How to Find Your Brand Voice [Personal Branding]

If you've never tried hard kombucha before, I highly recommend it. If you're a kombucha fan and you also like to consume a beverage from time to time with alcoholic content, the shizz is amazing.

No, this is not what this post is about, obviously, but hear me out.

Today, I want to share with you my top tips for finding your voice through personal branding.
But, why is this so important? Let’s dive in.

My favorite company for hard kombucha is called June Shine. This small San Diego-based business has built a product that has expanded over the last year to nationwide delivery. Their success has been so fun to watch.

While I love the taste of the product, what has made me a loyal fan is their brand. Because of their clear brand, the company voice and their knowledge of their ideal customer, their marketing are exceptional. I see myself as their ideal customer in everything they do.

It’s one of the reasons I bought and their voice continues in their customer service as well, from their emails to their text messages you clearly understand their brand and the ultimate vibe they want to portray.

Everything you do in your business and your success ultimately comes down to your brand.

All the growth that we see, the loyalty, the brand affinity, as I've shared multiple times on my podcast, it all comes down to the work that you do on a branding level.

I hope by now that you have watched my free training called Build a Better Brand Method. If you have, you are familiar with that method.

I shared that method with you on the podcast. If you want to go back and listen to episode 10, the Better Brand Method, you'll learn my six-part framework for building a better brand.

One of those pillars is your brand voice.

Today I want to dive into why this is so important, how you find it, and some of the key things that I teach my clients that support them in finding their authentic voice.

BRAND VOICE GUIDELINES

Now, I will say that finding your voice and refining your voice is a process. It's kind of like what we talked about a few episodes ago around visibility and showing up with confidence.

It is through the act of getting visible that you increase your confidence.

It is through the act of showing up and sharing your voice that you refine your voice.

You will learn what feels good and what doesn't feel good as you show up and get visible.

But where do you start?

How do you know what your voice even is?

How do you create a voice from the beginning that feels very much like you and who you are and how you want to show up and isn't heavily influenced by others in your industry or mentors?

This is something that I had to catch myself with when I first started my business.

When we talk about authenticity and especially your authentic voice, this is where the relatability piece shines.

Your voice is ultimately how you're showing up. This is how you're positioning your content. This is how you talk about your offer. It's the little quirks and little things that you do on your videos, on your podcast.

One of the things that I do and I don't know if you've noticed, maybe it drives you nuts I don't know, is I don't edit my podcast.

My husband will add some intro, outro music, fancy it up a bit, but I'm not cutting out things that I say or if I misspeak or anything like that.

That was a choice that I made early on because I want to show up as my true self, without filters, without edits, without all of those different things.

That's one of the elements of my authenticity. That's important to me. Yours might look a little bit different. You might be a very polished person.

Maybe you come from a very professional background and that is in fact who you are, not a front, not a mask, not a facade. That's who you are.

When you put your work out in the world, of course, it makes sense to have a nice edited and polished piece.

That's not who I am.

And I hope this story reminds you that just because I show up this way, doesn't mean you have to show up that way. It doesn't mean you should show up that way.

You should be showing up in the way that is most authentic to you.

If we're creating a personal brand in which we're offering products or services based on something that has happened in our life, based on our story, or based on our experience, we are the center of the brand so the voice is our own.

Even as I expand into more of a company here at Brandmerry, I'm coming from a full personal brand where my voice and my story are the center.

As I'm moving into this transition of building a company with additional levels of support and team members, specifically inside of my program Brandmerry Academy, it's about taking those elements of the brand voice, me, and what that impacts in terms of values, mission, messaging, etc...the pillars that have already been created for Brandmerry, and then how I move them over and we communicate them as a company and as a brand as a whole.

It still had to start with me!

When you're just starting, it's you.

Don't try and fancy it up.

Don't try to make it all complicated.

It is you, it is your voice.

So let’s talk about how your voice specifically fits into personal branding.

TWO QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU FIND YOUR BRAND VOICE

There are two questions I want you to think about when we first dive into this. I'm also going to share with you a few key points I want you to identify that are going to help you in actually creating your brand voice.

IDENTIFY YOUR FEARS AROUND SHOWING UP

The first thing that I want you to do is to identify the fears that you have around showing up as your most authentic self.

A couple of things might come up for you when I say that.

One, “Who is my most authentic self, Michelle? I have no damn idea.”

This is why I'm a big fan of the story work that I teach in all of my programs because through the story work, I am giving you prompts and encouragement to uncover elements of your story that have impacted who you are and how you show up today and the work that you're doing.

It's through diving in and doing those pieces that you're able to start to determine who you are authentically.

When I first started my business, I created an entire brand that was not me. It didn't look like me, it didn't sound like me. It wasn't me. And that's because I didn't know at the time what story work was.

Story work and how I teach it is a framework that I created through my discovery.

So when I was making that transition to figure out how to rebrand my business, because I identified that what I had created wasn’t me, I dove into the story work.

If you're at that place where you're I just don't know, then I would encourage you to check out some free resources on brandmerry.com on the blog, around storytelling, as well as my YouTube channel.

But the next level, that is what I teach inside of You! Branded. That is what I focus on inside of my intensives. Depending on where you're at in your business, your level of investment, and your eagerness to figure this shit out, those are some options for you.

If you don't know who you are, you’ve got to figure that out first.
So, let's just assume, for our purposes today, that we've all done story work and now it's about how you want to show up and squash the fears that come up around being judged, looking unprofessional, not being polished, etc…

I still had those fears when I was starting, because I was looking at what everyone else was doing and thought that if they wear blazers, take pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower, they have these perfect backdrops behind their live stream, no kid running around, etc that I had to do those things too.

I had to face those fears and say, "Are you afraid that those things mean that you aren't going to be successful?"

Of course, they don't.

And we know that one of the best things that you can do is stand in your authenticity to stand out online. If I were to adapt or mold to what all those people were doing, I would look and sound like everybody else.

Now, I know you aren’t here because you want to look and sound like everyone else. There's no way. You wouldn't be here. And we know that that's a bad marketing move overall.

The first thing you want to do is identify the fears that you have around showing up as your most authentic self and then start to work through those fears and rationalize those fears.

Is this ultimately true?
What is this telling me about myself?
How can I use this as a damn momentum driver to show up and share my voice?

Use Emotion In Your Brand

The second thing you want to do is attach a little bit of emotion to it. Now I know I always say keep the emotion out of marketing. Make your marketing decisions based on data but listen, branding is all about emotion.

The whole concept of branding is emotional. So what better way to feel connected to yourself and how you are going to show up than thinking about how you showing up as your most authentic self would make you feel?

How would you feel creating content as your most authentic self?

How would you feel sharing your website when you knew that it was a true reflection of who you are?

How would you feel going on video and not worrying about all the little things that you have made up in your head that have to be a certain way or sound a certain way?

I can tell you from experience, it feels damn good. Even though the video was the main platform that I decided to focus on with visibility, this is something I talked about in episode 12, I still had a ton of fears around it.

I was worried that everything had to be perfect.
It had to be silent in my house.
I couldn't be interrupted.

And while I don't recommend that kids are running all around when you have a live stream, this is the reality of it all. It was the first live stream I did with my son because it was either show up with him or not at all, that I realized that there was so much power in me showing up as my true self.

- QUICK STORYTIME -

In 2016, I was hosting one of my very first challenges and for me it was huge. I think I had 50 people signed up. It was a big deal.

I had already left my 9:00 to 5:00 and I was hosting this challenge during the middle of the day, rather than the evening as I had done before.

Back then it was just my son and me at home during the day and I thought I had positioned it right around nap time.

Well, it doesn't always work out that way. And my son would not fall asleep before the video.

After pacing back and forth and seriously questioning what I was going to do and freaking out a little bit, I ended up putting him in our baby carrier on my back and I just started the live stream.

