3 Moves That Made Me A 6-Figure Business Owner

3 Moves That Made Me A 6-Figure Business Owner

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

I know why you're here. You saw that title, six figures, and my guess is that you are really close to it or you have a goal to reach in a short amount of time. 

I'm so excited and honored to talk to you about the three moves, and ultimately shifts, that led me to create a six-figure business within one year of signing my first client. 

First, I want to make one thing clear: you are not going to learn about some strategy that's going to turn you into a six-figure business owner overnight. I am not about that 10K-in-10-days life for new entrepreneurs who need to do the work. 

The things that I'm going to teach you today are going to require energy on your part and they're going to require some work. But guess what? If you want to create a sustainable and scalable business as an online entrepreneur, you've got to be in it for the long haul. 

I know so many entrepreneurs are right there at the cusp of it. Or you're sitting there at your desk and you've got a post-it in front of you that says SIX-FIGURE BUSINESS, in all caps! 

I'm not saying that six-figures is the end all be all. I want you to, and I hope that you want to, continue to scale your business past six figures, but this, for many of us, is the very first hurdle. 

I know that was true for me.

MY JOURNEY TO SIX-FIGURES

I started my business in 2016 after the birth of my son. I was working a nine-to-five at the time and I got this crazy idea that I wanted to start my own business. 

I'm not an entrepreneur by trade, I don't come from a family of entrepreneurs, so this kind of came out of left field. 

As I began to expand and grow my business and invest in different things, I learned very, very quickly that there were three major shifts that needed to happen in order for me to actually sign clients and create revenue.

I went eight months without signing clients in my business, but after I signed that first client and these shifts started rolling out, I hit six figures in just one year. 

It is my goal to support you in getting to that milestone and then continuing to use these shifts that are going to serve you for years and years to come.

1. MASTER MY MINDSET

The first move that I made in my business was to get in true alignment with my goal. 

No one told me that being an entrepreneur was a fast track in personal development work. But you quickly realize that as the CEO, in the beginning as pretty much the only person on your team and a one-person show, that you've really got to have your head in the game. 

If your head's not in the game, the strategies won't work. All the things that you're doing just won't work. 

That's one of our beliefs over here at Brandmerry, that you have got to have strategy and mindset in order for both of them to complement one another. 

But I didn't know that in the beginning and since strategy comes very, very easy to me, it took me a little bit longer to get my mindset to match. 

There were two specific areas that I had to focus on when it came to mindset. 

Number one was my money mindset, and number two was my mindset or my belief around perfectionism. 

MONEY MINDSET

Now, when it came to my money mindset, there were two pieces that I needed to focus on. One was looking at the past beliefs and stories and chapters that I had gone through that were contributing to my current beliefs around money. 

This belief was that people who made money were bad people. 

There was a lot of work that I had to do to ultimately redefine what success and having money meant to me. I quickly realized that by having more money, I could ultimately contribute more. 

I could hire a team and support a team, I could support my family, I could have more of an impact in the world. It's taken a few years for me to really get to this place of feeling really confident in saying that to you.

In order to get here, one of the first things that I had to do was go back and journal on my beliefs. I specifically asked myself three questions.

What are the beliefs that I'm carrying around money? 
What was I taught as a child? 
What did my teachers say to me about money? 

I grew up in the nonprofit sector. I worked in the nonprofit sector for a very long time, and the work we did was amazing, but ultimately the pay was not. I was carrying some of those beliefs with me as I began to grow my business. 

One of the beautiful things about being an entrepreneur, but also one of the hardest, is that there's no ceiling. We can ultimately make as much money as we want because we are fully in control of bringing that money in with the right marketing strategies and mindset. 

I really had to shift into that place so that I could have more of that expansive energy. In an episode I did on my lifestyle podcast, The Beautiful Climb, I go more in depth with my money story and some of the specific things that I did to help me shift. Listen to the episode here.

PERFECTIONISM

The second thing that I needed to do was release the beliefs that I had around perfectionism. 

I grew up as a die-hard perfectionist and I am still in the process of recovering from this. Thank you, Brene Brown, for all of your amazing work. I don't know if I would be here without you. 

I loved Daring Greatly by Brene Brown, but any book by Brene Brown is truly incredible if you struggle with perfectionism. I also talked about perfectionism in this video and how detrimental it can be to entrepreneurs.

When I was starting out, I would wait to post a video, I would wait to send emails, I would sit and edit my website over and over and over and over again. 

But as an entrepreneur, you have to be visible. 

If I wasn't showing up, I wasn't bringing in community members and I wasn't making any money. 

This is why it took me eight months to sign a client. I had to really start working on this idea of perfectionism and start peeling back the layers.

The number one thing that I did was just hit the button. 

I remember that first email, after days of agonizing over the process, I was like, "Oh my gosh, they don't even care. I'm just going to hit the button." I hit it and I was like, "Oh, okay. This is fine. If I just keep doing that over and over again, eventually it will become super easy," and that's where I am today. 

There was a lot of internal work that I had to do in order to make money in my business, and those were two of the main areas that I had to begin with and really dive into.

ACTION STEP: Think about your relationship with money and the negative feelings you are carrying around.

2. BUILD A SOLID FOUNDATION

The second move that I needed to accomplish before I could hit six figures was building a solid brand foundation. 

Because of this experience and my success, I now have an entire course called You! Branded. I also teach this inside of my free class, Build a Better Brand Method. 

But when I started, I skipped the entire process. That's why I'm so passionate about it. 

I watch entrepreneurs skip their brand all of the time. 

I thought that if I could just glaze over it, that I would know who my ideal customer was and I would understand what a brand really meant and I would have clear messaging.

It turns out that by skipping over it or even skimming it just a bit, you don't build a solid foundation and there’s nowhere to scale.

When you're thinking of building your business, I want you to think about building an actual building. You're setting a strong foundation at the base, that's your brand. Then as you continue to scale, add offers, new marketing strategies, all of that stuff, you're supported because you've taken the time and the energy to build a solid foundation. 

I skipped this crucial piece and so for eight months I didn't make any money, but as soon as I got into the nitty-gritty, as soon as I really solidified and got specific with my niche, I understood my story and my brand story and how that played a role, I got super clear on who I was speaking to, I understood how to create consistent messaging, and I tapped into my emotional branding, that is when my existing community started to respond. 

Those first clients that I signed weren't new to me, they'd been around for months, but suddenly I was speaking so clearly and connecting with them on such a deep level that they were ready to invest.

I created a video for you right here on emotional branding that I definitely want you to check out. 

It's going to be really beneficial for you in your journey. 

ACTION STEP: If you don't know what a solid brand foundation looks like, I do have a free class for you, it's called the Build a Better Brand Method. You can sign up for that at betterbrandmethod.com.

