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Welcome to the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen and I took an Etsy startup, and launched it in big box retailers within 12 months. As a creative with an entrepreneurial drive, I left my full time career in healthcare to find better harmony between career, family and self care. We believe you can have it all. Yes, you can launch and run a successful scalable business while maintaining harmony in all aspects of your life. We believe we can learn from each other and draw on many experiences to create the best life possible. During each episode, we will share proven life hacks that will keep you on top and striving every day. There should be no hesitation. Make a plan. Take action. We are here for you. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another fantastic episode of the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen, and I'm going to be your host for today. Today we are going to be listening to a Masterclass that we recorded for our students, and we thought it was such a great Masterclass that of course our podcast listeners should also enjoy this information, especially because I know many of the individuals listening to this podcast are considering starting their own business or have already started their own business. So today's Masterclass is all about brand messaging and we speak about how important it is to get your brand messaging right, and we do speak about the ideal customer or the ideal client and other big concepts which we've discussed here in the past, on our podcasts. What's going to end up happening is along with this Masterclass, we have an amazing workbook that will help you get into action, because we know how important it is for you to actually do the work. Yes, it's great to listen and get all the theory but remember nothing will happen unless you actually do the work. So make sure you grab the workbook associated with this Masterclass, there'll be a link in the show notes, like I said, and then that will help guide you throughout this Masterclass. If you're listening to the podcast while driving or doing another activity, that's fine. Keep listening to the podcast. It's great for you to absorb this information, but remember to grab that workbook so you can actually get started on crafting your brand messaging. All right guys, I hope you enjoy it, and remember if you have any questions at all, you can always send us an email at [email protected]. Hello, everyone. Welcome to this week's topic on Branding Series. You're watching the Masterclass on the branding series. We did a segment last week on your Branding Angle, and today we are going to be talking about how we get our brand messaging. This week, we are speaking about brand messaging and there's a few components to brand messaging that we all need to be aware of. Now guys, Hajra has dropped a link in the chat so you can go ahead and grab that link. That is a workbook associated with this topic, with this master class. The goal for you is to work through a few of the segments. When you have your brand messaging, you're inconsistent and on par, you don't want to be speaking to one audience and then the next audience and the next message, so that's the goal for you to go through the workbook.You can watch this again because I know we give you the workbook at this point. If you're listening to the podcast, you can definitely pause the podcast and then go ahead and print out the workbook or do a digital version of the workbook, in that way you're working along with us as we go through this topic. What is your brand message? Basically, what is a brand message? Brand message is made up of multiple part, your brand promise, your positioning statement, your tone of voice, and of course your target audience. We've talked about target audience so many times during the podcast. I don't think we've done an exclusive topic on target audience, but when we chat about it, we always talk about your ideal audience and who is the best audience for your service, or for your products. Remember, we can't service everyone, we only can service a segment of your population. And then finally, where are we going with this? Why are we talking about brand message specifically, and how is it going to impact your business? So big question, what is a brand message? I think everyone inherently knows that a brand message is the value of the service that you're offering and how you convey that in your written language when you are speaking to your customer. The whole reason branding is such an important aspect of the business is that's how you relate to your customers. You want to build that emotional connection with them, and usually see emotional connection that will motivate them to purchase your product, especially if you're in an industry where you have multiple players, for example, if you have iPhone is a great example. There are so many other options on the market but still it dominates as the chosen cellular phone of our generation. The reason why is because they've done great branding and they've had great success with promoting through an emotional connection with their audience. Some examples that I wanted to pull out for many people, in the North American world we tend to know these three brands quite well and these are their slogans. Now, if you think about Nike and "Just do it", think about that," Just do it". Isn't that motivating for you? If you're somebody who's in athletics and you have that hesitation, that slogan helps promote that emotional connection to that brand. Everyone knows Nike is "Just do it". They've actually gone ahead and trademarked that slogan as theirs, so you can't go and use it just like that. No brand can pull it off, and they'll get a cease and desist notification from their legal