Brandmerry Blog Archives

New Entrepreneur Shopping List

 

New Entrepreneur Shopping List

April 12, 2019

New Entrepreneur Shopping List - Starting your business can be overwhelming, especially when you see all the options available to you in regards to systems and products. I’ve made it super easy in this post to give you my top recommendations for new…

Starting a business can be super overwhelming. You can go from “Wohoooo, this is happening!” to “Holy Sh*t! Where do I even start!”

There are countless options on the internet that you can use for list building, sending emails, collecting leads, housing your course, accepting payments, designing, etc….

Seriously, that list goes on and on and on.

When I started my business not one single person told me what I should be investing in for my business. I was bootstrapping my buns off so I did a lot of research to find the right platforms that worked for me and my clients. Now three years later I’ve come to love a few specific platforms and tools and recommend them to all my clients.

So I thought why keep them to myself - so many of you need this information in your back pocket.

If you’re a new or aspiring entrepreneur read on for my Ultimate New Entrepreneur Shopping List!

1. Kajabi

If I had known about Kajabi from the beginning of my business it would have saved me so many freaking headaches. Now, we are working on moving all my stuff to Kajabi because it can do #allthethings. Kajabi is an amazing platform that allows you to house your website, grow your email list, house your courses and accept payments.

Some of my favorite features in Kajabi are:

  • Course Creation

  • Membership Sites

  • Email Marketing

  • Lead Generation (including landing pages)

  • Automation (i.e. sales funnels)

  • Webinars

  • Accepting payments

It’s now my #1 suggestion for entrepreneurs because it’s that good. The best part is even if you don’t have a course or membership site now you can grow into it. Now, I know it might seem like a scary investment right out of the gate, but when you add up all the individual platforms trust me you’ll spend just as much and end up switching later. You can test out Kajabi with their 30-day money-back guarantee!

2. Email Marketing

If you’re really bootstrapping or currently loving your website provider, you still need a strong email marketing platform. A community is everything when you are starting out and you NEED to be connecting with them beyond social media.

Creating an email list allows you to stay in contact with your audience, build trust with them through consistency and ultimately sell your offers and products, so this is an area you can’t skimp. I love Convertkit because it gives me the high-level segmenting (like Kajabi) without a major price tag.

If you’re looking for an email platform that can grow with you, I highly recommend. Get a free trial here.

3. Roadmap to Freedom

Shameless plug? I think so. Look, I’ve been doing this business thing for a few years now and if there is one thing I see so many entrepreneurs missing it is a step-by-step plan that supports them from start to finish.

I know if I had this at the beginning of my business I could have grown even faster. And this step-by-step plan does not mean starting on social media - that’s a big fat NO!

It’s following the 5-step roadmap to build a solid foundation, community and so much more. I’m sharing this exact roadmap in my upcoming masterclass, sign up here.

Want to learn more about the Roadmap to Freedom program that has helped so many women creating a thriving online business that allows them to make money on their terms and create a life bigger than their dreams? Head here: brandmerry.com/freedom

4. SmarterQueue

It’s no secret that social media is one of the best free tools for growing your business. It’s important when utilizing these platforms (think Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Facebook Groups and more) that you are consistent.

If you’re currently flying by the seat of your pants and coming up with content every day you’re going to get overwhelmed super quick AND if you’re posting your content once and then letting it drift away into the social media black hole you’re wasting time.

Enter SmarterQueue! SmarterQueue allows you to pre-schedule your content across multiple platforms and evergreen your content, meaning you can recycle your posts every few weeks so your great content is actually seen.

You need a social media scheduler for your business and your sanity and SmarterQueue is my favorite. Test out SmarterQueue for 30 days

5. Trello

And finally we get to my favorite topic...organization! Remember when I talked about flying by the seat of your pants and how that just doesn’t work?! Well, there is an easy and free fix to this and it’s Trello.

Trello allows you to create boards for your business, organize tasks, evergreen recurring tasks, communicate with team and so much more.

I don’t go a freaking day without utilizing my weekly Trello board and have boards for all areas of my life, including our full-time travel schedule. Read more about how I use Trello in my business.

And did I mention it’s free? There is literally no reason for you to NOT sign up. Sign up for Trello

There’s a lot of information, tools, resources, etc in the online space (mine included), but it really comes down to finding something that works well for someone else, testing it for 30 days and making modifications.