3. BUILD OUT SYSTEMS

The final move that I made, when it came to building a six-figure business, was getting my systems in place. 

I'm kind of nuts about this now, it's one of the things that I teach inside of Brandmerry Academy because I recognized very, very quickly how much time I got back by having my systems in place. 

Sometimes we postpone putting our systems in place, I'm talking about your content creation system, your client onboarding system, your SOPs for behind the scenes on how you launch a new podcast or launch a new product, for example. 

We wait to do that because it does take some time commitment and a little bit of work, but the long haul and how much time you actually save yourself months and months down the line is incredible.

One of the systems that I put in place really early on in my business was my content creation workflow. I've really embraced the art of repurposing. 

I started mastering my weekly workflow early on because, as I mentioned, I was working a nine-to-five, I had a new baby, and then I was also trying to scale this business. 

I understood that I needed to just show up and get visible and create content so that people could find me, but I only had this much time, so I wanted to make the most out of that time. 

I put together this repurposing workflow, this system for my business, and I've continued to use it and scale it even today. This video that I'm recording is one of three that I'm recording in a one-hour time increment because I'm bulk scheduling, which is part of my process.

Five years later, I'm still using the same content workflow system as when I first started. 

When I first started implementing these systems in my business, not only did I find myself working more efficiently, but I had way more time to do the things that I love to do. 

ACTION STEP: Download my Repurposing Guide to learn how to create your weekly content workflow and set up one of your most important systems.

CONCLUSION

One of the things I don't think is talked about a lot is as you're growing your business, especially to the six-figure mark, is that it's going to take a lot of time and energy. 

Anywhere where you can free up pockets of time, you can actually have fun and enjoy the journey, is going to mean so much to you. 

So when you look back, you don't want to say, “Oh my gosh, I never slept, I never ate, it was horrible." 

You want to look back and say, "Dang, I did that and I'm really, really proud of what I did because I also had the capacity to enjoy life," which is always the goal, right? 

Why have a successful business, if you can't also enjoy the rewards, reap the rewards and enjoy the life that comes with that?

Those are the three moves that I had to make in my business to hit 6-figures and I continue to use them today as I move to new income goals and growth.

Make sure that you watch the Build a Better Brand Method masterclass. It is so important, no matter where you're at in your business, that you make sure that all of those little spots are filled in because it will have an impact on your scalability moving forward. 

Remember, it's not just about hitting the first six figures, it's about continuing to do that over and over again and scaling to the million-dollar mark and it starts with your brand.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Write An About Me Page

Today, on The Authentic Brand Builders Podcast (choose to listen below or continue reading the blog version), we're talking about your 'About Me' page. My goal is that you have everything you need to craft an ‘About Me’ page that is going to work FOR your brand, not against it!

One of the key beliefs we have over here at Brandmerry is that your website is important and should work FOR you. It's not enough to just get views. You want your website to actually convert into revenue.

There are a few things that we know about websites. 

Number one, we know that the homepage is typically the most visited page, especially if you're utilizing SEO strategies, search engine optimization, which is one of our trainings inside of Brandmerry Academy.

Number two, the second most visited page is your 'About Me' page. That tells us a lot of juicy information about your 'About Me' page, including that people care about the story and the person behind the brand.

If you've ever asked yourself, "Well, I don't think people care. Do people care? Do people care why I created this? Or do people care what has led me to this moment in my life and why I launched my business?" 

The answer is, "Absolutely they do.” 

It also tells us what we should include on our 'About Me' page. 

A lot of other branding and marketing experts will tell you that your 'About Me' page should be 100% about your ideal customer. I do not believe that is true. I have not believed that from the beginning. And I stand by that five years later.

So, today we’re diving into your ‘About Me’ page so you feel confident crafting yours. This is a continuation of episodes and blogs where we’re giving you fundamental pieces for building your brand.

We have talked about your brand’s mission.

We have outlined the difference between branding and marketing and where you should start. 

We have talked about your brand values. 

We've talked about jumping ship in your marketing, and today we're going to talk about your 'About Me' page because it is incredibly important.

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YOUR ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE IS ABOUT YOU

Let’s just set the record straight that your 'About Me' page should be about you! 

It should be about the person behind the brand or the people behind the brand. 

If I'm a consumer and I'm on a website and it says, 'About Me' at the top and I click on that, and then the whole entire page tells me nothing about the person behind the brand, why they started their business, why they choose their products, anything like that, I’m incredibly turned off. 

I didn't click through to learn more about myself. 
I clicked through to learn more about you. 
It's helping me in my decision-making process. 

Over on the Brandmerry blog, we have a blog post on the consumer buying process and the different stages customers go through before making a purchase decision. 

When someone is at the evaluation stage, where they are looking at the different solutions to their problem, that's when we find that people love to visit the 'About Me' page of a brand because they want to know who the person is, the mission, and the values behind a brand. That information can help them with their decision-making process.

So your 'About Me' page is incredibly important. It is often what I recommend to be the second page that you create on your website, as it's the second most viewed.

YOUR ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE FOR CONSUMERS

You also want to think about writing your ‘About Me’ page for a consumer. 

Think about if you're buying a skincare product and you're at a place where you're looking at two or three different brands, and you go to an 'About Me' page, what do you want to see? 

What do you want to read? 

Last year, we were buying a new mattress. I was going between a few different companies. I had narrowed it down, and I was looking at the story behind each one, and that's how I ended up choosing the bed that we went with, because I loved their story, and I love their mission, and I love the way that they shared that. That pulled me in, and it made my decision for me.

The decision was because of their story, and I even went with the most expensive option!

3 TIPS FOR WRITING AN 'ABOUT ME' PAGE

TELL A STORY

As we talked about in the brand storytelling episode, don't miss the opportunity to tell a story. 

Storytelling is incredibly powerful and incredibly important. It's going to build that connection, that trust with your audience. 

I've signed clients because of my 'About Me' page. 

I have had people reach out to me and submit an application for 1:1 consulting. We’ll have a conversation via email, and I’ll answer questions to support them in their decision. Then I'll get an email from them 24 hours later that says, "All right, I'm ready to go. I just read your 'About Me' page, sign me up." 

Your ‘About Me’ page can be one of your most powerful assets. And you're going to get the most out of those pages if you are actually telling a story. 

Keep reading for my top tips for writing yours.

INCLUDE PERSONAL PHOTOS

I love brand photography. It's one of my favorite ways to enhance the branding experience, and I encourage my clients to have a professional photo shoot for their brand because photos are incredibly powerful, and we know this. 

Photos are also linked to improving brand affinity, which is a deeper level of connection, typically through mission, values, and trust that a consumer has for a brand. 

Photos are a great way to build that brand affinity because, through photography, you can share different moments and experiences in your life that allow your audience to say, "Oh my gosh, I know them." Instagram's a great example of this in action.

