Episode 20: Creating Your Expert Brand: Part 2

Episode 20: Creating Your Expert Brand: Part 2

Once you have a logo and a name, you’re good to go with your business, right?

Not even close! A brand is so much more, and having your brand even a little bit ‘off’ will hurt your success.

In the second part of this 3-part series, Pamela walks you through the biggest mistakes people make when creating their expert brand.

You’ll discover:

• 3 biggest mistakes people make with the different brand types
• The surprising ‘little’ mistake that derails all your marketing
• How to handle multiple brands in your business effectively

Timecode Guide:

02:34: Discover the three mistakes people make with the different types of brands.
07:51: Pamela and Gene talk about each and dive into examples to help you not make these mistakes.
08:55: Let’s talk about the surprising little mistake that derails all your marketing.

Podcast Transcription

Episode 20: Creating Your Expert Brand: Part 2

Intro

Intro (00:00):
You’re listening to ‘A Profitable Impact.’

Pamela (00:02):
People often ask me, can I have multiple brands in my business, or can I have multiple businesses that I build at the same time? There are ways that you can and ways that it will really derail you.

Gene (00:13):
Welcome to ‘A Profitable Impact,’ where every single week we help experts like coaches, healers, course creators, and other online professionals expand their reach, increase their impact in the world and be well paid for their extraordinary skills and talents. My name is Gene Monterastelli, and I am the lead coach in Pamela Bruner’s Impact Accelerator coaching program. And now please welcome my friend, my colleague, and the CEO of Attract Clients Online, Pamela Bruner. How are you doing today, Pamela?

Pamela (00:44):
Doing great. And we get to continue our discussion about brands today and talk about brand mistakes. I kind of liked doing this because it’s sort of like knocking down all the sacred cows.

Gene (00:55):
And the really nice thing about it is the, the things that we’re sharing over the course of this three-part series are really simple things that people can implement very quickly. That will make a huge difference in the way that they communicate with their potential clients. Now, as you listen to the conversation today and you come across something where, as we’re unpacking this idea of branding, if you feel like you’re stuck, we’d love for you to have an opportunity to talk to one of our coaches, to help you to unpack that and to be so much clearer about the results that you provide in the world. If you’d like to have one of those conversations, all you need to do is go to BookMyBreakthroughCall.com. That’s BookMyBreakthroughCall.com. Get yourself on the calendar for one of our coaches so that we can help you out to be a clear communicator about the work that you do.

Pamela (01:40):
So here’s what we’re going to talk about today. The three biggest mistakes that people make with the different brand types. And we talked last week about the different brand types, but the particular mistakes that I think even if you choose one of those brand types, which they’re all viable in some way or another, there are mistakes that you can make with those choices. And so we want to make sure you don’t make those mistakes. There’s also a surprising what I call a little mistake that derails all your marketing and it’s astonishing to me, how many people make this tiny little mistake and then how to handle multiple brands in your business effectively. Some people say, well, I’ve got this and I’ve got this and I help these people do this, but I also do this and how do I navigate all of that and put it under a cohesive brand. So we’ll talk about how to do that, right, and how to do that wrong today on the episode.

Gene (02:29):
Well, great. So why don’t we just start out with those three mistakes that people make with the different types of brands?

3 Mistakes People Make with the Different Types of Brands

Pamela (02:34):
Okay. So let’s talk first about the mistakes with a process brand. So last week we talked about the idea that a process or modality brand can work. If you are in a geographic location with a well-known process or modality, like I gave the example of Asheville acupuncture and one of the mistakes that people often make with a process or modality brand like that is they explain the, like, there’ll be a page that says, let us tell you all about what acupuncture is. Well, if they, if someone ended up on the Asheville acupuncture site, they probably already know what acupuncture is. So explaining what acupuncture is, is going to make people’s eyes glaze over, probably make them leave that page and they may lose other valuable information that you’re giving on that page. So instead, I want to suggest that you do two things with a process brand, as you’re talking about your process, one is to explain what’s different about you.

Pamela (03:35):
So perhaps you do your modality in a different way than other people who do that. Same modality. You have a particular tweak to your process. So you’re not explaining the process, but you’re explaining what is different about what you do. The other is to explain the results or outcomes that people often have when they experience your work, or in some cases, the results are outcomes that you may focus on. So if you’re a hands-on healer of some kind, you may focus primarily say on pain relief, and you can talk about the different kinds of pain relief. And that’s much more useful than talking about, you know, how you touch people or the energy that you use or something like that.

Gene (04:17):
Pamela, I’ve actually seen another pitfall that happens when people are explaining the details of their process, that their target market might understand the process on one level. And the more detail you go into, particularly on a website where it’s not a conversation, you actually can start raising more questions and giving them answers because they start to go, Oh, I didn’t realize that. Or is that what’s going on? And so not only is a distraction like you’ve said, but we also could put them in a circumstance where we’re giving them information in a way that is un-useful that actually turns them off from wanting to work.