office at Nike. You have to be really cognizant when you are picking your slogans that you're not picking something that's extremely, extremely popular or something that is connected to a brand like "Just do it". But think about Nike, think about the slogan "Just do it", that is an example of such great messaging to the consumer especially one that they know there's hesitation when they're in the sports arena and self-doubt, and all the other things that go along with not being able to promote and pursue. So "Just do it" is extremely helpful for people in that situation. Walmart is another great example. Their slogan to "Save money, live better". They're all about their consumers being able to save money that's why they ensure that they have the lowest price compared to all of their competitors is actually a clause in their agreements. They really stand true to that, but they know their customer and that's the reason why they've chosen that slogan. It also invokes an emotional response because you're like: Oh, if I save money, I live better, so that's another great example that people in North America and Europe, I'm not sure if there's a Walmart in Europe, they call it something else, but in North America, that's Walmart slogan. The final example I have here is Subway, "Eat fresh". Again, that invokes a very emotional response to the consumer because of course, I want to go to subway and get a fresh sandwich with fresh ingredients and fresh bread. Again, another really strong slogan, really highlighting what the brand stands for and really bringing it back to the customer and what emotional response they want their customer to have which will promote their sale. If you missed last week's Masterclass and for the podcast listeners, it's episode 36, we have previous masterclass on brand angle. The reason we did that first is because you need to know the different angles your business is viewed. You need to know the different angles that your business is coming from, so you have a customer angle, you have an internal angle and a competitive angle, and I'll go through them really quickly but for anybody who missed that replay or would like to go through that exercise, it's really important for you to understand your angles before you go ahead and complete the brand messaging exercise. That way you're not missing something, and this takes a lot of thought. You may need to take half an hour or an hour just to think about which angles and you should think about them in such a way that they're not all the same. They are very distinct and different, and then as you build your business, you need to ensure that all your angles are essentially aligned. So you have a customer angle, which is how your customers view you. You have an internal angle, how your team views your brand and your vision for your brand and then you have the competitive angle, which is what makes you unique in the marketplace. If you have not been able to catch that episode, it's episode 36 for our podcast listeners, and it is the previous Masterclass that was last week. If you are a student, you have access to that in your portal, but if you're not a student, you'll have to go grab it to the podcast, episode 36. Basing our information on our angles, we all know that brand messaging has a few components, one of which is your brand promise. As we just seen the brand promise is your tagline, so we gave those examples with Walmart, with Nike and with Subway. When you are going through the idea of what is your brand promise, you have to think about what is the vision for your brand, and it ties back to who your customer is. This is the best way to help you come about with your tagline. We had those examples, so remember Nike, we thought about the customer base for Nike. We know that they need to be motivated. We know that they're ambitious individuals and there may be some hesitation, so they've gone and they have really dug deep on what is the emotional response that they're looking for from their customer. So "Just do it": Okay, I'm just going to do it. I'm going to go grab my shoes and I'm going to go buy my gear and I'm just going to do it. And that helps motivate their customer to not just purchase the product, but continue to work along with whatever path or goal they were going for. So think about for your brand and for your vision, what is it that you are looking for your brand or your service, your product to accomplish for your customer? See what problem you're solving and at the end, try to think about how it's invoking an emotional response. I know this is a deep exercise. It's not just about slapping a few words together, it's a really critical exercise for you so your brand really stands out and as memorable. I'm going to give you some examples from our companies. We have Also Sophia and our tagline is "Creating products you will love". We are a product- based business and we make unique cultural- based products for underserved minority groups in North America and in Europe. That is what we're standing for, we don't really curate from other brands as much. We will at times take a few items and white label them if we think that they're appropriate, but for the most part, we are creating products you will love. We put the word "you" in there so we know who we're talking to. It's you as the customer, and then the other example from our businesses is Boss It Club, and it's "Yes, you can" because many people we know in our target audience or target customer, or IC as we refer to it, as they have self-doubt. They may not want to push forward and they have the thought of doing it but they need a little bit more motivation or inspiration, so "Yes, you can". Again, if you need to pause this masterclass, if you're watching the recording, or if you need to pause the recording for the podcast, please