Utilizing photos to showcase whatever story you're telling.

So showcasing these different photos is a great way to build that connection. 

For your 'About Me' page, I recommend not loading it with a bunch of professional photos, but putting in more lifestyle-type photos. Showcase photos of you at different places, in different outfits with different facial expressions, maybe you with your children, with your dog, on a trip, or with a glass of wine. 

We follow people and we're like, "Oh, I know them," or "They did this," or "This is so-and-so's favorite wine," or "Did you know, so-and-so's dog?" and we feel like we know them!

Focus on showcasing what you're saying on the page, through your storytelling in the photos; not just typing out your story, but showing your story visually through photography. 

HAVE A CALL TO ACTION

When it comes to brand storytelling to move someone through to purchasing a product, we can't just tell stories to tell stories. We have to have a call to action. 

On an 'About Me' page, I love to have two CTA’s.

The first CTA is a click-through to your product or your service. If your ideal customer has read all the way to the bottom, they're probably pretty committed. And if they're further along in the buying process, say stage three or four, they're ready to make a purchase decision, and having that button there can be incredibly powerful.

In addition to that, and below that, I love to share a lead magnet. The second CTA should be your free gift/ lead magnet to capture their attention.

Again, if someone has read your full ‘About Me’ page, they're committed, but maybe they're not at a place where they're ready to invest. So having a way for them to opt in to your email list through a lead magnet can be incredibly powerful for capturing their information and being able to stay in contact with them.

So those are three must-haves for your 'About Me' page. 

Your story, having photos that show different moments in time, not just professional photos, and a call to action. Typically, a link to go purchase your product, your service, or your product suite page, and your lead magnet opt-in.

HOW TO WRITE YOUR 'ABOUT ME’ PAGE

Now I'm going to share with you my insider, super complicated, never-before-released method for writing your 'About Me' page! 

Brace yourself because it's easy. We overthink things all of the time when it comes to writing our copy, and one of the reasons that I encourage my clients to write their 'About Me' page, in the beginning, is because it's great practice in writing your story and pulling in pieces, like your mission and your values.

STEP ONE: IDENTIFY 3 TRANSITIONS

To begin, think about three transitions that have happened in your life. These can be three moments that are close together in your timeline or they can be spread out over the years. The timing does not matter, but I want you to think about these three transitions as a launching-off point.

Identifying these moments can include:

• A moment where something changed in your life. 

• Something happened to you, and you had to change course or direction. 

• You made a decision and you changed course. 

• You learned a valuable lesson, and you decided to do something different.

Think about these pivots or transitions. No more than three for our purposes here.

Write each of these out!

STEP TWO: PIECE IT TOGETHER

From there, I want you to write out each of those different things and then piece them together, and you have an 'About Me' page!  

There's one last part of the process, but I want to share my three with you first as an example of steps one and two. 

My first transition was when I decided not to go to college right after high school. I was the Salutatorian of my class. I had gotten an incredible scholarship to Loyola University, and I decided that I didn't want to do that. I had a long history with perfectionism and was just at a place in my life where I was not happy and was ready to take bold action and do something that felt good for me. It was the first time in my life that I had made a decision that went against what everyone around me wanted for me. And it was a big deal.

In this first transition, I'm setting the tone. I'm saying, "Oh, this is who I was, and then this happened in 2005." The more dates that you can use, the better. Those are incredibly helpful for markers and a great way to keep your audience engaged. 

Next, I talk about how I wanted to be in musical theater. To be a star on Broadway, I was going to school for that in 2008 when my brother was diagnosed with cancer. I go on to talk about going through that experience. I don't go into every detail about that event. It's not necessary. It's sacred to me. I don't need to share it with everyone, but that was an important part of my life and did impact the business that I have today. So I share that piece of the puzzle.

Then I talk about after losing my brother, marrying my husband, and finally present the third transition, which was the birth of my son. This transition is where I focus the majority of my energy because that is what ultimately led to my business. 

The birth of my son got me thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, what I wanted to create, and how I wanted to be home with him, and that ultimately led to the creation of Brandmerry. 

You can head here to read my full ‘About Me’ page, in fact, I encourage you to do that! It’s recently been updated, so it’s fun to see the new updates and transitions.

It's a great case study. 

What I want you to focus on is that I've led the reader through three transitions. I've also recognized how my audience can connect with those pieces and highlight those elements throughout.

Some of those elements are:

• Perfectionism. So many people in my audience and my ideal customers are recovering perfectionists or perfectionists, or they are starting their business or doing something that's different from what they originally were doing. So by sharing that first transition, there's that connection piece. 

• Grief and Loss. We've all experienced grief and loss. Maybe it wasn't your sibling, it was someone else or something, but we can all relate to that feeling. And that is something that connects us and many of my clients and my customers who have had these moments that have triggered the mission that they have, or have triggered them to do the work that they do in the world. 

• Starting My Business. My community is also made up of people who want to start businesses or have businesses. So we all have that moment where we're like, "I'm going to do this dang thing," and that's why I share mine. 

Choose your moments very strategically based on the connection with your audience. 

And then finally, what you want to do is lead to where it is now. 

We always talk about a beginning, middle, and end to storytelling. But with an 'About Me' page, it's like a beginning, middle, and here we are now, continuing into the future. 

STEP THREE: SET UP THE BUSINESS

Don’t think about an end to your ‘About Me’ page, but rather the next steps!

This is where you want to share your mission statement, talk about the work that you do, and lead to that work-with-me page. 

It’s also where I recommend including your Hook, i.e., who you are, who you serve, their struggle, and their desires.

If you sell a product, you can talk about when you recognized there was a need for your product. Maybe you went through a period where you talked about where you tested a bunch of stuff and it didn't work, and you felt defeated, and then you finally got the prototype that worked, and you put it out into the world. And here's where you are now.

If you have a t-shirt clothing line that uses organic cotton, why did you decide to do that?

There are so many different things that you can do. Don't limit yourself to the product and service that you sell. Focus on telling that story about the person or the people behind the brand because that's what the 'About Me' page is ultimately intended for.

Inside my program, Magnetic Brand Story, we take a deeper dive into what we call the heroine's journey, which goes into more detail on crafting your story, showcasing multiple peaks and dips in your story, and how to craft it! 

However, for years and years, the three transitions were all I taught and used, and still to this day. It’s also available inside Magnetic Brand Story.

LENGTH OF YOUR ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE

Here's the last thing that I'll share with you before you go forth and write your 'About Me' pages. 

Don't stress about how long it is when you're writing it. 

Just write it. 

Either write it in a Google Doc or record it and transcribe it if you find that you filter yourself. Whichever strategy works for you, write it and then clean it up. Don’t filter yourself to start, or you’ll miss out on crucial elements of your story!

We limit ourselves in our storytelling abilities by trying to create the finished product when we first write it. And it never works that way. 