I remember it was the first time I'd stood up on a live stream, typically I’d be sitting in a chair. And I remember saying to my audience, "Hey, listen. Here's what it is. I'm a working mom. I'm building my own business. My son wouldn't lay down. He's on my back. If you see hands, feet, a head or hear crying, that's what's up."

I just laid it outright in the beginning and I delivered the entire live stream.

He ended up falling asleep because I was swaying back and forth. And I kid you not, it was the first time that I had received such a tremendous response from a live stream where I got comment after comment after comment.

"Thank you for doing this.”
“Thank you for showing up.”
“Thank you for giving us permission."

I was selling a program on the back end of this challenge, it was a branding program, my first ever. I had multiple people tell me that they ended up joining because of that live stream.

Could you imagine if I hadn't shown up because I was worried about the fears of what people would think of me?

When you make an intentional choice to face those fears, to put them in perspective, and honestly, to lead with the emotion of how amazing it would feel to do this thing as your most authentic self, you can potentially change the entire course of your business.

So before you dive into the tips and tricks, you need to consider these first two questions.

7 KEY ELEMENTS TO IDENTIFY YOUR BRAND VOICE

Now let's talk about some of the key elements that I have found that help my clients in identifying their voice.

We're feeling confident and yeah, we're going to do the damn thing.

Now, how do we do it?

Know Your Audience

Number one, and as with all things in branding, you have to know your audience. This is huge. And I don't think people realize what role this plays in your authenticity.

But let's say you are coming from corporate America. I've worked with so many clients who come from a very heavy corporate background, high-level corporations, where they have been their whole life, who leave the 9:00 to 5:00 grind for starting their own business. And some of them end up working with corporate individuals, that's amazing, but a lot of them don't.

When they come in and start writing copy and thinking about showing up, they get really obsessed with this whole corporate train of thought. “But this is who I've worked with. This is what my boss would say.”

When I ask them who their audience is. They'll tell me and then I ask them:

What does your audience do every day?
What's your audience wearing?
Why is your audience interested in the topic that you're sharing?
Do you think your audience actually cares about what you told me previously?
Typically the answer is No!

If you know your audience, it can take a lot of the pressure off how you SHOULD be showing up.

It's not that we're molding ourselves to fit our audience's expectations. But if you're coming in with these high expectations of how you should be performing, sometimes it can put it into perspective for you.

When you realize…
Wait, actually my audience cares about transparency.
Wait, actually my audience cares more about connection.
Wait, my audience is a bunch of moms who are also juggling X, Y, and Z so me showing up will be a great way to show both of those.

That's one thing that I have found has been tremendously helpful for my clients, especially my clients who are coming from more professional backgrounds.

Why Do You Like Your Favorite Brands

The second tool that I love to teach is one that we have to tread a little light around.

Now, I'm going to share this with you but I'm not recommending that you go hunt down all your favorite brands and stalk their websites and their copy and so forth. There's no room for that. That is the opposite of authentic.

What I want you to focus on are the brands that you gravitate towards. The brands that you feel connected to and why.

You don't even have to look at these brands. You just have to think about that brand and your interactions with them. Think about the content that you've consumed from them and write down why you feel good when you see their stuff.

How does it make you feel?
And why do you think it makes you feel that way?

Then on the flip side of that, I want you to think about brands that you don't like seeing and don't like interacting with.

When you hear that name and you think to yourself, "Ugh," why is that?

This is going to tell you how you want to show up in the world.

We're typically drawn to things that feel most authentic to us so if you can identify some of these pieces that draw you into other brands, you can replicate those feelings but in your authentic way with your brand.

Use Everyday Language

The next tip that I have is one of the most simple, yet most difficult strategies in the book but it is going to help you so much with not just your copywriting in general, but also your storytelling.

And that is to use everyday language.

Start to identify some of the things that you love to talk about or some of the quirks that you have. One of the exercises that I have in You! Branded is to list out some of the most popular words that you typically say a lot and then carry that over into your messaging or ask some of your friends and family, people who know you on a very intimate level to name three quirks that they find that you always bring to a conversation.

We can kind of survey people closest to us to pinpoint things that we don't see in ourselves because the everyday language, ultimately speaking in your true voice is really what this is about.

So why not identify that before you ever start creating content or showing up?

Be Conversational

This is also a great way to improve your copy and your storytelling.

When you are thinking about creating content, showing up on a video, or creating a podcast like this, imagine you’re having a conversation with your audience.

When I recorded this podcast I pretended I was speaking to you as if we were sitting on the couch, drinking kombucha together, talking about your voice and personal branding.

Be conversational. This is what people resonate with.

One of the greatest tools that I learned was to pretend I was writing emails to a friend. This completely changed how I wrote emails to my audience when I was starting.

This is why tip number one, identifying your ideal customer, getting to know who they are, is incredibly important. It will allow you to give them a persona and use that when writing your copy.

If you're writing an Instagram post and you were writing a letter to them, how would you write it?
It would be descriptive.
It would be conversational.
It'd be funny.
You'd have emotion in it.

It wouldn't be like, "Hey, I have this free thing and I want you to get your hands on it. It will be great. Here's what you'll get."

You sound like a damn robot.

But if you're conversational and you're like, "Hey, are you struggling with this right now and it's driving you up a damn wall and you can't stop thinking about it? How would it freaking feel if you didn't have to worry about that anymore and instead you could focus on X, Y, and Z? I want to share this with you because I'm so excited about it. And it's my blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Big difference.
One feels like a friend, one feels like a robot.

You tell me which one you gravitate towards?

Put Keywords To Your Voice

I love getting clear and specific and having a framework for things. One of the things I love after you've gotten to this point is to put some keywords to your voice.

For instance, one of the things that I teach inside of You! Branded is all about emotional branding and identifying the emotions that you want your audience to feel. You can use similar words when you're trying to describe your voice.

Maybe you use exclamation points a lot when you write and it's playful.
You love to use gifs and emojis to keep it light.
You might say that your brand voice is playful, compassionate, and constantly excited.

With this tip, you’re ultimately giving your brand voice an identity.

If you’ve done the emotional branding work that I teach, there will be crossover and it can help in brand consistency from a brand voice and brand emotion (aesthetic) standpoint.

It will give you a marker for self-assessment as you continue to show up. You can reflect every 30 days and ask yourself, “Oh, does this sound like my voice? Does this hit the three characteristics that I established in the beginning when I was thinking about my brand voice?” But then also as you move into sharing your brand with others, hiring people to come on your team to share your brand, create graphic designs or promotional pieces, you can share these pieces with them as well so they understand how you want to be presented online.

I was just bringing on a new graphic designer, which I'm so excited about over here at Team Brandmerry, and we're trying to figure out what design we like. I’m able to give really thorough feedback and say things like, "Okay, less bright, moodier. Less playful, more grounded."

I’m able to share these keywords because I know my brand voice and it ultimately will help them in the creation process.

Once you’ve identified your keywords then put those on a Post-it and always check in with yourself to make sure that you're following your own criteria. The criteria you've determined.

Identify Your Values and Mission

Identifying your values and your mission plays a really big role in your voice and how you show up online.

If you haven't created your brand values or your brand mission, make sure you go back and listen to some previous episodes that we did on the podcast.

Episode one was all about creating a mission-driven brand and episode three was all about identifying your brand values.

Doing that work can help you tremendously in solidifying your brand voice and really understanding how you want to show up in the world.

The Art of Brand Containers

Now the last thing that I will leave you with as we close up talking about your brand voice is the art of brand containers. One of the ways that I recommend my clients get started in choosing how they're going to show up online, organizing their content, and playing with talking about different things, is brand containers.

As I mentioned in the beginning, the playing and the doing are all part of the solidifying process.

As you show up and you get visible, you will figure out your voice way faster than if you're not actually creating content and putting anything out there.

So with brand containers, I typically recommend having five. You can do anywhere from five to seven. Five to seven containers that you can ultimately create content around.