do so. Print out your package for this masterclass and really jot down some ideas, or if you don't have a printer, write it down in a notebook or write it down digitally in your Google docs or however you keep note, because we want to make sure that you are really digging deep. Now you might be stuck because you might be like: Oh, well I don't know who I'm serving, and that's going to come up in a bit as well. So let's move on again, brand promise is to tagline. Something that your customer will remember and it's helping you with that emotional connection. The positioning statement is another important part of your branding. How does your brand fit in with the marketplace? Okay. This is where our previous masterclass on the angles is important because we're going to use your competitive angle and your internal angle, and we're going to help use those elements to help with your positioning statement. The goal of the positioning statement is how are you unique in your segment? For example, there are many communities or many business coaching programs out there, how are we different and how are we going to say that this is our segment, or this is where we would like to focus our attention? It's making us unique. We are there to educate, elevate and inspire female founders who are between the years of zero to five years in business. That is helping us pull out a segment of the population. It's not that you wouldn't benefit from any of the information if you weren't a female founder, or if you were beyond zero to five years in business, or you were not even in business, it doesn't mean you won't benefit. But the point is that is how we have segmented out compared to anybody else in the marketplace, and that is something that is very important for your team to know, and for the market to know. So then you become that go-to individual to say: Oh, yes, I'm going to go get some free bonuses or education from Boss It Club because I know that they are really helping us from zero to five years. They know the path that I'm going to be taking so I'm going to listen to their podcasts, or I'm going to take their free Masterclasses or I'm going to join their community because I know that that is the place for me to be able to flourish and grow during those times in my business, and I want to take my business seriously. That really helps segment out somebody, plus you're a female. We're really helping female founders because there is some special nuances when it comes to being a female founder compared to anybody else. That is in contrast to somebody who may not be so specific. Some people say: Okay, I'm only helping at this segment. I'm only at the startup phase. I'm only going to help somebody at the phase where they're just getting started, and then after two years in business, I can help them beyond that. It gets too difficult for me to understand all the complexities with their business, and so they say respectfully, we may not be the right community for you, versus somebody in a more of a mastermind type of situation. They may say we only take entrepreneurs that are making seven figures consistently a year. They've really said: Sorry, if you're at the startup phase, we apologize but you're just too early for us, and instead, we're going to be suggesting that you go check out these individuals because there'll be able to support you more. So that's the examples that I have for you with that type of service or coaching- based business. I'll give you one more for Also Sophia. Also Sophia creates culturally modern and ethnic products for underserved minority groups in North America and Europe. We are creating products, but we are not just creating any product, we're creating a product that is specifically for the underserved minority groups. In these areas, North America and Europe, they're considered ethnic or cultural, so if we go to a big retailer, they'll say ethnic. That's just the terminologies that they have adopted, and so that is a great example for us to say that we're not curating, we're white labeling some and I can go into more of what white labeling means in another podcast or another Masterclass. But right now, the point of this is that we've taken a segment by saying we're doing an underserved minority group in North America and Europe. You can take that to your own product- based business or your service- based business, and think about who are you serving and what are you doing, and really say to yourself, how am I unique? And that we'll go back to the previous episode or previous Masterclass on angles where you will be able to say: As my competitive angle, if I go back to the competitive angle here, how am I standing out compared to my competition? That's a really big question that you need to ask yourself, and I spoke about last time, how it can seem daunting and feels self-conscious, you don't always want to look at your competition and be like: I don't really want to size myself up, but that's what you need to do and I use examples last week from Sam Walton and how he, from a Walmart, he's a Walmart CEO Founder. He's passed on, but if you read his autobiography, he literally goes and spies on his competition, and he's probably not the only Founder and CEO that did that. The point is you need to know who you are working with in your marketplace and your space, and not to say you're not competing. There's a lot of sand to play in the sandbox, it's just a matter of knowing where you stand and how you can make yourself unique. That will help you with your positioning statement, and that will help not just yourself as a Founder or CEO or team member, but your entire team and eventually the people who you serve, which is your customer. I've talked about this so many times, the target audience, your ideal customer, your IC, and the reason why it is