People don't write their finished book when they first write their book. It goes through tons and tons of rounds of edits. And I'm not saying you're writing a book and we don't need to spend months and months on your 'About Me' page, but just write it, tell the story, focus on the connection, then go out and make sure you've touched on these pieces I shared in this post. 

CONCLUSION

I hope that you now understand how important your website is and how powerful your ‘About Me’ page truly is. And that your 'About Me' page is meant to tell the story behind the brand, not to say, "Oh, and I'll help you do X, Y, and Z," and that's the only thing on that page. Please don't do that. 

Utilize the steps outlined in this blog post today and share your new ‘About Me’ page with me on Instagram @michelleknightco so I can celebrate with you.

If you want to take a deeper dive into writing your Brand Story, then check out The Magnetic Brand Method here.

SAVE THIS FOR LATER

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

---

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

---

MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

3 Key Factors for Telling Better Brand Stories in Marketing

3 Key Factors for Telling Better Brand Stories in Marketing

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

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We often think about brand storytelling as our brand story. That's typically what you see written on an ‘About Me’ page, a couple of different places on your website and your social media handles.

But a lot of brands stop here. 

They've got that brand story and then they do nothing else, and they're missing out on an incredible marketing strategy by doing so.

Brand storytelling will elevate your marketing. 
It will elevate your content creation. 
It will elevate your customer experience when you fully embrace it. 

Today, on The Brandmerry Podcast, I wanted to not only share how important brand storytelling is but also three key factors that are necessary for telling stories in business.

One of the little secret sauces that I have over here at Brandmerry is the power of storytelling. 

It's in everything that I create and teach. I have been featured on multiple podcasts, talking about brand storytelling. I have been featured by HoneyBook, leading an entire workshop on brand storytelling. 

My goal is to get you to think of storytelling as a powerful tool not just in your brand foundation, but also in your marketing!

IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING AND BRAND STORYTELLING

What branding focuses on the experience that you are providing your audience. 

While the business side of things is very much the marketing, how you're showing up every day, the products, the services, etc...

Branding is focused on a core foundation of who you are, who your ideal customer is, strong messaging, and understanding the emotional component to create an overall experience for your ideal customer.

I've already shared how storytelling plays a role in that, but essentially storytelling allows you to identify who you are, why you're doing the work that you're doing, and the mission statement that we talked about in the first episode.

It helps you identify your brand values, which are a guiding light in the choices that you're going to make.

It helps you get deep into who do I want to work with? 
Why do I want to work with them? 
Who is my product for, who is my service for?
Who is this whole thing for?

Storytelling can play a major role in the branding process. It is the core foundation of everything that I teach inside of my program, You! Branded.

Inside of You Branded, we are focused on getting clear on your story, your ideal customer’s story, the story that you want to tell through your messaging, the story of your offer, your authentic voice, and ultimately the emotional brand.

Once we have that, you have got so much to get started, to move into that marketing phase, to start showing up, sharing content, and building that know, like, trust factor with your growing audience.

Once you have that, you’re ready to move into the marketing phase. This is why the branding phase is so essential - it builds the foundation and sets the tone for everything you’ll create moving forward to make money in your business.

STORYTELLING AND MARKETING IN YOUR SMALL BUSINESS

The marketing piece is how you're showing up, how you're attracting your ideal customers, how you are bringing in those leads and how you are leading them to the purchase.

This is the area of brand storytelling that so many people neglect, but it's so important. 

Incorporating storytelling into your content and into your marketing gives you the power to increase the likelihood that your audience will actually remember it. 

Your audience is 22 times more likely to remember something that you share on social media, in a blog, in an email, on a video, because you've incorporated storytelling.

Storytelling is a universal language and it does amazing things to our brains as humans and ultimately consumers.

It fires off dopamine which makes us feel good. Neural coupling is happening, which basically states that it's not about the story, it's about the art of telling a story that triggers different things in your customer's brain that attracts them to the message because they can connect it to their own story and something that's happened to them - even if it’s not identical.

That's why storytelling is incredibly powerful for bringing in your ideal customer and captivating them.

By incorporating stories into your everyday pieces of content and your marketing, you're actually giving yourself an incredible advantage on social media, on blogs, in email marketing, and when you're selling on a sales page.

HOW STORYTELLING INCREASES SALES

In 2009, Rob Walker and Joshua Glen held an experiment that has become known in marketing as The Significant Object project and it’s a great example of how storytelling plays a role in our marketing and ultimately the purchase conversions of our services and products.

Yep, you heard that right - storytelling can increase sales!

In 2009, Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn asked 100 creative writers to invent stories about $129 worth of items. They bought $129 worth of items, they hired creative writers to make up stories about each item.

They listed these products on eBay. 

The result was a net profit of $3.6 million. It was a 2700% increase in the final markup!

One of the examples that's sold was a paperweight. As you know, we can get these for like a dollar. They specifically bought theirs for $1.47 and it sold for $197. It was a simple paperweight with a story that sold!

This experiment proves that we, as human beings, are drawn to and connect with stories and that we make purchase decisions based on stories and emotional connection.

It is incredibly important for you as a marketer to incorporate storytelling into your entire process!

3 KEY FACTORS FOR BRAND STORYTELLING

We’re focused on brand storytelling today, and I’m not going to sugar coat it - it’s a lot!

Inside of my free training, Build a Better Brand Method, I break down some of the key pieces of brand storytelling and you can watch it for free here.

Inside of my program, Brandmerry Academy, which is my membership community that teaches you how to market off of social media, we talk about storytelling and the different ways that you can create content around storytelling. 

There is also this guide if you want to explore further. 

So, please know these three factors will get you started, but there is more work to dive into and you’re in the right place at Brandmerry.

KEY FACTOR #1
WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE AND WHAT IS THE VALUE

I'm laughing a little bit on the inside here because if you've worked with me or listened to any of my live videos, you know how much I stress the importance of doing ideal customer work. It's non-negotiable over here. 

Do you have a content creation problem? It's because you don't know who your ideal customer is. 

Don't know what kind of copy to write? It's because you don't know who your ideal customer is. 

Don't know what kind of stories to tell? It's because you don't know who your ideal customer is. 

Ideal customer research is important, and I'm not talking about just getting on the phone with people and chatting with them all day, every day. There are a lot of strategic ways to do ideal customer research through free tools online, like Answer the Public, to posting a survey, to asking questions in your Insta Stories. 

Ideal customer work is something that we teach inside of module two of my course, You! Branded, and it's so important for moving forward in branding and marketing your business. 

It’s imperative when it comes to brand storytelling because as business owners, we're not just telling stories to tell stories. We're not just talking about a fun thing we did today. Because that's not going to get people to invest in what we're selling.

We ultimately are using stories to build connections and make sales. So when you're thinking about the types of stories to share, you want to be super clear on the audience that you're telling those stories to. 