For instance, my brand containers are branding, marketing, travel, productivity, mompreneur, and systems. These have changed and shifted over the years based on my interest, but they’ve mostly remained the same.

So those are all elements of my voice. Those are all things that I love to talk about and things that I know connect with my audience.

I know my audience is here for branding and marketing and those are the things I “sell” in my business.

I also know that my audience loves productivity and systems and is an extension of the work I do and things I’m super passionate about.

Most of my audience wants to travel and love when I share my experiences with them and some of my audience are moms or maybe planning for it in the future. It's not that your audience has to connect with each piece of it, but try to find the ones that offer your ability to show up as your authentic self and connect with your audience in some way.

Think about answering this question, “Who am I? What are the things I love to talk about? And how can I create that brand experience for my audience by sharing those things?”

Your connection pieces have to be about more than just what you sell. You can't constantly be pitching your services and your products. Your audience is going to get tired, unfollow, and unsubscribe.

Spice it up.

CONCLUSION

As you're thinking about these different pieces I share today, as you think about how you want your audience to feel, your everyday language, the three words to describe your voice, pulling in your values and your mission, don't neglect also thinking about some of the things you genuinely love to talk about and how those can ultimately support your clients.

It's one of my favorite exercises that I teach entrepreneurs who don't have a consistent content strategy as of yet, as a great way to get started in refining their voice and finding what their audience resonates with.

The connection piece is key and everything I shared with you today will allow you to first identify who you are and how you want to show up in the world and then build that connection with your audience.

I wanted to take a minute to remind you to grab that free ebook that I've put together for you, where I am sharing The 15 Lessons to Propel Your Online Business.

It's the ultimate guide of shit I wish someone would have told me. I talk about a lot of the elements that I see holding entrepreneurs back from reaching the income level and the impact that they desire.

And as you can probably imagine, I made the same mistakes.

Whether you're just thinking of starting your business or you're three or four years into it, I recommend that you head to brandmerry.com/lessons to download your free ebook.

Because even if you get one little golden nugget from this ebook, I know it is going to support you in achieving your goals.

Head to brandmerry.com/lessons to download your free ebook today.

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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.

brandmerry 8/30/21 brandmerry 8/30/21

10 Ways to Improve Work From Home Productivity

Working from home and feeling like you can never focus? It might sound like sunshine and rainbow when you think of working from home, but the reality is there are a lot of distractions. That's why you need to learn my top ways to increase productivity and focus when you work from home.

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

This is for you if you have found yourself working from home.

Maybe it was by choice. Maybe you decided to become an entrepreneur and set out on this great, big, beautiful adventure of working for yourself.

Maybe it was not by choice. Maybe it just happened, in the year 2020, in which you found yourself suddenly working from home.

Today, I want to talk about how to remain productive when you work from home, in the midst of the chaos. Especially if you have children and the distractions and all of the things.

I've been doing this for five years now, and I have a few things to say, specially 10 ways to improve your productivity while working from home.

MY WORK-FROM-HOME EXPERIENCE

A little backstory on my work-from-home-experience: I left my nine-to-five in 2016 to start my own business, which is this one here, Brandmerry.

At the time, I was at home with my son. It was just him and me as I was growing my business every single day of every single week so that we could replace my income and get it to where it is today.

So I know a thing or two about working from home with a baby, with a toddler, and now with a kiddo.

Now, I will be 100% transparent with you. Our lives have changed a lot in the last five years.

My husband is now home with us full-time as I was able to retire him from his job. So now my day-to-day looks very, very different. In fact, I am very rarely interrupted, which is kind of nice.

But I remember what it was like back in the days.

I've also found that it's actually a little harder to be productive today, and that is because now I've got a full eight hours.

Which I know, I'm sorry. If you don't have that, please don't be mad at me.

I was once where you are now.

But I have a full eight hours to work on my business every single day. When this first started, when we moved from living in our RV full-time, where I was juggling Wi-Fi and new locations, and moving around, to spending our time in our apartment, I struggled a lot.

I found that I was actually struggling to get things done because I had too much time. That when I used to have to focus on two-hour increments in the morning, in between nap time and after dinner, that I was able to actually be more productive.

That actually is a reference to Parkinson's Law, which says that we fill the space, so we will come up with a million things to do and a million different distractions if we've got the time to do it.

So I want to share with you ten ways to increase productivity.

Whether you've got a little-bitty pocket every single day to work on your business, or you're working from home for eight, maybe nine, if you're an entrepreneur, hours every single day, here are 10 ways to make sure that you are showing up as your most efficient self.

TEN WAYS TO INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY WHEN WORKING FROM HOME

Number One: Create a Big Picture Goal

I talk about big-picture planning in this video right here, where I map out how to plan six months at a time in your business.

One of the things that I talk about in this video, as well as any of the yearly trainings that I host for my paying clients, is that you've got to start with the big picture.

You really have to understand what you're working towards. That's going to help you determine all the small things that you need to do to get there. If you don't know what you're working towards, then you'll sit in the overwhelm of "What do I need to do? What task is next, what requires my focus,” over and over again.

And you're going to find that you're actually not doing the things that are going to get you to the end result.

So I always recommend that you're super clear on the big-picture goal.

Maybe for you as an entrepreneur, that is the amount of money that you want to make for the year, the revenue for your business.

Maybe if you're working a nine-to-five, it's just your quarterly goals that you've set out with your supervisor.

Or if you're working on a project, maybe that project over the next 30 days is the big goal.

Regardless, you want to know that the actions that you're taking every day are ultimately leading to something. That's going to really help you in the little microplanning that is necessary for productivity.

Number Two: Have 3 Main Goals Every Week

The second thing that I recommend is a piggyback off of the first one, and that is to have three main goals every single week. Now, if the shit hits the fan, then you know that if you've done those three things, you've shown up as the best version of yourself.

Productivity does not mean just pushing and pushing and doing and doing. It means being efficient and doing the most productive things that are going to move you closer to your goals.

So when you're focused every week on three core elements, you'll feel good at the end of the week when things might not go as planned.

I recommend planning out your three core pieces every single week before the week even starts, which leads me to tip number three: prep your week on Sunday.

I absolutely swear by this.

Number Three: Prep Your Week on Sunday

Every single Sunday, I sit down with my Google Calendar, I look at my calendar on my wall, and I go into my task-management software, which you can use even if you're not an entrepreneur, and I look at what is happening that week.

When do I have calls?
When am I recording content?
When do I have meetings with my team?
What are some of the goals that I have for the week?
What big projects am I working on?
When am I going to work out?
When do I have an infrared sauna planned?
When do I have things on the schedule with my family?

Everything. I want to know what is happening that week. What that allows me to do is really kind of head in with a great mind space and I can also move things around based on my schedule.

For instance, if I thought that I was going to record a bunch of content one week, and then some of my clients were like, "Hey, we really need a session," I'm not going to have the capacity to record a bunch of content and show up and serve my clients at the highest level, so I want to rearrange my schedule to fit what's going on so that I can, once again, be my most productive and happy self.

So I spend every single Sunday looking at my calendar and planning out what's going to happen that week.

If there are gaps and spaces, I might plan something fun for myself like a pool day, infrared sauna, plan my workouts, all those different things.

You can even go as far as something I've been doing lately which is actually writing out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and my main goals for each day, which is incredibly helpful.

Number Four: Use a Task Management Tool

Now, this is really popular with entrepreneurs and small-business owners because you're the one that is saying, "This is what we're doing every week, and this is how often I need to check in on my accounting and this is what I need to do this."

A task-management software is really great at setting up recurring tasks and deadlines. But I’ve got to be honest, even if you're not an entrepreneur starting your own business, I recommend using this just in your day-to-day life.

I started doing this when we were traveling in our RV, which we did from 2019 until 2020.

I would plan out where we were going and the things that I needed to do for each of those locations. I use task management for when we need to pay bills, when we have recurring tasks on automate, dentists, all those different things. I set them up in my task-management planner so I don't forget about them.