Trust me when I tell you I’ve done the testing and these are my top recommendations and shopping list for new and aspiring online biz owners.

Reminder: If you’re just getting started I highly recommend Kajabi so you don’t have to piece it all together and can create a platform that grows WITH YOU!

Please share your biggest takeaways from this blog post and how you’re going to implement this information in your own business!

Branding and Business Coach | Michelle Knight of Brandmerry

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.


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How to Gain Confidence in Selling Your Services

 

How to Gain Confidence in Selling Your Services

April 4, 2019

How to Gain Confidence in Selling Your Services

PREFER TO WATCH, INSTEAD OF READ? I’VE GOT YOU BOO. SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH A QUICK 9 minute video!

Do you currently feel super sleazy when it comes to selling? I see you over there not wanting to share your offers with the world.

You know you need to get on the phone with people, but then getting on the phone with people and then like freezing because selling has gotten a really bad rap.

We all think of the encyclopedia salesman who came door to door or the car salesman who has given us a really bad rap in movies.

We think of aunt Susie who is even worse trying to push her product to us through Facebook messenger or through text messenger and it's become a bit overwhelming. I'm telling you though, selling is essential if you want to create a profitable brand.

In today's post, I want to share with you how you can gain the confidence to sell your programs and your offers, to the people who need them most

Selling is super important if you want to create a profitable brand and as a branding and business mentor to female entrepreneurs, selling comes up a lot, especially because my audience really wants to create an authentic brand so they don't want to use silly, you know, sleazy sales tactics.

I want to share with you my favorite ways to boost your confidence because that's where it really, really lies. It lies in you knowing from the get-go that you have what they need and you feel really confident sharing that with them.

1. Build a Relationship

At the end of the day, selling comes down to the relationship. Creating truly authentic sales comes from understanding that your audience is human. They are a person and we need to remember that at the end of the day, we are seeing Facebook ads and we are seeing promotions galore and we are seeing popups on youtube or on websites that are all trying to sell us something.

Our audience is dealing with the same exact thing and so we really have to be different and that comes down to building trust with your audience.

There are so many different ways that you can build trust with your audience. My top way is creating high-quality content, (if you need some inspiration for creating content, you can go ahead and watch some of them on my Youtube channel or see the Blog Resources at the bottom of this blog).

Another way of showing up for them is answering questions and inviting them into your world, but at the end of the day, people buy because they trust you.

Selling will become easier when you know more about your audience and they know more about you. Think of it as a friendship. If I am your girlfriend and I am telling you about this brand new product that I tried, you're probably going to go to the website and buy the product because you trust me as your friend.

The same goes for our audience. When we can approach the relationship as if they are our friend, they're more likely to trust us. They are more likely to buy from us. You're literally showing up genuinely online having conversations with people.

It's a lost art that so many entrepreneurs miss, but that is how I have signed every single one of my clients through the power of trust and focusing on the relationship.

2. Believe in Your Offer

If you are creating some sort of program or an offer that doesn't feel true and authentic to you and you don't feel confident and actually delivering that value, it's going to be really hard to sell.

That's why one of the things that I work on in my signature program Roadmap to Freedom is all about creating an offer that feels good to you at that moment.

Focusing on teaching things or guiding or helping people transform their lives based on what you know right now, not where you want to be in 10 years.

If you feel confident in the transformation that you are providing, you are going to want to shout that from the rooftops and that's when those conversations become that much easier.

It becomes less about, let me tell you about all this cool stuff about my program and more about let me tell you about what I offer. “I think this is going to be really valuable for you. This is why I think it's going to support you. What do you think?”

You have more of a take it or leave it approach to selling, which doesn't come off gross, it comes off confident and has your audience feeling like you're not constantly pressuring them.

So again, feeling grounded in your offer and what you provide gives you the confidence to share it with ease.

3. Listen

One of the easiest ways to make a sale is to actually listen to the human on the other end of the phone, the chat box or the zoom call, by listening to someone and truly understanding where they're coming from and where they want to be, you can more successfully position your offer as the solution.

That's ultimately what it is selling is just offering up a solution to the problem. It's offering up the next step. It's removing the pressure of...you have to do this on this day and if you don't do this, all hell's gonna break loose.

I have conversations with mentors who do this and feel disgusting when they get off the phone with people. I want my conversations to be genuine and nothing is more genuine than asking someone where they're at and where they want to be and truly listening to what they have to say and then with full confidence knowing you can support them at the end of the day.