Pamela (04:50):
Hmm. Such a great example. You know, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got about any web copy at all is don’t give them a reason to say no. Remember the purpose of web copy is to get them to take some action when they’re reading it. So it might be to opt in for a free gift or in this case, probably with a process brand that’s geo-targeted, you’re looking at, will they pick up the phone and make an appointment? Will they reach out and schedule an appointment online? Now, a lot of places have online appointment scheduling, but we want them to take some kind of action. So don’t give them enough information for them to say no, instead give them just enough information to be intrigued and want to take the next step. So now let’s talk about the charisma brand and mistakes with the charisma brand.

Pamela (05:38):
You know, as you said last week, a charisma brand, no matter how much celebrity you have, or how charismatic and attractive you are to your ideal clients, the brand still has to be about the client and not about you. Now, certainly there are websites that are devoted to public figures are websites that are devoted to celebrities or famous business. People like Richard Branson. And it’s fine to have a public figure website, but that’s not the brand. In case of Richard Branson, the brands are always Virgin, Virgin Atlantic Virgin records. That’s the brand is the Virgin brand. So he’s made that about the client. So even if you have a charisma brand, if it’s all me, me, me, you, you, you, unless you’re trying to get out there just as a speaker and base everything off your celebrity, then you want to be talking about the client and the problem that you’re going to solve for that client.

Pamela (06:35):
And finally the results brand. And since Gene, you and I teach results brands to so many people, there are so many different mistakes that people can make with this brand type. The most common mistake that we see is what I would call an umbrella result. So it is a result. Like I help people get unstuck in life and someone will say, well, I help them get unstuck. And it doesn’t matter whether they’re stuck in relationships or in business or in finance or with their kids or in their health or whatever. And most people don’t think of a problem that way. They don’t think, Oh, I’m just stuck in life unless they’re stuck in every single area. And then you’ve got, you know, another problem on your hands. But if most people will say something like, you know, I just, I can’t seem to attract my soulmate or I don’t have a good relationship with my husband, or I can’t make the money I want in my business, or I don’t know how to save money for retirement, or I can’t seem to lose the weight. Like they’re focused in one area. Even if they have problems in multiple areas, they still think of it in terms of a problem in a particular area. So we don’t want an umbrella result or an underlying problem. Like I’m stuck

Gene (07:51):
The other way, Pamela, that people can run into problems with the result brand. It’s almost the opposite of the umbrella brand, where it’s too broad. They’re in a circumstance where they’re hyper-specific, but they have this laundry list of things that they do. I help people to stop smoking and to lose weight and to find relationship and to be abundant in their money. And whenever I see a list like that, and even though there are practitioners and modalities that we can actually do all of those things like that is something that is possible to do. I always think about the diners that are in New Jersey. And if you’ve ever gone into a New Jersey diner, the menu is 37 pages long, and they have Italian food and they’ve Greek food and they’ve Mexican food. And at a certain point, you start to question, can one kitchen produce all of those types of food in a way that’s actually good. And when we’re in a circumstance where we list too many specific results that are not connected to each other, we don’t look like we’re an expert. We look like we’re doing a little bit of everything and it’s easy for someone to be turned off, even though the results are specific. If they’re not connected, it doesn’t look like we’re an expert in that particular area.

Pamela (08:55):
Yeah. It’s known as a Jack of all trades. And if you’re seen as a Jack of all trades, it’s just not very believable. It doesn’t seem very professional and a better example might be something like, you know, well, I help people lose weight and I, I make shoes and I so great jam like, well, good for you, but, but that is not, that’s not believable or I don’t believe that you would do all of them well. And as soon as I questioned whether you would do all of them, well, I questioned whether you would do any of them. Well. So let’s talk about this surprising little mistake that derails all your marketing. I think this is really, really funny. People will often decide that they want to misspell something on purpose because the properly spelled version of that is already taken as a URL. It’s already taken as a business name.

Pamela (09:49):
And I find that you end up spelling things frequently. Now a lot of people are reading online and they’ll just click a link if it’s misspelled. And there are people who have made this work. When we think about Sarah Blakely and Spanx, the women’s clothing line Spanx, S P A N X, has been a very, very successful, but incredibly millions and millions, hundreds, million dollar brand. And that has worked really well, but most people aren’t typing that in, in the proper spelling. It’s a very different thing. If your trying to brand with, for example, transformation in the name of your brand, which I would not suggest, it’s a very long word. And you spelled transformation with a Z instead of an S you’re going to be constantly explaining to people that you have to spell transformation with the Z. So I would suggest you just look for a different name rather than going for a misspelling like that.

