Showing Up For Your Brand In A Way That Is So You with Jen Miller
Episode 229: Show Notes
Today on the show we welcome Jen Miller. Jen is a brand strategy consultant and is super pumped about helping women build their brands. In 2003 Jen also started a blog, interviewing female founders to discover how she might be able to build a brand of her own. Jen has learned from the best and the proof is in the pudding! Jen is really great at helping entrepreneurs ask themselves the right questions; questions that will help them lay the foundation of their brand and get them headed on the right path from day one.
Listen on your favorite podcast player
In this episode, we are talking about the importance of brand personality and how it is so much more than just your logo, your color scheme and your website. We’re also talking about how you can take care of people in a way that serves your brand well, how to put yourself out there, dressing the part and being a little vulnerable with your own self. At the end of the day, it boils down to authenticity. But authenticity with intention. So, whether you’re starting a brand from ground zero or trying to get your brand back on track, by the end of this episode, you’ll have some awesome tools to get you going with a bang.
Set The Foundation: What Does My Brand Do, Who Is It For and What Makes Me Special?
We at TCC are in the camp of knowing how important our brand is, we know how important our people are, but we are also really aware, at the same, of how many people get caught up in the logo, the font, the banner color, all the nitty-gritty details. So where should people be spending more attention? Jen is always challenging people to take a few steps back to the foundation. What is it you are trying to build and why? Because by setting your foundations, you’ll likely be more successful. Having your foundational questions and motives down, will make all other decisions about your brand far easier to make. The very first questions Jen likes to answer is, “What does my brand do? Who is it for? What makes me special and why should people care?” This is where you start.
How To Show Up For Your Brand And Ask The Right Questions From Day 1
Jen believes that we need to think about our brands as if they were people. Your brand has a personality and you want to think about what role it is playing in your customers lives. Is it showing up as the best friend? Is it showing up as the coach? And then in what way is your brand showing up? Are you funny? Serious? Super positive? Beyond that, people want to know how they can connect with you on a deeper level. That’s when we start to think about your brand values. Why do you do what you do? What’s your bigger purpose? That’s going to show up in how you bring your brand to life – through content, images and stories. So now, what do you want to do for the people who are a part of your community? Answering these questions is important to do both at the beginning and during your business. You need to have a vision of where your business is going and that is why answering these questions is important. But at the same time, your business is going to shift and morph and your answers might change. That’s okay, just be aware of those changes and put a pulse on what needs to change. But in the beginning, when you don’t have a big customer base or community, branding will be one of the biggest things you have control over. You want people to trust you and the way you present yourself, through your brand, says everything. This take a lot of self-confidence and this is a great trait to present to the world.
How To Present Your Brand In A Way That Is True For You
At the end of the day, people aren’t buying from brands, they are buying from people. So if you are putting something out there that is not a reflection of who you are, people are not going to be able to connect with you. The line between a brand and a personal brand, is really getting blurred. People care about and want to know who is behind the scenes. This is what makes the whole concept of competition irrelevant because there is no way that one business can serve everyone in the world. There is room for everybody and the way that you can serve is by being yourself. So show up as yourself. Look the way you want to look. Teach the way you want to teach. The people who are attracted to that are going to find you. Be playful and be yourself, but be yourself with intention. The intention behind it is everything.
How To Make A Connection With Your Customer When You Are Nothing Like Them
The first step to understanding your business is knowing what you have to offer and who do you want to offer it to. When you are getting started you won’t know everything about your customer, so you are going to take an educated guess. Then, take time to get to know those people and discover how you can serve them. Once you have established this a bit more, it will seep out into your content and everything you are producing. But what if your customer is really far away or completely different from the person you are? How, then, do you be authentic with them? So, let’s say you are in your early twenties and your customers are in their sixties or seventies. You are at completely different stages of life, so how then do you connect? Jen reminds us to always go back to shared values, no matter who your customer is. What values do you have in common? There will always be an experience or a story that connects you to them. There is a reason you are serving them in the first place, after all! If someone lets you into their world, you listen. So, tap into conversations that your audience is having online. Observe, listen, and respond. Join their Facebook groups, their LinkedIn groups and read their comments. This will help you to better connect with them.
The Importance Of Dressing The Part But Still Being Approachable
Jen likes to think of branding like putting on a dress, bright red lipstick, new heels – just that feeling of feeling so damn good about how you look. You step out into the world in a different way. People take notice of you, there is that confidence that you portray, and people are attracted to that. If you don’t put a lot of effort into how your brand looks, it is almost a reflection of how you work. But not only do you have to be appealing, but you also have to be approachable. If you seem standoff-ish or unreachable or maybe even TOO perfect, people don’t feel like they can approach you. And being approachable goes back to the beginning when you ask yourself, “What brand do I want to build?” At the same time, you don’t want to disappoint people by a person who does not meet the brand. So don’t build some crazy, flashy, insane website if your personality does not match that at all. You have to have confidence to put who you are out there. Don’t try to be something you completely are not because if you do, people will see that. In the beginning of business we tend to say certain things or do certain things in order to attract business, whether you believe in what you are saying / doing or not. Try to avoid doing this because your actions, your partners, your promo deals are all a reflection of the brand. So if you think it would be annoying to receive another email, for example, then don’t send another email!
Quote This
There is room for everybody and the way that you can serve is by being yourself.
—Jen Miller
Highlights
Set The Foundation: What Does My Brand Do, Who Is It For And What Makes Me Special? [0:02:22.1]
How To Show Up For Your Brand And Ask The Right Questions From Day 1. [0:05:10.1]
How To Present Your Brand In A Way That Is True For You. [0:14:15.1]
How To Make A Connection With Your Customer When You Are Nothing Like Them. [0:18:22.1]
The Importance Of Dressing The Part But Still Being Approachable. [0:29:42.1]
#TalkStrategyToMe [0:39:20.6]
Get clear on your brand positioning.
Be an active listener on and offline.
Write a biography for your brand.
ON TODAY’S SHOW
Jen Miller
Jen A. Miller is a brand strategy consultant at jenamiller.co and helping women build their brands is her jam. Her career kicked off at Procter & Gamble where she learned what it takes to develop and grow iconic brands. While she loved the work she knew climbing the corporate ladder was not for her. So, in 2013 she started a blog interviewing female founders to discover how she might be able to build a brand of her own. Her blog has since evolved into an interview series with Entrepreneur Magazine and a business coaching & consulting with solopreneurs and emerging brands. She especially loves working with female entrepreneurs to strengthen their brand positioning, purpose, and personality through content, collaborations, and community. This summer Jen is introducing Brand Camp, an online course that teaches women how to take their business from ideas to execution and turn their passions into profitable brands. You can learn more at brandcampcourse.com. For more information on working with Jen and joining the Jam Fam, her community of bloggers and business babes head, to jenamiller.co.
KEY TOPICS
Brand strategy, Marketing, Brand management, Brand planning, Women brands