It really comes down to having a strong relationship with your community, feeling super grounded in your offer and listening to what the person on the other end really has to say because when you can do that, you're setting yourself up for major success, not just in your business but also with the clients you work with and the results that they will get.

If you are a coach, a consultant or a mentor and you want to learn my four proven ways to sign your next high level one on one client than I made you a free video training sharing the exact four steps that I used in my business in the very beginning to sign my first four clients and celebrate 15k cash in my business with a list under 100 people.

Real quick before you go, I have to share some exciting news with you. My signature program, Roadmap to Freedom is back and it is better than ever. We have made it more accessible to new and aspiring female entrepreneurs by adjusting the price point of the program because it is my personal goal to help more female entrepreneurs create their dream business so that they can experience true time, financial and location freedom.

At the beginning of my business, I remember what it was like feeling super overwhelmed, not sure exactly where to start, not sure what to work on next that what would lead me to profitability.

So I created a program that would do just that. Roadmap to Freedom is a step-by-step program that walks you through everything that you need to create a profitable brand and make money on your terms.

You can learn more about the program, read amazing case studies and testimonials at brandmerry.com/freedom.

Please share your biggest takeaways from this blog post and how you’re going to implement this information in your own business!

Branding and Business Coach | Michelle Knight of Brandmerry

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.


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How to Improve Your Focus as an Entrepreneur

 

How to Improve Your Focus as an Entrepreneur

March 21, 2019

How to improve your focus as an entrepreneur. Learn my top 5 tips!

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As an entrepreneur, one of the worst things that you can struggle with is having shiny object syndrome, or as I like to call it, s.o.s.

It is so hard to move your business forward if you're constantly jumping from idea to idea, project to project or worse, never actually completing anything.

And honestly, it can be detrimental to your business and kind of your sanity as well. It can feel overwhelming not knowing what to work on, feeling really caught up because you're not able to focus. And if you are struggling with this, know that you are so not alone. So many entrepreneurs struggle with focus and productivity, and that’s what I want to talk about today.

If you don't know a lot about my story, I started my business with a one-month-old baby.

I quickly returned to work two months later was working a nine to five, figuring out this whole mom thing and launching this business from scratch. So optimizing my time, being really lasered in and being productive when I was working on my business was so, so important.

I hear from entrepreneurs all the time about the lack of focus, the lack of productivity, not actually feeling like they are moving their business forward in a way that is allowing them to break free from their nine to five or support their family or travel the world..Whatever that desire might be for you.

Today, I wanted to chat with you about my favorite tips for improving focus, especially as an entrepreneur.

1. FLEX YOUR FOCUS MUSCLE

The first thing that you need to know when it comes to focus is that focus is a habit. If you don't currently have a great method for focusing or you feel like you have squirrel brain (you're all over the place), then it has to be a conscious decision that you make.

To change this habit, you have to make the decision now and create an awareness around it so that you can start flexing that muscle. I often say that focus and productivity is like a muscle. The more that you do it, the more that you practice it, the stronger you will actually become.

It's really easy to stay in this same cycle, to stay in a bad habit. It's like a wheel you're constantly on over and over and over again until you make the conscious decision that you're going to step off of that. The same goes with the habit around focus.

If you struggle with this, then you have to be super aware and on it, on those moments when you're not lasered in and focus and pull yourself into that different mindset. Every single thing that you will create around a new way of focusing and productivity will require daily action on your part.

It can be really easy to slip back into old habits, but I really encourage you to make the decision now to start taking those small actions and you will eventually see that this just becomes second nature to you and you're able to not just get more done, but actually be productive in your business.

2. BRAINSTORMING SESSION

Your girl right here constantly, has ideas. And if I just let those ideas flutter around in my brain, I would always feel overwhelmed. So the key that I have initiated from the very beginning is a brain dump. Like didn't we all learn how to do this in elementary school? We're getting ready to write a report or write a short story and we have to do a whole brainstorming session.

That's exactly what you're doing here. I call it a brain dump because we're taking everything that's going on up here that's driving us freaking crazy and we're dumping it into a list and getting it out of here so we can focus on what we actually need to do.

If you are a creative entrepreneur or a creative person than I know those ideas are constantly coming at you and you can't quite figure out which one you should be focusing on to actually see results. The spinning, the constant spinning back and forth is what's keeping you stuck because you can't see a clear plan of action to get from here to here.