If you were writing a speech for a TED talk, you would need to know who's in the room. 

If you were being asked to speak on stage at a conference for photographers, you wouldn't go in to speak at a conference for people who sell a product. That’s a different audience and you would choose your stories accordingly. 

You need to understand who your audience is at their core, so you can choose the stories that are ultimately going to connect with them because that's what running a successful business is about.

In addition to that, one of the best practices that I love to teach my clients is identifying the value before you even craft the post, or the email, or the story on a video. So not only are you sharing the story, you've run it through your checker of how it'll connect to your ideal customer and the specific value that it's providing them.

Remember, value doesn't necessarily mean five tips on this, although that's helpful. It can also be humorous, entertaining, inspirational, motivational, or educational. 

Remember…
…what is the story?
…how does it connect to your ideal customer?
...what value do you provide? 

And then you will know that you've got a story that is going to help move your business forward.

KEY FACTOR #2
THE 4 C’S OF STORYTELLING

The second thing that you want to keep in mind, one of the key factors in storytelling, is the four Cs. They are character, conflict, conclusion and CTA. 

Let's break these down. 

CHARACTER

There has to be a central focus for the story that you're telling. 

If you're telling a story about something that happened to you, you might be the character. 
If you're telling a story about a client testimonial, they might be the character. 
If you're telling a story where you want the reader to picture themselves in the story, then it is your reader. 
Your character could also be your product or service you’re selling.

The goal is to have a focus on who the story is ultimately about.

CONFLICT

The second thing you want in your story is conflict. 

You can call it conflict, obstacle, or decision, and it’s anything that causes some tension in the story. This is important because we, as people, as human beings, need a resolution from conflict, so having this in your story makes it interesting!

Then we offer the conclusion or resolution after introducing the conflict.

CONCLUSION

Having both the conflict and conclusion is a great way to not only hook your audience but keep them engaged. 

I was watching WandaVision, not that long ago, and every week I was like, “Oh my gosh. Man, now I have to wait 'til next week!” And I was genuinely frustrated about it, but I also made a note in the back of my mind that I cannot miss next week's episode.

This is what happens in our brain when we are introduced to some sort of conflict and need a resolution. It's called open looping. 

As humans, we need resolve. So that's where the conclusion or resolve comes into play.

If you can present the character, you can showcase some sort of tension or conflict, a decision, or a question that was presented and then resolve that and share the conclusion, you're doing that full arc in your ideal customer's mind. That's where the dopamine gets released!

CALL TO ACTION

As business owners, we are not only focused on connection, but we also want to make profits. 

So having some sort of call-to-action is important with your stories. That CTA doesn't have to be, “click here” or “visit my bio.” 

It could be, “drop me an emoji”, “what did you think about this”, “answer yes or no”, “share this.”

Those are all CTAs. You don't want to miss that piece. 

Character, conflict, conclusion, are key in all stories, everywhere. Movie scripts, sitcoms, books that we read. The CTA is that business element that we don't want to forget about.

So again, include character, conflict, conclusion, and CTA in all of your stories.

KEY FACTOR #3
PAINT A PICTURE

I often have clients who are worried about a story being too long, and as a result, they cut out crucial pieces of the story and ultimately impact the effectiveness of your storytelling.

Now, I’m not saying that you want to write something incredibly lengthy that your audience will never read, but be aware of the language you’re using to enhance the story.

Some of the things that I encourage my clients to do when it comes to painting a picture, is to be descriptive and share emotionally charged language. 

If you know things about your ideal customer, about their pain, about their pleasure, things that they would say, incorporating those into your story is powerful. Being descriptive and showcasing the individual pieces.

One of the small parts of my founder’s story is a great example of this.

“I remember sitting on the couch in a postpartum fog, breastfeeding my one-month-old son. I looked up, turned to my husband and said, “I don’t want to go back to work.” He looked up, took a deep breath and said, “Ok.” That was the start of Brandmerry.”

You can see inside of this story how I’ve painted a picture for my audience. If I would have taken out the descriptive elements it would have just been, “I was sitting on the couch and I looked at my husband and I said, I want to leave my job. And he said, okay, let's do it.” 

That’s pretty boring. 

What I did instead was set up the scene, where I'm talking about being in a postpartum fog, I'm sitting on the couch and breastfeeding my son. You can imagine what that looks like. You might even be seeing yourself in that situation. 

I talk about lifting my head, turning to my husband. I share what I said. I talk about him taking a deep breath in, letting it out, turning to me, and saying what he said. 

That did not make my story incredibly long, but it enhanced the story 150% and it made it better.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to paint a picture, be descriptive, and use that strong, emotionally charged language when you're sharing your stories online. Especially on social media, because you want your stories to captivate your audience and not just sound like everyone else.

CONCLUSION

Let’s recap the three key factors for storytelling in your marketing.

Number one: Know your audience and the value the story provides.
Number two: Include the four C’s of character, conflict, conclusion, and CTA.
Number three: Paint a picture.

As I've mentioned, you can be showing up and sharing stories all of the time in your marketing. 
In fact, I challenge you to incorporate a single story in every piece of content that you create moving forward.

One of the great ways to start is by going back and listening to some of the previous episodes on this podcast for ideas. 

In episode one, I talked about creating a mission for your business. Write your mission, and then share various stories about your mission. Why you believe in your mission, when you wrote your mission. If you have a story about why you have a mission, share the story about that. 

In episode three, we talked about brand values. Identify your brand values, and then pick out different stories that you can tell from your life that showcase those brand values. 

Those are ways that you can get started right now. 

You can share your founder’s story or your “About Me” story, which we're going to dive into in a future episode. That's another story that you can break down and share on social media. 

So you've got what you need to get started in sharing stories online.

Don't forget to catch the free On-Demand training, the Build a Better Brand Method. You can go to betterbrandmethod.com to learn more about my signature six-part method. You're going to learn more about elevating your messaging. I've got a trick in there on doing your ideal customer research that you're not going to want to miss where I’m talking about telling your brand story. 

You can also check out youbrandedcourse.com to learn more about my paid branding course. This is truly where you get the step-by-step system for building a strong brand foundation rooted in story, understanding your ideal customer and mastering your messaging.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Jumping on a New Social Media Platform

3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Jumping on a New Social Media Platform

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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One of the things that I see happening with entrepreneurs day in and day out is distractions. 

It's like squirrel brain everywhere all the time. And I get it. 

I feel it too, where something new will pop up and we'll wonder if we need to go do that. If it’s going to completely change our business?

We experience a little bit of FOMO if we see other people doing it and we're not on the platform or implementing that strategy. 

And while I do believe in adjusting and pivoting, in fact, we've got an episode coming out in a few weeks all about marketing, I also know that pivoting all the time or doing it because of FOMO and not from an aligned decision is not a best practice. 