So whether you are running your own business, which this is non-negotiable, you need a task-management planner or you're not and you just want to organize your day-to-day, I highly, highly recommend. You don't know what you don't know, and there's a lot floating around in your head, probably, that is really bogging you down and making you feel overwhelmed.

So I'm a big fan of just getting all of that out into a task-management planner, maybe into an idea dump, and assigning it later so it's not just living in your head and popping up every once in a while, distracting you. You've got it scheduled. You've got a plan in place.

The task management planner that I love to use is called ClickUp.

Number Five: Use Your Calendar

Use your calendar, please.

Now, you might be like, "Michelle, you're using a task-management calendar and a regular calendar?" I absolutely am.

My regular calendar is to make sure that those priorities, the calls that I have with my clients, the doctor's appointments, the infrared sauna, my workouts, happy hour with the girls, are all on my calendar. That is the priority.

That's what I look at first for the week.

Then I schedule all my individual tasks in between them. So I am a big fan of utilizing your Google Calendar, making sure that the things that you need to do are on there. And honestly, I find that my Google Calendar best serves me in making sure that I am taking care of myself, that I'm scheduling the things that are important for my well-being, which make me the most productive version of myself.

If you're running on empty, there's no way that you're going to be able to show up as the best version of yourself.

There's no way that you're going to be able to show up and be productive in the work that you're doing.

You've got to take care of yourself. It’s one of the most important parts of being productive with the work that you're doing.

I will use my calendar to schedule my workouts every day.
I use it to schedule individual things that I'm doing, chiropractor visits, family time.

Yes, I put family time and date night on my calendar because if I don't, I'll schedule something else to go there, and then I'll be mad at myself.

Use your calendar. Embrace it. You all have one. You've got it on your phone, got it on a tablet, got it on a computer, got it on your watch, maybe you like a physical planner.

Just make sure that you're scheduling that time: that priority time, the time that you're taking care of yourself.

Number Six: Set Some Boundaries

Speaking of taking care of yourself, you need to set some boundaries, boo.

Oh my gosh, I am not going to say this is the easiest thing. In fact, I'm not even going to promise you that I'm going to help you all set your boundaries here.

I actually have an entire podcast about it, on the Beautiful Climb podcast.

But if you want to get anything done, if you want to take time for yourself, want to get your work done at home, you need to set boundaries: most likely, specifically with your family.

Let's just be honest, right? Whether you've got your spouse, your partner, your roommate, your parents, your kids, you need to set boundaries.

I remember in 2020, when we moved from our RV into my parents' house temporarily, before moving into this apartment, we were trying to juggle, "Do we go back out on the road? What is happening?" And I had to set some boundaries with my parents.

I was like, "I'm working right now. Don't open that door."

It doesn't matter if they're older than you or younger than you, you need to set clear boundaries.

Now, this is going to come from experience. It's going to take time. I remember when I first started my business, my son was really young. I mean, he was like eight months old, so I couldn't really explain to him what boundaries were.

But I started putting these boundaries in place with myself, reminding myself that it was important to have uninterrupted time, that he was totally okay playing on the floor with toys while I wrote an email, I didn't need to hold him every five seconds. Or sometimes, I'd even put them on my back during nap time, if he was fussy, and stand and write an email. But it was all about me really understanding that I needed the time to work on my business, to do the tasks at hand, and also take care of myself.

So even today, my husband is home full-time with us and I have very clear boundaries in place of, "I need uninterrupted time in the morning so I can work out." My son is old enough now to understand that you don't interrupt Mommy when she's on the Peloton. So, he lies on the floor next to me. Will read a book. Pretends to be an Avenger in the same room.

And these boundaries only come from our next tip, which is communicating.

Number Seven: Communicate

You've got to communicate what you want. If you need the space to work on your business, if you need uninterrupted time if you need time to take care of yourself, first, schedule it.

Make it a priority, and then have conversations with the people that you love, that you need that time, whether that's uninterrupted or minimized interruptions.

As someone who's been working at home with their son for a very long time, I'm going to say accidents happen. But the majority of the time, we understand when I've got coaching calls or I'm recording a podcast, that we've got these clear boundaries in place.

And you know what? This is helpful not just for the productivity of your work, but for relationships overall.

So make sure that you're clear on the boundaries that you need to set and then communicate with the ones that you love.

They don't know if you don't tell them. Don't assume that they know.

And sit down and have these conversations. Say, "This is what we're working towards," circle back to the big picture. "This is the time that I need to do X, Y, and Z. Thank you so much, how can I return the favor?"

Number Eight: Get Ready Every Single Day

Please get ready, every single day.

I have clothes on right now. They're not the fanciest clothes. They're not a button-down shirt and some trousers and some shoes. I don't wear shoes at home, but I'm not in my pajamas. I'm not in yoga pants.

I love you, I do. I know that you are so comfy in your yoga pants, but you might be too comfy.

You've got to get yourself dressed. This is one of the easiest productivity tips ever.

I have a rule that I put on pants with a button or a dress. I very rarely wear dresses, so it's mostly pants with a button. Those can be really comfy shorts with a button, nice jeans with a button.

But I'm putting myself into the mindset of "Get shit done."

If I'm in my loungewear, if I'm in my baggy sweater and I'm really, really comfy, I'm just going to be kind of there. Kind of focused, kind of not, super chill.

We've got to elevate our energy a little bit, which is one of the reasons I love working out before I start my day, but I also love to get dressed.

Again, I'm not saying to do your hair, do your makeup, do the whole thing.

Really, all I'm saying is put on pants with a button 🤣

Number Nine: Minimize Distractions

Now, I know that you are going to have these boundaries in place. You're going to communicate with the ones that you love, and you're going to start to minimize some distractions.

But you most likely distract yourself more than anyone ever will.

You have tabs open, you are on Facebook. That Facebook tab is always open. You are scrolling Instagram every time you have a quick break. You're checking in on something because you have notifications on. You're checking your email every 10 minutes.

You are distracting yourself.

Set clear boundaries with yourself. This is going to help you laser in and focus on the task that you're doing.

I run my entire business online. The only way that I get clients is through online marketing, yet I am only on social media once, twice max, every single day. I do not keep my Facebook tab open. I do not have Facebook notifications set on my phone. I do not have Instagram notifications set on my phone. They will distract me. That notification comes in, I'm going to stop what I'm doing and be like, "Oh, what's going on?"

I have zero notifications. I don't even have email notifications on my phone because I have very specific times throughout the day where I'm checking my email.

If you're really stressed out about this, put an "away" message up that says, "I only check my email this time and this time. I will be getting back to you within 24 to 48 hours."

It's amazing when you set these boundaries for yourself that you're going to notice that you're able to focus even more.

A really great exercise is to write down, as you're going through your day-to-day over the next two or three days, every time you're distracted. And then figure out ways where you can minimize those distractions so you can really focus on what you need to do.

Number Ten: Change Your Scenery

You already have all the other things in place and you're still sitting there like, "Michelle, I have my button pants on. I've minimized distractions, but I'm not feeling the creative juices."

Change your scenery.

I learned about this one kind of on accident with my son when he was little. I noticed that if I was trying to work and he was fussy, we were just battling the entire time.

And when I would change our scenery, when we went for a walk and I’d record an email that I wanted to write or we’d grab a snack and play outside in the grass so I could plan my schedule or we’d spend our day at the coffee shop so he could play and I’d sit and work.

Anytime that I shifted our scenery, I found that our energy shifted, which meant our productivity shifted.

Don't keep pushing your head against the wall over and over again, trying to focus. Sometimes, just go outside.

I really loved this when we started traveling full-time when we would go to a different place, and I loved it because I noticed that every time we went to a new location, the scenery would reignite me.

It's one of the reasons I love traveling. Anytime I'm kind of in a slump, creatively, I'm like, "Let's book a trip." I know that that's not possible for everyone, just at the drop of a hat, so just consider going for a walk, going outside, going to the coffee shop. Go to a wine bar and work. Order a salad and a glass of wine and get some shit done.