Oftentimes those ideas that we have might not be right for this moment, but we're so hung up on him. We're so clouded by all of the ideas floating around in our head that we can't actually map out our own step-by-step.

So getting these ideas out on paper; I prefer to use Trello for this. You can do a complete brain dump in Trello to get you started and you'll be able to see with your eyeballs the things that you need to do and the things that aren't needed in this moment.

My tip for you, after you do this brain dump, is to actually pull out the pieces that are going to make the biggest impact for you in the next 30 days.

This is a great habit to start getting into because you're looking at the bigger picture of your brand. I'm not going to overwhelm you and be like 90 days out. Like let's just focus on 30 days at a time. By brain dumping all of that information, pulling out the pieces that you think are going to be the most important in the next 30 days, and then starting to prioritize.

Again, I love Trello and for this next step after our initial brain dump, I recommend using some sort of tool like Trello. There's also Asana out there, monday.com, tons of options for you, and organizing those individual pieces into smaller actionable steps.

In the beginning it's gonna feel like snail-like motion, but eventually you're going to really create a rhythm. The only way to do that is to actually get clear on all the little bitty nitty gritty details that you actually need to do in your business.

With each of these individual projects that you have prioritized, I use Trello to create different cards for those projects and add in all the tiny steps.

The key here is for you to take that big idea and break it down into all the tiny little details that are going to help you get that done. Remember, it is in the small actions, we start to feel really overwhelmed when we're just looking at one big task and we're like, how do I get there? What do I need to do now? And we're Ping ponging around.

If you can break it down into these small little actions, put a little checkbox next to it when you are completed with it and know that, oh if I do all 10 of these things, I will get that done.

3. embrace your calendar + MAP IT OUT

Okay, let's talk about scheduling your time. I know you're an entrepreneur. I know that you decided to break free from the nine to five life or maybe you've gone part time or whatever because you want complete control of your schedule. You still need to use a calendar. I don't care if you are an entrepreneur, I don't care what you're doing.

You need to embrace your calendar by giving yourself time to schedule out these individual task is going to save you so much time and energy in the long run.

Remember, you don't always have to be scheduling every tiny little detail as you start to create this habit, but especially in the beginning, I want you to start scheduling and time blocking all of those individual tasks.

If you caught my post last week where I talked about content creation and the four tools and tips that I use, I talked about batch scheduling. This is also something that you need to get into the habit of scheduling, not just the tiny little parts, but also those batch scheduling sessions that you use in your business, whether that is creating content, filming videos, engaging with your audience.

Start putting those in your calendar as well so you can really see where you need to be laser focused and on which project and where you a little bit more breathing room and flexibility.

So again, being your most focused and productive self is a habit that you have to practice. You have to flex that muscle.

These tips are what's really going to help you get started in creating this habit. Remember, we need to get all of those ideas out of your magnificent brain, onto a piece of paper or some sort of computer software so that we can start strategizing how you're going to move forward.

After the brain dump, you want to identify the most important pieces, the ones that are going to have the biggest impact in the next 30 days. Then you went to breakdown each of those individual tasks into tiny little actionable steps and get them on your calendar. This way, you know every single day what you're working on, where your energy and focus needs to go and you know and you trust that each of those small actions is leaving to the bigger goal, the bigger picture and your business.

4. PRODUCTIVITY HACKS

Another thing that I absolutely encourage you to do is use something that allows you to take multiple breaks. One of the ways that you can increase your focus and productivity is not staring at a screen for like eight hours. Get into the habit of taking frequent breaks while you're working on something every 50-60 minutes is usually a good mark, but if you're the type of person who needs every 30 minutes to get up, walk around, meditate, do something, then go ahead and do that.

My favorite thing to use is those little cute productivity cubes and finally one of my brand new favorite tools that I absolutely love is called habit lab. It is a chrome extension and it monitors the time that you've spent on various platforms.

Nothing will break your focus more than your inability to walk away from Gmail or your horrible obsession with spiraling on Facebook.

If you find yourself wasting tons of time on Facebook or Instagram and Gmail, then you are missing out on your focus and your productivity and therefore you aren't moving your business forward.

Putting a chrome extension onto your browser is going to help you get into that habit of not going to that platform every time you have a little bitty break. Utilizing these tools is only going to help you, you guessed it, flex that focus muscle.

You want regular tips and tricks on productivity. Be sure to follow me on Instagram at instagram.com/brandmerrycoaching.