The Surprising Mistake that Derails All Your Marketing

Pamela (10:48):
You’re going to end up sending a whole bunch of people to your competitor. Who’s got the correct spelling. Another surprising little mistake is if you have a name that has multiple spellings or common, or your name is spelled in an unusual way, I would buy the standard spelling of your name if you can. So, for example, if your name is Debra, D E B R A, I would buy first name, last name.com. And I would also buy D E B O R A H, D E B O R A. So I would buy all the different spellings of Deborah combined with your last name, if you can, and point them all at the same website, because if people hear about you, they may not recognize the proper spelling. And we want to make sure they find you.

Gene (11:31):
I have a friend of mine who every single time she introduces herself in a professional setting. She always says Sarah, with an H and then her last name and in a social media setting, she actually has both spellings of her first and last name within, without the H just because she knows there are series with H and without H’s, and being able to make that an easy thing for people to find is really important.

Pamela (11:57):
It’s such a great example. So now let’s talk about how to handle multiple brands in your business effectively. We’ve all ready, kind of hinted at that. When we said too many results is going to be, it’s going to be a negative thing for your brand. If you’re saying that you can handle a lot of different problems and produce a lot of different solutions, that’s not a great thing. So what’s the alternative for multiple brands. You can have differently named programs, which should all be closely tied. So for example, one of the things we teach is signature system, which is a high ticket offer around a particular result, that you have a proven system that you take people through, and you may have that signature system, and you may also have a down, sell a smaller version of that signature system. And those names are probably going to be similar so that it’s obvious those programs are linked in result. Now, should that be your brand name, should your signature system be your brand name? It certainly can. Some people will have an overarching brand name. That’s a little different. Some people will brand with their signature system name, and there’s no real problem with that. As a rule of thumb, I would say, if you are under a hundred thousand dollars, no multiple brands do one thing differently. Named programs is fine, but you’re not trying to grow two businesses, build two businesses. You’re out there with one brand.

Gene (13:23):
And Pamela, I mean, I’m in a circumstance now where I run two businesses and then I, co-run a third non-profit with a colleague of mine and they’re radically different. And so, and they are successful in the way that you were talking about here. And so typically when I go to a conference and I’m networking out in the world, I have three different business cards because I want to only communicate to the person who’s in front of me about the brand. That makes sense for what we are talking about. So there’s absolutely no confusion. So once you get over that threshold and you’re in a circumstance that you can do that with multiple brands, it really needs to be clear and distinct so it is obvious you’re talking to the exact right person about the right thing.

Pamela (14:02):
Right. Which is what I say when we’re talking about multiple brands and are in a position like you, you can sell in different channels. So for example, if you’re marketing a, say a coaching brand through one channel, and you’re, you’re doing it through running Facebook ads, or you’re doing direct outreach on social or something like that, that’s great. And then if you have local newspaper ads for completely different brick and mortar business that you run locally, it’s unlikely that those two will collide because they’re in different channels, they’re in completely different media. So if you, if you need to sell two things, sell them in different channels. Like you said, with two business cards, if you start talking to somebody and it sounds like they are an appropriate person to give a business card to that, you wouldn’t have expected at that. You’re going to pull it out and do it and not confuse people, which is great.

Gene (14:55):
So if you are in a circumstance where you’ve been listening to our conversation today, and you recognize that you need a little help tightening up your branding so that you’re communicating in a way, so people truly understand what you provide. So you can connect with the right people. We would really encourage you to reach out, to have a conversation with one of our coaches. You can do that absolutely free. All you need to do is go to BookMyBreakthroughCall.com. That’s BookMyBreakthroughCall.com and get on the calendar of one of our coaches. So they can help you to continue to refine your branding. So you’re communicating in a way that is clear and obvious if you enjoyed the conversation today, and you know, another entrepreneur out there, someone who helps and creates transformation in the world who would enjoy this particular conversation, and more importantly, it would benefit them in their business.

Gene (15:43):
Please be our ambassador and pass this episode along. It might make a huge difference in their day and in their business as well. If you haven’t done score already, we would also encourage you to subscribe and follow the show. You can do that in Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, or Audible. Click on Subscribe, click on Follow, whatever the button is in the place that you get audio, and make sure you turn on those notifications so that each time a new episode comes out, you are notified right away. If you have a question, a comment, or a topic that you’d like Pamela and I to talk about on a future episode, we would love to hear from you. All you need to do is go to AttractClientsOnline.com, click on that Contact link, drop us a note. We would love to be able to be helpful on a future episode. For ‘A Profitable Impact,’ I’m Gene Monterastelli. Until next time, I hope you have an impactful week.

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Building a business as a coach or expert is challenging, especially if you’re trying to find your clients online.

Join business coach and online marketing expert Pamela Bruner as she uncovers the secrets of successful transformational businesses. If you want to make a difference in people’s lives, expand your reach, and attract high-paying clients, you’ll love this show!