CONCLUSION

I hope that this was incredibly helpful for you. I know it was a lot of information. There were 10 tips to increase productivity.

I hope that most of them were new to you, things that you've never tried, and ones that you're eager to get started on today.

And remember, I don't believe that productivity is just working yourself into the ground. It's being the most effective and the most efficient at what you're doing.

And what you're doing is moving you towards your goals.

Sometimes that looks like your priority and where you want to be your most productive is self-care, and sometimes that looks like it's what you're doing with your work.

If you are an online entrepreneur thinking of starting your own business, I'd love to invite you to check out my free marketing class, where I'm actually teaching you how to be more productive with your content creation and with your marketing without relying on social media because as I mentioned, it’s very distracting.

Go to brandmerry.com/marketing to check that out and watch your free training.

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Brandmerry podcast? I release new episodes every Thursday on topics around branding and marketing! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at brandmerry.com/podcast

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

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

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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brandmerry 8/26/21 brandmerry 8/26/21

How Brand Storytelling Increases Revenue [Case Study]

Every wonder how brand storytelling can impact the success of your business? Or how to share your story in a way that attracts your dream clients? Tune in to my personal case study on how I've used storytelling to build a 6-figure business.

How Brand Storytelling Increases Revenue [Case Study]

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Today, on the blog we are bringing it back to storytelling. Our focus at Brandmerry is on branding and marketing and how storytelling plays a crucial role in every single aspect of running your online business.

In some recent episodes of the Brandmerry Podcast, we've started to dive in and talk about the principles of storytelling.

In fact, episode five was all about the three key factors for telling better stories in your marketing.

Then in episode six, we talked about writing your ‘About Me’ page, which is one of the first pages that I recommend my audience write because it's a really great practice in writing your brand story.

Today I want to share with you a case study that just so happens to be my story.

They often say that sometimes you are the best example, right? That sometimes your story is the best connection piece.

My intention in sharing this with you is that you can look in with your marketing lens and listen to the story, pay attention to how I'm structuring the story, pay attention to where I'm connecting with my audience, offering value, offering education, and offering inspiration.

You're going to get an opportunity to hear my story and then you're also going to have an opportunity to dissect it and figure out how you can improve yours when it comes to your marketing.

Now, this particular example is pulled from my free on-demand training, the Build a Better Brand Method.

In this free training, I share multiple facets of the branding process. I talk about the six phases of what I call the Better Brand Method. This is the same method I teach inside of my program You! Branded. We also dissect storytelling, and I offer up this case study, which we’ll get to in just a minute.

We talk about your ideal customer. I offer advice for getting core information about your ideal customer that will improve your branding and ultimately your marketing, and we jump into messaging.

So this is a small piece of that on-demand training. If you haven't listened to that training yet, you could head to betterbrandmethod.com and get signed up after you listen in to this.

Brand Storytelling: Case Study

I want to share with you how I've used storytelling from the very beginning of my business, once I figured out this whole branding thing, and how I've used that to create over half a million dollars in cash revenue and become a digital nomad.

I spent eight months building a website and a “brand”.

In the beginning, I honestly didn't do the work. I struggled for eight months to brand myself and to sign a single client.

It's not that I wasn't doing things. I was doing things. Many of you are also doing things, but not the branding work.

I spent a lot of time building a website. I had a logo, I chose my colors. I chose my font. I had a Facebook group back in the day. I had all the backend ready to go. My client onboarding, my emails, all of those different things.

I was also showing up online. I was on Facebook almost daily. I was slowly trying to grow my email list. I was showing up in other people's groups. I was posting on social media. I was doing “the things.”

But as you guessed it, I was not profitable.

I didn't make any money. Then right when I was getting ready to leave my 9 to 5, I had a moment where I was like “I'm going to scrap the whole thing and I'm going to rebuild it.” And that's when I accidentally implemented what is now my six-part framework.

All of that started from my story, every single piece.

So let's take a glimpse into what that process actually looked like with storytelling.

So at first, my story allowed me to rediscover my strengths and my mission, my values and my authentic voice. So I already had some good content to start showing up with because I could start sharing these things with my audience. It was a small audience of like 15 people, but you know what? There were 15 people!!!

Then storytelling helped me get to know my ideal customer on a more intimate level. This was very important because I was able to then create stories that would resonate with them and where they were on their journey.

From this, I was able to determine how I wanted my audience to feel, tie in that emotional piece, because I knew who they were and I knew who I was.

Then I rebuilt my website. I rewrote all my copy. I updated all of my visuals. Redid the entire website that took me eight months in just one week because of these pieces that I had already implemented with my story.

Then I worked on really refining my message.

I didn't have testimonials at the time.

I hadn't had a client.

So I used my story to connect more deeply with my small audience. I started showing up, I started sharing more about the things that were happening in my life. I started talking about the power of storytelling. I started to share my mistakes with branding.

I just kept showing up, but I knew who my audience was this time. Before I was guessing. Now I had done the work and I knew who they were so I could craft my messages for them.

People started to notice.

The same audience I had before began to take action and the only thing that changed was what happened on my end.

My clarity on who I was, who I was serving, and the connection.

Within three months of having my new solid brand built, I made $15,000 in my business.

Then I booked out my one-on-one.

Then I made $100k within a year.

Now here's what I want you to notice. My email list size did not change.

I still had about 15 people on my email list. In fact, the first $20,000 that I made in my business, $15,000 was within those first three months, and then I signed another client at the beginning of January the next year.

That first $20,000 in my business came from those initial 15 people.

They weren't new people.

I was showing up in a different way.
I was connecting more deeply.
I understood who they were.
My offer didn't change either. I could just message it better.

All that changed was my brand clarity and my approach to communicating with them.

Sometimes it's as simple as one sentence that they just hear differently.

I was able to do that because I had taken the time to really get in touch, not just only with my story, but their story.

Who the heck were they?
What were the struggles?
What were those desires?
What was standing in their way?

Storytelling plays a role in everything.

It plays a role in your specific niche and your selling position, and ultimately what you offer to solve your audience's problem.

It plays a role in how you communicate the benefit of your offer with your audience through brand messaging.

It plays a role in building a deeper, emotional connection with your audience, leading to more conversions.

It plays a role in showcasing your authenticity. 86% of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding what brands they like and support. Storytelling will help you stand out in a saturated or crowded market. It is in fact, the only thing that will.

Because again, you can have the exact same offer as somebody else. What makes you different?

Your story.
Your connection.

And storytelling will give you content to share when you are just starting out, that won't be a waste of time or energy, because it will be focused on building.

CONCLUSION

Your next step, to gain more information on the exact branding process I used and now teach my clients is to watch the Build a Better Brand Method training.

This on-demand training will give you the signature six-part framework, a look into the ideal client process, and my step-by-step process for building core brand messages in your business.

Watch it now at betterbrandmethod.com.

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brandmerry 8/19/21 brandmerry 8/19/21

How to Boost Your Confidence and Increase Brand Awareness

Visibility (aka showing up) is a non-negotiable as a business owner, but it's not always easy. Learn my top tips for improving your confidence so you can show up online.

How to Boost Your Confidence and Increase Brand Awareness

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

As I wrap up creating 90 days of content both for Youtube and the Brandmerry Podcast, I started to think more about visibility and showing up online.

You can watch an entire vlog I created about the process here.

The thing with visibility and creating content is it’s not easy, and it took me months to build up the confidence to even show up online to promote my business.

But, this confidence is absolutely essential if you want to not only build an online community of warm leads, but also lead your audience through the buying process so they become a paying customer.

Today, I want to talk about getting visible, and how you build up the confidence to show up.

I've been doing this long enough and I work with a lot of new entrepreneurs, people who aren't super familiar with social media or don't feel comfortable with social media or afraid to use video or don't want to look stupid in a reel or don't want to send an email because it's not perfect.