You're going to find yourself distracted, running out of time, and with mediocre content and energy on every platform and within every strategy, rather than simplifying, going all in and excelling at what you're doing. 

The goal with marketing is to do a really good job at what you're putting your time and energy into so you yield results quickly.

If you find yourself jumping on the bandwagon with every new platform that's coming up and wondering how to know what you should put your energy towards and what you shouldn't, then this episode and blog is for you!

What do you do when a new cool platform and major FOMO comes up? 

What questions do you ask yourself? 

What do you have in place and how do you ultimately decide if implementing that is going to be right for you? 

Let's get into it!

CREATE YOUR MARKETING RULES

We have a tried and true approach to branding and marketing over here at Brandmerry. It's one of the reasons I created Brandmerry Academy, as a way to build a sustainable marketing practice and growth without feeling the ups and downs of every trending new platform.  

When it comes to marketing, we have a very, very, clean, simple, minimalist approach. 

And one of the things that we do not do is jump on the new thing. 

Now that doesn't mean that I don't research the crap out of it. I'm the marketing strategist, it's my job to do all the dirty work, so then I can pass along to you, “Hey, this is what we're seeing, this is what's happening,” and hopefully offer a different opinion than what you might be seeing online.

I recently experimented with this when Clubhouse was announced. 

So just like you probably were, I was like, what is this? Should I be on it? What's happening? 

I went back to my marketing rules to ultimately decide if this was the platform for me.

I use these to make aligned decisions in my business and encourage you to create the same.

Rule Number One: I want to drive traffic to my website. 

My website is my home base. It is where the information that you need about my brand lives. It's a one-stop shop for messaging, who I am, how I can support you, resources, blogs, podcasts, and authority. 

It's where I want people to go, because that's where you can get information that you need no matter where you're at in the client journey. Whether you're just starting out and just want some cool resources to figure out if you like this person, or if you're ready to invest.

Rule Number Two: I create evergreen content. 

When I first started my business, like many of you probably, I was showing up on social media all the time. And I felt like I had to show up on social media every single day, because that's what I was being taught. At the time I was working a nine to five, building a business, and I had a baby. That is not a recipe for showing up on social media every single day. It just didn't work. And I started to say, “well, shoot, if that's the way that I'm supposed to grow this business, how is this going to work?”

So I got really good at bulk scheduling. 

I got really good at creating content and repurposing it. But then I quickly realized as I went through that, that the key to success was evergreen content. 

Content that wasn't going to just disappear in an hour, a day, months even. I'm talking about content that will live on, content that will drive traffic to my website for years and years to come.

So any time a new platform is coming up or something new is happening, I'm asking myself, all right, is this in alignment with my two rules?

Ultimately, when deciding on Clubhouse it could work with rule number one, but straight up broke rule number two.

3 QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF WHEN CHOOSING A MARKETING PLATFORM

New platforms and information are always going to be coming our way, which is why it's really important that we focus on asking ourselves three things.

QUESTION #1

Is my audience there? 

This should be the number one question that everyone askS themselves any time they're thinking about their marketing strategy. Is my audience there? 

I'll continue with the example of Clubhouse. When I was considering exploring that platform, I started paying attention to my audience and what they were saying. And my audience is made up of working women, some with full-time jobs and most likely taking care of their family and their children and building their business.

Every time I was doing market research or talking to people about Clubhouse they were like, “I don't have time for that. I don't have time to sit on something for six hours and listen in a room and hope that I get value.”

I realized very quickly that my audience was not there. 

You need to remember this with all marketing strategies, because if your audience isn't there, then you're just showing up and creating content and nothing's going to happen because the person that you're creating that content for isn't actually there and it's not getting in front of them. 

With new platforms, your audience might not be there yet so that's where you've got to do some digging and some research in those different pieces.

But if you know your audience really well, you're going to know right away that they're not there.

QUESTION #2

Do I have the capacity for this? 

When I say capacity, I'm referring to time. It's important that you're always prioritizing your time. 

I talk about time management a lot over here, time in and of itself is a major value for me. And using our time in the best way possible while also using our time in alignment with the life that we want to create.

We're not just doing things to do things.

We're not just doing things because people told us that we have to do that and that's expected of us. 

We're being very, very conscious of our time and how we're spending it. So when you're thinking about it, do you have the capacity for this?

If you're already working at your cap, and if  you added something else, would that mean that you would compromise what's already happening?

And that's what I see a lot. 

When Clubhouse first started, I was in a membership community and I was watching what was happening in this group. I saw all these people talking about Clubhouse and how amazing it was. 

They were talking about how it was amazing and they were on it for eight hours the other day. And they were listening to it while they wrote emails. They grew their email list by like five people and it was very, very exciting. 

And then I watched those same individuals within a week or two say, “I don't have any time to work on my business. I'm finding that I don't have time for anything. What are your tips?”

Do you see the disconnect here? Because you do have time, it's how you're spending your time. 

Remember, we don't want to compromise what you're already doing, that'll just make everything "okay"! 

We don't want every marketing strategy to just be okay, we want them to be awesome. That's why sometimes doing less is best!

QUESTION #3

Does this fit with how I do business? 

This goes back to what I shared in the beginning on the two rules. My two rules, when it comes to marketing, are that traffic goes to my website and that I will create evergreen content.

I will not create content that disappears because it's not serving me in the long run. We have blog posts that are still driving traffic from 2016!!

So, if you're going through these questions and they pass question 1 (your audience is there) and question 2 (you have the capacity), but you get to three and it's not in alignment with your rules, then don't jump ship. 

Stay the course because so much of marketing is resiliency. 

Marketing is about resiliency and putting in the time and the energy and not stretching yourself too thin.

TOP MARKETING RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ENTREPRENEURS

At Brandmerry we believe, and teach, that every single brand should have a website. 

Now that does not mean that every single brand needs to be a design expert or needs to fork out a bunch of money for a brand design, or needs to hire a copywriter. 

Most of my clients actually don't do any of those things because I give them the tools that they need to do it themselves. Some of my clients even do it in a weekend. 

These don't have to be fact, what we're focused on is the information you're providing.  Think about your copy, messaging, brand affinity, the emotional pieces of your brand, those are the things that really work on a website. 

You can have a pretty website, but if people are landing on there and not converting it's not working for you!

Now, a lot of people will say, "but I have the website and none is landing on it!" That's where these next few pieces come into play.

DRIVING TRAFFIC AND GETTING LEADS

No matter who you sell to, everyone's on Google. Google is the largest search engine and ever business needs to pay attention to how and where they show up when their ideal customers are searching for their services.

In addition to Google, and using the same SEO strategy, are Pinterest and YouTube. 