I'm talking about all the behind the scenes of how I run my business, how I manage being a mother, how we're traveling full time, how I work with my husband, the communication that needs to happen. It really comes down to being super productive.

Don’t forget to grab my free content planner, which will support you in improving the focus when it comes to creating awesome content! You can get that at brandmerry.com/contentcalendar.

Branding and Business Coach | Michelle Knight of Brandmerry

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.


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4 Tools To Improve Your Content Creation

 
 
Learn four of my favorite tools and tips to improve your content creation.
 

PREFER TO WATCH, INSTEAD OF READ? I’VE GOT YOU BOO. WATCH The QUICK 11 MINUTE VIDEO here!


It is no freaking secret that if you want to create a strong personal brand, you need to be showing up consistently online.

There's a lot of information out there on what type of content to create, but we very rarely talk about how you can show up consistently for your audience and I can't stress enough how important this is.

If you currently have no content strategy and you're showing up periodically, if at all, then this blog is going to support you with my four tools that I use to create consistent content.

I absolutely love content creation and I really don't think that you can have a strong social media presence without it. I don't think that you can create a strong bond with your community if you aren’t consistently showing up for them.

Not to mention when you are showing up and delivering amazing content, you are positioning yourself as the expert that you are.

Therefore they know what you offer, why you will be great for them and they want to take advantage of the product or the service that you're laying out for them on the table.

If you aren't showing up for them regularly, how do they know who you are and therefore they probably don't trust you? A really strong content strategy is needed to build trust with your audience.

One of my favorite quotes, you'll probably hear me say it in about a hundred different times, is from Zig Ziglar and he says, “If they like you, they will listen to you. If they trust you, they will do business with you.”

Consistent content is one of the key pieces that you need to build trust with your audience.

If you want more content on content creation, just let me know in the comments below by typing “content please”.

Today we are going to talk about four tools that will help you create consistent content in your business.

1. ORGANIZATION

All right, I'm a Virgo. I get it. We're not all amazing and organization and planning and strategizing and all of that, but I'm telling you, if you are flying by the seat of your pants when it comes to content creation, you're going to keep struggling uphill and not in a good way.

Creating content on the fly is always going to feel like you can't come up with content ideas and you're going to be stressed out in the moment and writing emails. It's going to take like an hour as opposed to eight minutes because you do not have a clear plan in place.

Now I have a big fan of using a content planner and there's a lot of word on the street that planning out your content isn't great because you cannot be inspired. And I say, no, I do not believe that.

When you have a clear plan of when you are showing up for your audience, where you are showing up for your audience, and if you already know the topic, fantastic pencil that in there too, then guess what?

You're less stressed, you're less overwhelmed and it allows for inspiration to come more easily. Here's the beautiful thing about a content calendar.

You are in control of your content calendar so you can move things around as inspiration strikes, but there's not going to be any room for inspiration if you're constantly stressed out about what you're going to say to your community and how you're going to show up.

When creating a content calendar, having that clear organization really is key to a strong content strategy and therefore a strong personal brand.

One of my favorite ways to organize content is using my signature brand containers. Now you might be like, was that Michelle? So I made you a free gift. I have a free downloadable content planner for you, which includes a training video on the core brand container strategy that I use. It shows you how to use that to create content, how to organize content, and I've created, let me just say a very, very cool content planner for you.

You can get your hands on that with the link below or by going to brandmerry.com/contentcalendar.

So the first thing you have to do again is organize your content, have a very clear idea of what you want to say to your audience when you're going to say it, and where you're going to be showing up to relieve that stress and that constant overwhelm of, “oh my gosh, what am I doing today?”

2. GET A SCHEDULER

The second tool that you need to have as an online entrepreneur is some sort of scheduler. This is where you would input to your content and it would push it out onto your social media platforms.

Now I also understand there's a lot of, “oh my gosh, do schedulers work?. Do they not work? Oh my gosh, does it not give me the biggest reach?”

But here's the thing, if you're currently not showing up at all or you're showing up so sporadically that your audience has no idea who you are, then your reach is kinda sucks anyways.

So you need to be using a scheduler, especially in the beginning to get yourself into that routine to regularly show up for your audience and build trust.

Later on if you notice your reach isn't as great or whatever, you can stop using the scheduler if you want.

If you are starting out in your business, and even today I still use schedulers in my business and my reach pretty good. It saves my but time and time again.