There are so many things that are keeping us from showing up and growing our audience, but more importantly, nurturing our audience and making the sale, that we can move through.

However, I know you can move through those beliefs and I’m sharing five ways to do that with you today.

5 WAYS TO BOOST YOUR CONFIDENCE AND GET VISIBLE

I made a list of five things to share with you on how to boost your confidence and start getting visible online so you can make that money.

Make the money, make the impact, go out and get it, because visibility is a non-negotiable.

You’ve got to show up.

Number One: It's Bigger Than You

When it comes to visibility and showing up in marketing in general, you have to understand that it's bigger than you.

When I was first starting, I kept asking myself, "But why do people care? What if I sound like an idiot? What if this is not correct? What if nobody shows up?"

I kept saying all these different things like, "What if, what if, what if, what if?"

Then one time, when creating content, I sat down and thought to myself, What if this is not actually about me?

It was at this moment that my branding shifted, because for a long time I thought branding was 100% about me and what I did, and we know now that it's not. It is about your audience. It has to be about your audience.

You are in this to make money. You are in this to make an impact. If you're just talking about yourself all damn day, your audience isn't going to be able to resonate with you. There's going to be no connection.

Everything you share, even when you're sharing stories about yourself, you must ask yourself the following questions:

Who is this for?
What will my ideal customer get from this?
How is this going to support them?

Otherwise, you're just showing up to show up and talk about yourself and that won’t move your business forward.

So one of the first things that I started to ask myself was, "What is the bigger picture?" and that, I think really ties into your mission. In the first episode of the Brandmerry Podcast, I shared with you a mission-driven business.

You can go back and listen to that episode and get really clear on what the mission is behind your business. It's always bigger than you. It's the impact that you are ultimately going to make. So the first step is identifying the mission.

The second step is really switching your focus, switching your thinking when it comes to visibility. Remove you from the equation.

You are the vessel, right?
You are the one that is delivering the information, carrying out the mission.

That's it.

When we start to recognize that it's so much bigger than just us showing up, and it's about the message and the mission and the impact that we are going to make, that will give you the motivation to show up and increase your visibility.

That's number one, big picture.

Number Two: Have a Plan

Now, notice I didn't say be prepared because I think this whole idea of being prepared fluctuates and can be different for every single person.

For those of us, who are recovering perfectionists, working on it every damn day, you're never prepared. You're never prepared because of perfection. It's a vicious cycle, so it's not about being prepared and having all your ducks in a row.

You can never have everything perfectly lined up and perfectly ready to go. You need to record videos, and you're like, "Ooh, I need this perfect background, and I gotta paint my wall, and I gotta have wallpaper, and I’ve got to get the perfect outfit, and I have to have this perfect boom mic and this perfect ring."

No, you don't need to have any of those things, so it's not about being prepared because your ratio of what is prepared could be crazy compared to what is actually required.

But it is about having a plan. You’ve got to know how you're going to show up and when you're going to show up.

This is going to allow you to actually do the damn thing because you will keep postponing it over and over and over and over again if you don't plan for it. Something will always come up. It always does. There will always be an obstacle or an objection or something that you're like, "Oh, can't do it today. No, today's not the day. No, I'm not ready."

Create a plan.

When are you going to post your first blog post?
When are you going to create your first video?
Have you been thinking about reels?
Have you been saving reels to your phone and you just keep waiting and you're like, "Oh, I don't know"?

Put it on the damn calendar.

Create a plan of action. If you’re in your first year of business it feels like you’re throwing spaghetti at a wall. Shit, I'd argue your first, second, and third year, too! It kind of feels like that.

It's like we're just throwing stuff and seeing if it sticks, but even though that's like a really good analogy, there still has to be a plan in place.

What the hell are you throwing on the wall?

What are you wanting to stick?

You've got to know these things. Otherwise, you really are just mindlessly floating around the internet. So having a plan will actually support you in getting visible and being confident in showing up.

Knowing what you're going to talk about on a video before you hit live or record, will take the pressure off. It doesn't mean you have to have the perfect script, it doesn't mean you have to have the perfect microphone, but have a game plan and get it scheduled.

If you’re looking for my tips to create a plan for your content calendar, watch this video here.

Number Three: Choose Your Platformu

When it comes to visibility, showing up, and nurturing your audience, you want to choose one platform and one medium to start.

We know with niching down, especially the more specific you are, the more streamlined you are, same with your offers, the more specific you are, the less you have when you're starting out, the faster you will grow. Because your attention is not pulled in a million different directions.

When you're just starting out and you're really struggling to just get started and just get the confidence to go do something, don't stretch yourself so thin. Start with one area.

When I was first starting, Facebook was super comfortable for me because I spent all my time on Facebook back in the day. I'd never run a business there, I never had a business page, but I was comfortable with the platform. That's why I decided to start there.

I also love video so I decided to just create a lot of live videos as this was something new Facebook was offering at the time.

I did frequent challenges. I would do multiple videos a week sometimes, and that is what I focused on, and that is how I signed most of my clients.

Then, I started to get a little bit more confident and decided to venture to Instagram. I hated it at first, it felt like a lot of pressure, but I was also excited about it and knew I had the capacity to take it on. So, I practiced, I refined, and I figured out what worked for me. I got good at writing captions and so on and so forth.

You don't have to do it all at once. A visibility plan doesn't mean that you're showing up everywhere under the damn sun.

If you're really struggling to gain confidence, then pick a platform where you know your ideal customer is, pick a medium, and really focus on that. Now, as you start to expand, of course, there are ways that you can repurpose your content, which is still something that I do today. It's a huge staple inside of Brandmerry Academy.

With a repurposing plan, you can start to find your main core medium, and then kind of push your content out from there.

For me, it's still video, all these years later, so I really encourage you to simplify, strip it down, think about the main platform and the main medium that your audience is on. Practice. Get yourself out there. Do the work.

Find what works. Find what doesn't work. Really dedicate your time and energy to it, because you're going to get confident as you do it. That's the secret. You get confident the more you do it, so why not laser in and focus on one thing, get really confident on that, and then watch that snowball?

I used to tell my clients that it is literally like a snowball rolling down a hill, right? It starts really, really small, and then it starts to get bigger, and the momentum picks up, and that's essentially what visibility is.

You're going to start small, it's going to feel really, really slow, it's going to feel insignificant, and you're going to start to pick up momentum the more that you do it and the more that you focus on where your reach is going to expand.

Number Four: Identify the Value

This kind of circles back to number one, where we discussed the point of showing up. Why are you doing this in the first place?

This particular point is about each individual piece of content. So before I record a live video, I always sit down and identify what I want my audience to walk away with.

Before I record a podcast, I sit down and identify what I want my audience to walk away with.

Before I create a social media post, I'm like, "What the hell is in it for my audience?"

If you can identify the value before delivering the content, it's going to take the pressure off of you.

Your mindset starts to shift and you start to realize…
...This isn't 100% about me. It doesn't matter how I look. It doesn't matter exactly what I say. As long as I deliver the value piece, we’re golden.

So make sure that you're taking the time to identify that.

Now, I recommend that a lot of my clients do that in the content planning process, but you can absolutely just sit down right before you hit record or right before you write the post and connect back to the value and what you want to provide with that piece of content.

I'm telling you, it seems incredibly simple, but it's a game-changer.

Number Five: Practice

That leads us to number five, which I already kind of told you, but we can still hang out here and talk about it a little bit more...practice.

If you listen to any entrepreneur, public figure, athlete, they will tell you that they boost their confidence and skill set by continuing to do it over and over and over again.

I had an amazing client inside of Brandmerry Academy the other day and she asked, "How did you get so confident on camera? How are you able to just speak really fluidly?"

My response was that I’ve done so many videos. That was the medium I chose in the beginning and I wanted to do it as much as possible to become incredibly confident at it.

I remember when I recorded my first podcast episode, and my husband can probably attest to this, I re-recorded it over and over and over again because it just didn’t feel like enough.