Because of the search engine platforms, just like Google, when you go to Pinterest or YouTube, you type in a topic, and then you get all of these different pieces of information regarding that topic. It's such a powerful tool because your ideal customer is typically further along in the buying process.

So it's about having consistent content on your website, usually in the form of blogging, podcasting with a transcript or show notes, or video embedded with the transcript or show notes. And learning how to drive traffic to your website, so that if someone lands on your website, they then can take action. 

These are the strategies we teach inside of Brandmerry Academy so when a new platform comes up you don't feel like you need to jump ship.

These evergreen platforms might shift from time to time, but for years they've been consistent for entrepreneurs everywhere.

CONCLUSION

Remember, no matter what's changing around us, it's important we have our website, we have our core content, we're driving traffic to it and that is what I recommend every business focus on. 

Then sprinkle in Instagram, sprinkle in Facebook, sprinkle in TikTok, sprinkle it all in until you reach your capacity. But the reality is many of you don't have the capacity to add more of those things that are going to disappear. 

Still not convinced? Here's a scenario for you.

My clients often ask, “Well should I be showing up on Instagram every single day? I heard that you have to post five days a week in order to get results, so I could do that or I could blog.”

What if you didn't do that. 

What if you took the same amount of energy that you were going to do on Instagram. Let's say for five days, and you took that amount of time to write a blog post that's going to perform for you years down the line and not disappear in like a day? Then shared that on Instagram for a boost?

Think about steady, steady, steady growth, and not having to jump on and off bandwagons as they come, because it really is about resiliency, and sustainability as a business owner.

P.S. If you want to learn how to repurpose your content like a pro and create a better marketing workflow, grab my free Repurposing Guide here.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

What Are Brand Values and Why Are They Important in Personal Branding

What Are Brand Values and Why Are They Important in Personal Branding

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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Last week, I shared a podcast episode and blog on what I believe is one of the most important parts of creating your brand and business - the mission statement.

You can listen to that episode of The Brandmerry Podcast here.

In continuation of that episode, it’s important to also share more about Brand Values. You'll find that mission and values go hand in hand and are some of the things that I think a lot of solopreneurs, myself included in the beginning, miss out on and don't take the time to establish. 

But, like your mission statement, they can help you in your decision-making process in the brands that you work with and the clients that you take. So they're important to establish early on.

THE ROLE OF YOUR MISSION STATEMENT AND VALUES

As I’ve mentioned before, your mission statement is used as a compass in your business. 

You’ll use it as a guide for making important decisions like hiring a team, accepting clients, taking on brand collaborations, and more. Just like the mission statement your values are beneficial for you to come back to and make sure you’re making decisions in alignment with your vision and values. 

They can also serve as a kind of sounding board in the choices that you're ultimately going to make for your brand and your business moving forward.

But, your brand values also impact the buying decision process from a customer standpoint.

We know that 77% of consumers make purchase decisions based on shared brand values. 

So, if a company has a set of brand values that aren't in alignment with that individual, they might move on to another company. 

And that's totally fine - remember we want our brand to both to attract our dream clients and repel the wrong ones.

And while your brand values might turn off some people (i.e. not your ideal customer), what typically happens is your ideal customer is magnetized by your stance, opinion and a shared value.

It’s about not only sharing your brand values but more importantly living up to them.

You can absolutely post your brand values on your website for all to see, but if you're not living up to those statements, they mean nothing. 

It’s in the art of honoring these values and creating a brand in alignment with them that makes the biggest difference.

HOW TO USE YOUR BRAND VALUES

As I've mentioned before, you absolutely can add your brand values to your website, but that’s not the real reason we take the time to establish them.

There are three main reasons to establish your brand values:

1. Use them as a guiding light for all elements of your business (including who you work with)

2. Make better decisions in alignment with your values and ultimate visions for your company

3. Provides content for your business

As a Personal Branding Consultant and Marketing Strategist, I love to empower my clients to share stories online. One of my favorite types of stories to teach are those that showcase the brand’s values.

For example, let’s say one of your values is authenticity, as it is one of mine, you can share a story about why authenticity matters to you. 

You can showcase a time in your life where you had to make a decision with the transparent authentic approach, as opposed to the, "Oh, I've got my shit together approach."

You can share stories. You can share content. You can show up and paint a picture of how you’re honoring your values without just saying, "These are my five brand values." 

While listing them out is where it starts, it really comes down to how you use them when building your brand.

WRITING YOUR BRAND VALUES

When it comes to listing out your brand values, my suggestion is to keep them very simple. 

You don't need 15 of these bad boys because you're not going to remember them. And as you expand and grow your team, they're not going to remember them either. 

You also don't want to make them overly complicated. 

I've seen amazing companies share their brand values as single words, two to three-word statements. I've also watched brands do full sentences. Just a full sentence of this is what we believe.

Your brand values are the core principles behind the work that you do, what your company believes in and honors and commits to as a collective, so it’s important that they can easily be remembered and communicated.

This simple communication is what will support your ability to build brand affinity.

Brand affinity is so much deeper than brand awareness, brand attraction and brand connection.

Brand affinity is when you see clients come back over and over and over again. When you see clients who no longer can benefit from your services because they've kind of tapped out of what you provide, but continue to refer people to you and are affiliates for your brand. 

They shout your brand and your mission and the things that you're doing from the rooftop. 

Brand Affinity comes from a connection of shared values and a shared commitment. It’s incredibly powerful and something I believe every brand should be aspiring to have and a great place to start is with your brand values.

BRAND VALUES EXAMPLE

I know it can be tempting to try and locate a Brand Value Cheat Sheet, I’m sure it exists on the internet, but I encourage you to tap into your story, do the mission work that we talked about in this blog post, and think about the commitment that you're making to your clients, to yourself and to your mission. 

Let those be the guiding light for your values. 

Because there's no one size fits all approach for this. When we try to find a one size fits all approach, then we sound like everybody else, and that is not a great branding strategy. It's actually the worst branding strategy. And I do not recommend it.

This is something that you can’t copy and paste or you’re missing the entire point of creating brand values.

In the next section of this post, I’m going to share my six brand values as a source of inspiration for you. I’ll also be sharing why I hold those values within my company. Remember, you can structure your values as single words or sentences - I’ve shown you both options below.

Let’s get into it.

BRANDMERRY BRAND VALUES

Transparency and Authenticity

At Brandmerry, we believe that transparency and authenticity are the keys to true impact and connection. One of our goals at Brandmerry is to support our clients and in building true communities. 

And my mission statement is to have women specifically build impact, build movements, and build communities. 

So, one of the things that we believe is that the way to do that and the way to have a real impact is to be authentic, to be yourself, to not put on some weird front on social media that's going to blow up in your face one day. To have your clients and customers saying, "You are just like I imagined you were. You are just like you are on your Insta stories." 

These are things that my clients have said to me, my customers have said to me over the years. 