My favorite schedule that for this is actually SmarterQueue. We're going to go ahead and link it in the comments below. I love SmarterQueue for a few reasons.

  • It allows me to post content on multiple platforms.

  • I particularly use it for my Facebook page and my various Facebook groups, my free one and my one to actually evergreen content.

  • I can create monthly posts that recycle in each of these groups.

So while there are a ton of schedulers out there, I personally love SmarterQueue because of the evergreen option. And so if I have a really great piece of content, I love to extend the life of it. So why not have a scheduler that does that for me and SmarterQueue is my top pick at the end of the day.

You just need to choose one. There are a ton of options out there. Play with them a little bit. It started with one and start scheduling your content. So you're showing up consistently for your audience.

3. CANVA

Can we, can we get an amen for Canva? Can we just for a second think about what it was like before Canva and how hard it was? I love Canva. I remember one of the very first blog post I wrote was all about Canva cause it was like all the only thing I knew how to do it in my business at the time.

I love Canva for several purposes. Here's the thing. Creating content needs to have a visual component to it. It's just going to make it stand out even better than if you were just to post something blab that just like everyone wants to scroll through. So having some sort of visual component that grabs the attention of your audience and then keeps them really engaged with the actual content, it’s key.

Canva is going to be your best friend there as well. The free option and a paid option. So you can take your pick. I use the paid option because it allows me to seamlessly create branded content, which is so important for me in my business. But y'all, most of my clients use the free version.

Here's why Canva’s so cool. You can create templates for all your different pieces and I'm such a big fan of bulk scheduling, which is why we just talked about the scheduler as tip number two.

But bulk scheduling allows you to sit down for a chunk of time, get in your zone of genius, right out your content, create your graphics and schedule so the rest of the week you can focus on building relationships and nurturing that audience, not coming up with the content, scheduling it and trying to do all of that while running a business.

So I love Canva because as I'm creating my content can go into Canva, find my favorite templates because they have them all laid out for you, customize them and add them to my scheduler. It is so very cool.

If you are not using Canva now, I highly, highly recommend that you check them out. I’m not even affiliated, just obsessed.

4. BULK SCHEDULING

If you struggle with creativity, if you struggle with getting your head in that space, into that zone where you can write and create that beautiful copy that resonates with your audience, you need to embrace bulk scheduling.

Bulk scheduling was a game changer for me at the beginning of my business because I had no other choice while working a nine to five having a new baby and trying to build this business from scratch, I didn't have a ton of time to actually create content, but I knew how important it was.

So along with a scheduler and the use of Canva and obviously the organization told that I made for you for free below, I use bulk scheduling to my advantage.

Back in the old days, I used to book schedule on Sundays. I would carve out three hours of time on a Sunday. I would sit down, I would write out all my content, design it and schedule it, and now I actually do that on Mondays.

Get into the habit of blocking out time in your schedule. You can do this. Whether you work a nine to five have children or full time entrepreneur. It does not matter if you can make it the same time every week even better because it will get your brain kind of in that routine of, “Ooh, tomorrow's content day. I've gotta be on my a game to write amazing content for my community.“

These four tools are so basic, they're so easy to start implementing in your business. I highly recommend you start tomorrow. Creating content is a non-negotiable.

If you want to create a strong personal brand and therefore a profitable brand through your content.

Don't forget to grab your lifesaver tool, the free content planner and my training video on brand containers. You can get that at brandmerry.com/contentcalendar.

Please share your biggest takeaways from this blog post and how you’re going to implement this information in your own business!

Branding and Business Coach | Michelle Knight of Brandmerry
 

P.S. Planning and creating your content doesn't have to be a constant struggle. There is a better way to research, plan, and create your content as an entrepreneur and it's all inside the Content Planning Blueprint!

The Content Planning Blueprint is perfect for online business owners who know the power of content creation but are tired of spending all of their time coming up with ideas, organizing their content, and wondering what will attract their dream clients.

In just a few hours, you'll have 90 days of content planned, a repeatable workflow to save you hours on creating and distributing your content every week, and content topics that will keep performing for your brand for years to come! Get your blueprint now >>

Download this free content creation planner and map out a month of content in as little as 30-minutes plus learn my #1 strategy to come up with content ideas with ease.

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4 Steps to an authentic and revenue-generating personal brand

 

4 Steps to an authentic and
revenue-generating personal brand

March 7, 2019

4 Steps to a Strong Personal Brand.png

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Personal Branding is all about you, right? Or is it? That tends to be the really big question. How much do we share? What do we share? What actually makes up a personal brand?