Now, I've recorded a lot of episodes and I just sit down and record it. Mistakes and all, I'm here for it.

The confidence comes by doing, and I think that's the irony of the entire thing. People wait, and maybe you're waiting, to be confident to get started, but you're only going to get confident by getting started.

Think about it.

Your confidence will grow the more you do it, and that's why all these things build on each other.

CONCLUSION

I know there is something you’ve been waiting to do, or holding off on until you’re ready. YOU ARE READY NOW.

Go through this process and tips I’ve just outlined, because visibility is non-negotiable as a business owner, and it's so fun to connect with people as you grow your business.

Show up, share your value, and connect with your audience. That's the fun part for me about content creation.

Yes, I love new leads. I love when people discover me and my brand, and that's part of the equation, but more than anything I love when people are like, "Watched last week's video and loved it."

"Watched this week's video and it was amazing. Love listening to your podcasts."

That's why I'm doing it, and because we're business owners, you're also going to make more money. Let's not sugar-coat it.

We want to see you.
We want to hear your message.

One of the things that I said really early on, on a podcast just by accident, and it has stuck with me ever since, is “Someone, somewhere needs to hear your message!”

So just remember that. You're just speaking to someone, just one person, that's it. If one person gets your story, gets in touch with you, you did your job.

If you’re looking for more support with your marketing, I suggest you check out my free training. I’m teaching you how to master your marketing without social media and you can sign up here to access it.

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brandmerry 8/12/21 brandmerry 8/12/21

Online Business Tip: Is There a Secret?

Is there a secret to running an online business? While I don't believe it's a single strategy, template or checklist, I do believe there is a secret sauce. Find out on the blog.

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

The context and inspiration for this blog came to me on my morning Peloton ride.

I then found myself scrolling on social media, which doesn’t happen very often, and came across an ad, marketing, after marketing, after marketing, that was talking about quick results in business.

Some of the language was 10K in 10 days. We're all familiar with that. And it got me really thinking about what I wanted to share with you on this topic. So that led us to the secret sauce in business.

Which, if you know me, you know there isn’t a very specific, copy and paste, universally used secret sauce that you might be looking for.

It doesn't exist. But, when I was riding on my Peloton yesterday, Cody Rigsby, my favorite instructor on the Peloton app kept saying, "Do the work, do the work, do the work."

And I started thinking maybe that's the secret sauce.
Maybe the secret sauce isn't some brand new strategy, or this template, or this platform, or this launch messaging.

Maybe the secret sauce is doing the work.

When you look at the entrepreneurs, and the business owners, and the brands that see results maybe quickly, maybe in three months, six months, maybe in a year, you can see that the thing that connects them is that they're willing to do the work.

They're willing to show up. They're consistently showing up and doing the work. They're committed to doing the work. They don't shy away from it.

So since this isn't a very, "Hey, apply this to your business and go make 10K in 10 days,” strategy, I wanted to break it down for you.

What does doing the work look like?
How do you do the work?
And what are some things that you need to keep in mind?

What is The Work?

What am I talking about when I say “the work?”

There are four key pieces that I believe require you to show up and dedicate time and energy to as a business owner.

Some of them, you do it once. You don't need to circle back to it very often. Maybe every year, every two years, depending on your business.

Some of them are ongoing.

FOUR PILLARS OF A SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS

PILLAR ONE: Clarity on Your Business Goals

How do you know what work to do and how to measure the impact of the work that you're doing if you have nothing to measure it against?

If you don't have goals, if you don't know why you're showing up every day and doing the workaround, what your end result is, then you're constantly going to feel like you're just busy.

And when I say do the work, I don't mean busy work. I don't mean piddle over here and change this color over here, and change this font over here. And let me update this page that nobody visits anyways over here.

I mean do the strategic work.

To figure out what that is, you have to first start with your goals. The first thing you need to identify is what you are moving towards. And that will allow you to reverse engineer and set those goals.

Recently, I released a YouTube video on planning six months in your business. In that video I break down how to look at the big picture and reverse engineer, to break it down into smaller more manageable steps; the same applies to all goals!

The first goal is to get clear and specific with your goals. And just like we learned in school, make them measurable. If they're not measurable, how are you going to know your progress? You're not going to know how things are working out for you and this measurable piece is going to play a role in the kind of work you ultimately do (more on that later).

PILLAR TWO: Brand Foundations

The second piece of doing the work is your brand foundations.

If you want to grow scalable and sustainable, meaning you're not losing your mind in the process, online business, you have to have a solid foundation. Newsflash, you have to have a solid foundation for everything in life. Anything that you want to keep growing or scaling, there has to be a solid foundation.

In an online business, that just happens to be your brand.

When we're building the brand foundations, we're focused on your niche. We're focused on your ideal customer, focused on your messaging, and focused on your offer. I believe that your offer is part of the branding process because when you have this early on you can create your marketing plan to match. And then, of course, that emotional branding component, which plays into the aesthetics.

Now here's the beautiful thing about this work. This is not work that you do every day, every week, every month. You take the time and dedication to do the work around your brand foundations, build that solid foundation and then determine how often you want to revisit it.

Is it once a year?
Are you going to be rebranding?
Do you need to go back to it and freshen it up? That's one of those things that's not constantly changing. And that's why it's important to dedicate the work to it right from the get-go.

I love to have my clients give themselves a deadline. In my course, You! Branded, we encourage clients to complete it in three weeks, so make that a frame for you to show up and do the work. Do the work, the worksheets. And then implement it in your own life. And then we get to move on, but it is essential.

If you want to learn more about You! Branded, head here.

PILLAR THREE: Set Up Systems

I keep hearing all these entrepreneurs talk about how incredibly stressful scaling is because they never had systems in place.

If you know me, you know that I'm all about systems. And I credit that to the fact that I've been able to have a small team for so many years. That I was able to do most things by myself for a long time when I couldn't necessarily invest in team members and be a woman, and a mother, and show up for myself.

It always came back to my systems, and these systems have continued to serve me as a business owner and continued to serve as we scale.

When it comes to setting up your systems, here are some things to consider.

Think about your client onboarding and the process that you go through to bring on a new client. What does this look like for your business?
I have a blog and video available if you need inspiration.

When you think about this, can you automate any of it?
Are you manually scheduling your clients?
Are you manually sending out invoices and contracts?
What does that look like?

Take some time to look at your business and see where you can streamline and automate things to improve your overall systems.

What about your workflow?

Do you know how you’re creating content every single week in your business?

Is it a copy, repeat, copy, repeat, copy, repeat type of system? To the point where you have it set up in a task management software. And when you mark it as complete, it kicks it to the next week.

What about your SOPs?

How do you do things in your business? When it's just you and you're just getting started, document what you're doing.
If someone's a new client, what's the process?
What do you do?
Do you send them an invoice first, a contract?
Do you email them?
Do they get tagged with anything?

Just start documenting that in a Google Doc or a Word doc, so when you hire team members, you just get to hand them that information.

I think so many entrepreneurs skip over the systems piece of it and find themselves feeling overwhelmed with the process. Everything can be streamlined, even if it can’t be automated.

And this pillar is ongoing. I'll be honest with you. They're going to be updated. You're going to create new systems as you expand and as you do new things.

But this is an area where you've got to sit down and do the work.

PILLAR FOUR: Marketing

And then we come to one of my favorite topics, the ongoing, happens every day in your business. Even if it's automated, it's still happening every single day, whether you are manually posting it or not.

And that's marketing.

That is getting people familiar, introducing them to your brand. Building trust with them. Telling them about your offers. Then continuing to show up and serve them even after they become a client, yes that is also part of the marketing strategy.

This area is ongoing, and this area requires your commitment, and your dedication, and your consistency.

Don't look for an easy out when it comes to your marketing. If someone comes to me and says, "I'm just looking for a way where I don't have to do any marketing. I don't want to market."

I'm like, "You're going to have an issue as a business owner. You're going to have a really hard time."