We honor this by showing up authentically, being transparent about things that are happening in business, as well as teaching my clients how to do the same thing.

Hard Work

At Brandmerry, we believe in hard work. We believe that it is necessary. And while we do believe in balance, we also believe in getting shit done in order to move forward towards our goals.

That is one that I've honestly gone back and forth with for a few years. It's not one that I originally had because there's a hustle mentality that I think is dangerous online. 

But I have separated hustle and hard work and have owned that working hard for something that you want and you believe in is okay.

And I want to work with entrepreneurs who work hard. 

I want to work with entrepreneurs who are in it, who aren't afraid to get scrappy, who aren't afraid to DM some people who have checked in with them and then ghosted and follow up with them and be like, "Where are you at? What's going on? I want to check in with you." 

I want to work with people at Brandmerry, not only my clients but also my team members who will put in the time and energy to reach our goals. 

So, in the seasons of life that require hard work, hard work is important. 

Commitment

At Brandmerry, we know that commitment builds habits and achieves goals. It is not just a commitment to your mission. It's a commitment to yourself and we're here for it.

So we are fully committed to the work that we do and committed to the mission statement behind the brand. As I bring on employees, I want them to be committed as well. 

That's why I show up the way that I show up because I want people to know what they're getting themselves into when working with my business. But I also know that my commitment is important and I want to work with other entrepreneurs and small business owners who are also committed.

You’ll notice I also say, it’s a commitment to yourself because one of the things that I believe in and I stand for is a commitment to putting yourself first and honoring the things that you want. If that means setting boundaries that you need to set with your loved ones in order to honor that commitment, then we do it. 

Responsibility

At Brandmerry, we believe in taking responsibility not only for your goals and your actions but also being brave to apologize and own your shit. 

Responsibility is important to me. It is just something that I have always carried. It's something my husband and I have in our vows to one another. And responsibility as a business owner, I think is just so important because there are going to be times when you mess up and you need to be brave enough to accept responsibility for that. 

You also need to take responsibility for the actions that you're taking.  Like, "This is the goal. We're committing to the goal. Now, be responsible and get work done." You'll see how a lot of these fit hand in hand. Hard work, commitment, responsibility, they're all one strong core value that I've broken up.

So, taking responsibility not only for your goals and the things that you want, the actions that you're taking but also a responsibility if you mess up! 

I want to work with entrepreneurs that are responsible and I want people on my team that exhibit the same characteristics. And I will honor this as well. It's a driving force for me.

Freedom

If you've been following me for a long time, you know that I actually used to call myself a freedom coach before I understood SEO and any of those important characteristics with marketing. 

Freedom has always been kind of an underlying theme of my brand. “Create a life of freedom,” was the very first tagline that I created. And even today, I talk about time, financial, and location freedom as the trifecta that I wanted to achieve and that I have now achieved in my business. 

Freedom is what it's about. At Brandmerry, we believe in taking breaks, enjoying vacations and not living on social media. It's not just a marketing practice, it's our everyday mentality. 

So you can see how this kind of manifests itself in my business, from the decisions that I make to not live on social media, to taking months off of creating content sometimes to taking month-long, three-months-long breaks with my family to go on vacation.

I have no problem telling my clients, "Hey, I’m going on vacation!" It's a value. It's something that's expected of me. I literally have never had a client go, "What do you mean you're going on vacation?" Because I have this value and I showcase that in everything that I do. 

But it's also a guiding principle inside of all of my programs, where I talk about how to market off of social media inside of Brandmerry Academy and the power of repurposing and bulk creating content so that you're not living online all the time. 

I believe that we should have a business that complements our life, not the other way around. 

And then, as a member of our team, something that I'm looking forward to growing into as we expand is that my employees, employees of Brandmerry, will have days off every week. We'll be able to take week-long vacations every quarter and be able to take a whole day off if they have a doctor’s appointment or something personal. 

This idea of freedom in all aspects as a CEO, content creator, educator, boss, woman, etc...is a major value.

Inclusive Community

At Brandmerry, we build, attract, and run communities where voices will be heard. We don't shy away from having hard conversations and we don't tolerate attacks on basic human rights. 

So, for me, this is important because I, as someone who has a mission to encourage entrepreneurs to own their stories and share their stories, having these communities and having this brave space to share those stories without judgment and without fear are incredibly important.

In alignment with that, I also take a stand on human rights. I spoke out about the Black Lives Matter campaign and I've continued to do work in my everyday life when things happen politically or socially. If there is something that I feel strongly about, I will talk about it. 

I know a lot of people used to say that you shouldn't combine business and politics, and there are still people who believe that businesses should not take stands on political issues. I’m sorry, but that argument is false. 

Businesses absolutely should, if they are in alignment with their values. 

But, do not do it for show - people can see right through that crap. If this is a value that you have though, if this is important to you, speak up about it and don't be afraid to do that. 

That is something that I have honored over the last year by saying, "Yeah, this might piss some people off, but you know what? This is important." 

I have a platform and I have a voice, and I'm able to do that. 

We're seeing more and more companies rise up to this. I think it's very cool. It just goes back to what we talked about at the beginning around brand affinity. This stuff is important. Choosing your values will help you make decisions that will also help you show up online. And as an added amazing bonus, make more income and impact, which is what we love over here at Brandmerry and the Brandmerry Podcast.

CONCLUSION

So what I encourage you to do is, think of around 5-7 brand values. 

You don't want too many where you can't remember your brand values. 

You want to first start with your story. So identifying who you are, what's ultimately led you to where you are, and identifying your mission statement. Listen to Episode 1 if you want to dive into that a little bit further. 

Then, identify some of these key values. You don't have to list out every single thing that you believe in. These are core values, right? These are core principles - you only need a few.

Once you have those, determine how you ultimately want to get them out into the world. Again, you can absolutely post them on your website. You can create a document. You can have them in your contract. You can do a video about your core values. You can do it in whatever way it feels good for you. 

But one of the things that I recommend is starting to use these core values as a way to show up, share content and stories online. 

That's a great way to showcase your values in a super organic and natural way that allows your audience to say, "Oh, okay. Yes, this is my person. Oh, okay. Yes, this is what I'm looking for." And it's supported my business and my clients over the years.

If you're ready to take it further to build that brand foundation, don't forget to watch the Build a Better Brand Method. 

It's a completely free on-demand class, where I walk you through my six-part branding framework. You'll learn more about the power of storytelling in business with a fun case study all about how my business exploded because of storytelling. I also teach you how to do better ideal client research and how to elevate your messaging. It's completely free and on-demand and you can sign up to watch it here.

And at the training, you'll have an opportunity to learn more about You! Branded, which is my signature course teaching you how to create a strong personal brand. Inside of You! Branded the very first module is all about storytelling. So you know that it's important and it is key in building a strong brand and business.

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.