Personal branding is super hot right now and with good reason, but people struggle all the time with what does a personal brand actually mean? How much do we share? And I really want to lay it out for you in today's blog post.

Through showing up as my true self, I have been able to create a six-figure business in the online space and work with women every single day to lay a strong foundation, tap into their authenticity so that they can show up and make money doing what they truly love to do.

So today I want to break it down for you into some really actionable steps you can walk away, implement and start seeing your personal brand take form. There are four parts to a strong, captivating personal brand and I want to kick it off with a number one, my personal favorite.

1. Your Story

The first thing you really need to do as a personal brand is to actually identify your story. You need to identify the reason behind your brand. You need to identify the mission behind your brand and tap into the different ways that your story, your personality brings that to life.

One of the things that separate a personal brand from a regular brand is the personality behind it and so you want to be able to input you into everything that you do in the online space and there's no better way to do that and set yourself apart from other people than by tapping into your story.

I highly recommend looking at your business, looking at the brand that you want to create, and then look back at your story.

There are various chapters to see which ones connect to where you are now. This is going to help you get started and actually sharing your story in the online space and start to build that trust, like and know factor with your audience.

2. Your Superpower

Now I'm a big fan of the idea of a superpower because this is your little bitty specific niche that sets you apart from everyone else that makes you so irresistible. So for me, my superpower is my ability to support women and help them tap into their story.

Storytelling and branding is what I love to do. Every program, every video, every everything that I talk about always talks about story.

And so you want to find your superpower and you want to play this up through your personal brand. Make this a core element of your brand so you become that person, that go to person in the industry where people are referring you. “Girl, you want to know a story about branding? Go talk to Michelle”. That's ultimately what you want.

3. Know your audience

The third thing that you need to know is who the hell you're talking to. You cannot create a personal brand or you cannot show up in the online space if you don't know who you want to attract to that personal brand. Yes, a big part of branding is you, yourself. That's the big part of the personal brand, but if you cannot effectively communicate to your audience because you don't know who your audience is, then your personal brand will continue to just be you. There will be no community or fans around your personal brand.

So you really need to get in touch with who your audience is. Now, I'm a crazy person for market research. I love it, till the day that I die, it will be my best friend and I encourage you to do the same. But market research does not have to be scary. It can be as simple as having some conversations with people, creating a poll, emailing your list. If you have a list, just even five people and asking them some questions that are gonna help you get in touch with who they are, what they're struggling with, what they desire, and what's keeping them from the life that they dream of.

4. Messaging

And the fourth piece of defining a personal brand comes down to the communication or messaging. Now this is the last piece because you literally can not have this piece until you have one, two, and three.

So just a reminder, number one is your story. Number two is your superpower. Number three is who you're talking to. And now it's about how do you communicate who you are to your audience. In a way that has them wanting to take action.

A lot of people refer to this as the communication or the messaging. At the end of the day it's you showing up talking about what you do in a way that is appealing to your audience.

So I get this question a lot. “How much do I share?” “What parts of my story do I share?” And this is the communication component.

If you have a piece of your story that you think is really amazing, but you cannot connect that to your audience, it's not the right time to share that.

So some of the key things that I love to ask myself are, is this valuable to my audience?And what kind of value do they get?

This allows me to make sure everything that I'm creating with my personal brand, every way that I'm communicating it through my marketing, my email and my social media is always going to resonate with my audience. This is the key.

Make sure your messaging is clearly communicating the benefit of working with you, of your service, of your product, with your audience so they can really see themselves in the outcome of your product.

Now you understand what is needed to create a strong personal brand. It really comes down to these four pieces and I encourage you to take the time to dive into those pieces.

I love talking about storytelling. I love talking about marketing. If you want some more marketing tips that apply to you actually showing up and sharing your personal story then I encourage you to sign up for my free masterclass. I’m sharing How to Build a Better Brand.

If you want to get your hands on that, head to brandmerry.com/brandmasterclass.

Please share your biggest takeaways from this blog post and how you’re going to implement this information in your own business!

Branding and Business Coach | Michelle Knight of Brandmerry

P.S. Are we connected on Instagram? No? Well lady what’s happening here we’ve got to fix that. Come hang out with me on my favorite social media platform. Follow for inspiration and send me a DM to know we’re connected.


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