The first step is to create a clear marketing strategy.

How often are you creating content?
What platforms are you showing up on?
What is your weekly workflow?
How are you repurposing your content?
What are the core pillars and topics that you're talking about?

You can set those up, and you can say I'm going to dedicate 30 to 60 or 90 days to this strategy.

I recommend a minimum of 30. I try to push for 90 days now because I know sometimes, it just takes a little bit of momentum and testing. But give yourself a clear period of dedication and commitment.

The reason for this is the consistency will show you want needs to be improved upon. You need to do the work to know what to change. There is always work to be done with your marketing.

One of the biggest myths that I see entrepreneurs believing is that automation means they don’t have to do anything. I believed it for way too long.

We think that if we are creating a course or creating a funnel, we're automating something in our business that we make, and we get to walk away from it. And we never need to worry about it again. And that is so far from the truth.

Once your automation has been optimized, it will help with consistent revenue in your business, depending on what that automation is. But it doesn't mean that you don't have to check in on it. It doesn't mean that you don't have to look at the data. It doesn't mean that you don't have to make changes. You absolutely do.

It’s so important to choose a simplified marketing strategy, like the one we teach inside of Brandmerry Academy, and implement it for at least 30 days to know what should be improved upon.

HOW DO YOU DO THE WORK

So nothing is just done. It's always evolving. So how can you do the work more efficiently?

Let's talk about that. I've got five key pieces that I want you to walk away with today.

How do you actually do the work?
What are the things you need to keep in mind?

NUMBER ONE: Make Time For It

Schedule a very specific time to make your business a priority so that your business becomes a priority. On the flip side of that, schedule a very specific time to make your business a priority so it doesn't interfere with your other priorities.

I'm a big fan of scheduling every part of my business because it allows me freedom.

An example of this is what I just wrapped up doing. I prepared 90 days of content. It's something like 16 videos and 18 podcasts.

The reason I'm putting in the time and the energy and I am committed to doing this is because I'm going to be in Greece for three months. I want to work 10 hours or less every single week and still hit my monthly minimum cash goal.

So I am making time to do the work. I am scheduling early mornings on Saturday because that's what I want to do so I have all this extra free time. I'm scheduling every little thing in my calendar. I'm scheduling my workouts. I'm doing all of that.

So make time to do the work. Schedule it or you won't do it.

We'll keep pushing it off and saying, "I'll do it later. I'll do it later. I'll do it in two weeks, whatever." And then finally you're like, "Wow, okay. I haven't done any of that." So now I have to spend tons of time going back through that process.

NUMBER TWO: Set Clear Objectives

So this is kind of a piggyback of what I shared in the first part, which is all about clarity on your business goals.

How do you know what work to do if you don't know where you're going? It's all reverse engineering. That is the best strategy for a business owner.

Where are you headed? Now break it down step-by-step in how you're going to get there.

When you're talking about the step-by-step, set clear objectives for yourself. This will help you know how the work is playing out. So you might be doing something and you might be doing it consistently and you're like, "Man. I just don't know if this is working."

Look at the data.

Let the data drive your decisions.

What does the data say? And then make adjustments. But you don't know how to shift things, or change things, or know if that particular thing isn't working anymore unless you have clear objectives.

NUMBER THREE: Be Open to Evolution

Be open to things changing. All automations, as I mentioned before, will need adjustments and changes to keep optimizing. We have to be open to looking for those small shifts.

We can't be stuck in our ways as marketers. We have to be open to change, and new opportunities and switching things up.

Going back to the clear objectives, those will tell you when it's time to switch things up. It doesn't have to be a guessing game. Marketing is not a guessing game.

It's based on data.

NUMBER FOUR: Test

The fourth piece of doing the work is giving yourself plenty of time to test things. Stop saying, "I'm going to work for 48 hours and see how it goes." Going back, we don't have enough data. We can't decide off of just 48 hours of work.

So you have to give yourself time to test the work that you're doing.

Let’s say you want to test Reels. You know how fun and engaging they can be and you’re looking for more reach in your business.

Do one reel every day for 30 days. Now that's some testing. Especially for a platform that changes every five hours.

Let’s say you want to start blogging and see how it impacts your SEO ranking.

Make it a point to blog every single week, once a week for 60 days.

You've got to be willing to test. That is part of doing the work.

NUMBER FIVE: Evaluate

Finally, and I think what brings all of this together, is evaluation.

Put your marketing lens on, look at the data. Look at the time that you were testing, and evaluate what's happening with the work. Remember, this isn't about busywork. I'm not saying sit down and just work for eight hours.

We're talking about that commitment and that clarity on the work.

What specifically are you working towards?
How can you measure the progress that you're taking?

And then be open to evaluating and making those changes as well. If you are not open to evaluating, I really think that's how people get burnt out. Because it's like you just continue to walk into a wall over, and over, and over, and over again when there's a door and another avenue like right next to you.

We're just like, "I'm just doing the work. I'm just being busy. I'm just working today. I'm going to work every single day on my business." But we need to be intentional with the work that we're doing.

The only way that we can be intentional is through this process of having clear objectives, of being open to things changing and modifying based on the data, to give yourself time to test.

And of course evaluate, evaluate, evaluate. And see not only what's working based on the data, but also how does it feel?

DATA-DRIVEN DECISIONS IN MARKETING

We talked about measurable goals. Let those be an indicator for the work, and also what needs to be adjusted based on the work.

Let’s say your webinar is in one week and you want 100 people on the webinar.

How can you show up and do the work?
What haven't you tried?
What haven't you done?
Where could you give a little bit more?

These are the types of evaluations that we have to be making.

So when you're first starting as a beginner, what can help determine where to focus your energy is where and how do you enjoy showing up online?

What comes a little bit more naturally to you?

I'm not saying it's easy. You have to be uncomfortable a little bit, you don’t just want to take the easy route, but what would you enjoy the most.

For myself, this was video. Even early on, it worked with my schedule. I didn't have to write a bunch of stuff. I could just show up, deliver content, repurpose it. This worked for my business because my audience loves video and I love making it.

Where is your audience? Where are they spending their time and their energy the most?

Where do you enjoy showing up? What medium?

If you need permission to focus on one area, here it is!

That's one of the reasons that we decided to drip the content inside of Brandmerry Academy every 30 days, because I didn't want someone jumping into the academy and saying, "I'm going to do SEO, Pinterest, and this all in 30 days."

No. It's not going to work. It's going to be so hard.

When I first started, everyone was on Instagram, but Instagram intimidated the crap out of me. I did not want to edit photos. I was stressed about choosing the right photos.

What if the photo is not good enough? I was nervous about it all.

So I just went all-in on Facebook and Facebook groups. That's all that I did in the beginning. Not my favorite strategy and not what I recommend today. But five years ago, it definitely was. Video was just getting started on Facebook at the time and it made sense to focus on one area.

So that's all I did. And I would think about going on Instagram. And I would maybe dabble a little bit. And then I'd back off a little bit.

Then, when I felt solid in my Facebook strategy I looked for ways to repurpose my content on Instagram. Then Pinterest was of interest to me and I hired someone to take that on because I didn’t want to add more to my plate.

Remember work does not mean busy work.

CONCLUSION

Speaking of doing the work, I’ve done a lot for you!

I’ve compiled all my favorite lessons inside of this free eBook that I put together for you, where I am sharing the 15 lessons to propel your online business. It's really the ultimate guide of shit I wish someone would have told me.

I talk about a lot of the elements that I see holding entrepreneurs back from reaching the income level and the impact that they desire. And as you can probably imagine, I made the same mistakes.

So whether you're just thinking of starting your business or you're three or four years into it, I recommend that you head to brandmerry.com/lessons to download your free eBook.

Because even if you get one little golden nugget from this eBook, I know it is going to support you in achieving your goals in 2021. Head to brandmerry.com/lessons to download your free eBook today.

This is only available for a limited time.

- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

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

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR