on a journey that promises to make their lives better.
It's not just about writing out some fiction. Crafting a narrative allows you to be intentional and imaginative and relevant, captivating the attention of your target audience and standing out from the competition that just states the facts.
In this episode, we get more into the "how" of storytelling, exploring different methods of delivering a story and producing content that is interesting and relevant.
The topic of “story” can be misunderstood and confusing. Should you tell figurative or literal stories? Are you supposed to have some sort of fictional concept ready to go? What’s more important, your story or someone else’s?
Your brand is more than a collection of facts. It is your past, present, and future, the culmination of your values, mission, and purpose.
Storytelling is essential to a brand. Nobody likes a big untouchable brand with no human interaction. Story brings humanity back into the picture and allows your audience to feel they can connect with you on a deeper level.
In this episode, we get practical on why it’s important to have a brand story and some tips on how to mold your words, presentation, and audience engagement with the power of storytelling.
There are multiple stages to a person's knowledge and involvement in your brand: not knowing anything about your brand, initially hearing something, first interaction, first purchase, ongoing loyalty, and so on.
Anyone can read a blog, but it requires action on your audience's part to sign up for a newsletter, purchase a product, or subscribe for a membership.
Exclusivity is about providing the best parts of your brand to your loyal followers. When they exchange some kind of value for something you are offering, whether it's money for a membership or an email address for a newsletter, the value you need to deliver should be greater than what your audience exchanged.
On this episode we talk about how you can establish deeper loyalty by allowing your audience into exclusive aspects of your brand, and why inviting people to step deeper into your brand is worthwhile.
From the very first moment someone sees something related to your brand, whether it be your logo, website, business card, or product, they have begun forming an opinion about you.
Often we think about communication as being the words we speak to someone else, but it's more than that. It is an understanding that comes from an experience. The experience can be words that are exchanged, but it can also be in the way you present yourself.
Visual identity is all about breaking down barriers between you and your audience. How you present yourself is going to be the way that others perceive you, which requires you to think strategically about how you want to be perceived.
In this episode we talk about investing in the kind of visual identity your brand deserves, the purpose and importance of visual communication, and crafting a memorable brand.
Social media. It’s a mess out there. It’s noisy, it’s cluttered. There’s even a plugin you can get that removes the entire feed from Facebook.
But here’s the truth: If you’re not on social media, you’re going to lose.
Social media used to be all about friends. You meet someone, you add them. You know someone, you add them.
It's not like that anymore. You follow your interests, not your friends. People hate the noise, so they block it out. Facebook added “mute” so you could “stay friends” but not have to listen to the wild political rants of your friend’s mom that you’ve only met once.
Presence on a social platform is not just about posting whatever you want, it’s about connecting with the people who want to connect with your brand. We talk about the importance of brand consistency and why scheduling matters when it comes to your activity on social media.
If you're wanting to sell or promote something, you have to be comfortable with marketing.
It can be easy to write off marketing as sleazy or underhanded, a collection of tactics that ignore the customer experience and just try to get a quick sale. Annoying advertising schemes clutter our feeds and inboxes, and you might think that the only way to get someone's attention is by plastering ads all over the internet.
Content marketing is a strategy that is all about building trust and relationship with your audience. Producing content that resonates with your customers and potential clients is an incredibly effective (and infinitely less annoying) tool to get peoples' attention and funnel them toward a specific goal.
In this episode, Sean McCabe joins the show to discuss content marketing and how it can help your brand stand out.
Growth. Maturity. Relationships. These are words we typically use to describe aspects of the life of a human being as they progress from infancy to adulthood. There is a process from their first moments to their last, an ongoing discovery of ability and identity.
A brand goes through a similar process: it begins at a single point in time, it grows and matures, and it develops a means of expressing itself to its audience. A brand is not just an entity, it is something for people to connect to and have a relationship with.
In this episode, we explore a brand's growth and expression and how your audience and customers will connect better with your brand when you understand its personality. Learn how to leverage the evolution of your brand toward success.
Figuring out what you want to do is fairly straight-forward: find a problem, present a solution. What can be difficult is determining who the people are who have that particular problem and reaching out to them with the solution. Unless you have someone specifically coming to you in need of a solution, it can be hard to validate your idea.
Defining your target audience is all about bringing clarity to your brand. It’s easy to think that everyone needs what you have, but the truth is that if you try to reach every single kind of audience, your brand only becomes more diluted and confusing.
In this episode, we walk you through what a target audience is and the crucial reasons why you need to define it. You’ll learn the value of starting small and the power that comes from learning who you’re trying to reach and how to tailor your message to reach them. Grow a stronger brand by narrowing your focus and reaching the people who truly need what you have to offer.
A lot of people have asked, "Why do I have to know the deeper meaning behind what I do? Can't I just make cool stuff?" The answer is simple: without goals, drive, and a clear understanding of what your brand is, it's next to impossible to stand out in a saturated world of noise.
Your values are what guide and steer your brand to establish consistency and promote trust. Your mission is the culmination of your values to declare what you’re all about. Your purpose is your philosophy, the reason behind what you’re doing.
In this episode, Cory and Kyle outline examples of values, provide clarity to what a brand's mission is, and help to uncover the real meaning behind why your brand exists. You'll learn why having a foundational understanding of what your brand is doing, why it exists, and what it stands for is crucial to success.
The word "brand" can feel so loaded at times. Is it a logo? Is it a color palette? Is it that annoying thing we do to our businesses every year when we redesign our websites, contract out a designer to make a new logo, and make sure our look is updated to match current trends?
A brand is far more than what something looks like. It is the culmination of values and goals, molded by its actions and interpreted by its audience. A brand is not just what someone sees, it's what they feel or think when they see it.
In this pilot episode, we dive into the foundations of what makes a brand, going back in history to determine where the term comes from and then taking a 21st century look at what it means for us today. Developing a brand means understanding the deeper principles and meaning behind what you do, and we begin to uncover what it means to build a successful brand through story and authenticity.