so important when it comes to branding is because you can't serve everyone. Everyone knows this, you can't serve everyone. I know it seems crazy when you say that because you're like: I don't want to lose business, but you as a service or a product, won't be the right service or product for everyone, and the example that I have used multiple times is the grocery store. Now where I am from GTA, the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada. We have tons of grocery stores, I know other parts of the world will have different amounts of grocery stores depending on how populated the area is and how many minority groups may be there. But in our area, we have a ton so if you think about the grocery store, you have a grocery store for very specific groups of people. We have ethnics grocery stores, we have grocery stores for those who can afford the polished apples, and then we have grocery stores that serve people who may not care about the polished apples. This is the same thing. Think about this in the same way, when you are regarding your business and your brand, and if you have not done this exercise before, I want you to do it now. This is probably the most important exercise in this entire Masterclass. You're going to find out who is your ideal customer. You're going to go through a few of these questions, age, gender, income level, marital status, where do they typically shop? If you are going to think about your customer, you may want to say: My customer likes to go to Tiffany's, the jewelry shop. That's the people I want to serve. I know that they can afford my services of products and I'm not going for the bargain bin hunters, I don't want those individuals, I want the Tiffany's. Or you could be like: No, I really want to serve the individuals who's a Walmart customer. I would like to ensure that my products speak to the Walmart customer. They're going to be priced accordingly and all that. Those are the reasons why there's this conversation has to include the shopping element because ideally, if you are selling a product, you want to know what kind of customer they are so then that way you can price your product accordingly. Another question that's very important, I feel now that you should include and you should be concerned about is how do they shop? Because we're coming to a post- pandemic world where a lot of services had to go online. A lot of people are doing online shopping now when previously they may not have. They may have had a schedule where they went out and they did their shopping locally. They may have been occasional online shoppers, but that may have switched dramatically. So when you are offering your product or your service, you may want to consider how are they shopping? Are they more of an online consumer that wants things quickly, and you have to prioritize convenience now over everything, or are they the type of customer that still wants to diligently go to the store and pick out their items? That way they might be more concerned about quality and what the service entails, for example, if you're a service-based or they'd be more concerned about the quality of the product so they want to pick it and hand pick it themselves, so it being online might not be as important. Those are things you need to consider now. And overall, what is their purchasing behaviors? This is a huge topic which we won't go into right now, but just think about, are they the type of person who needs to have urgency associated with their shopping? For example, if they need sales to get themselves motivated, or are they the type of individual that doesn't need the urgency so much but they need to have, for example, they're just fast to take the VIP's. There's a lot of VIP sales, so is your customer more of a VIP? They'll go first because they don't want to lose out on the product or the service. That's lining up with urgency as well, but these are important questions you need to ask yourself. And then you might be saying to yourself: I have many segments of the population. I have the people who need urgency, I have the fast adopters. I had the people that are late and they will be doing last minute, and so for our customer-based, we have all three. We have to ensure that we are going at our customer-based in a three or four different ways, meaning we do pre-sales, we do the exclusive sales for our email list only. We have our ongoing sales and then we also have the touch points at the end for saying fast pickup and all that. You have to go through these exercises as well so that way you really understand who your customer is and remember, how are you serving them best? That is really what we need to understand when we are doing our target audience, how are we going to serve them best? That was a lot of information guys. Again, if you haven't been able to sit down and do this exercise, you can definitely come back and relisten to this part of the podcast or Masterclass. I want to make sure that this is the take home. You really target your audience, your IC your ideal customer because that way you know who you're serving when you were making your brand messaging. I think this is the last one, tone of voice. This is the last topic we're going to speak about. Tone of voice is extremely important as well, and you need to identify who your IC is, who is your ideal customer, because when you speak to them, you want to make sure you're speaking to that specific person. Your tone of voice is going to change depending on who you're speaking to. If you think about writing a personal letter or a letter to that individual, you will change your tone of voice, so it can be very serious or it can be fun and lively. You want to relate. You want to relate to your customer. I'm going to give a few examples, so if I was an executive life coach for small or medium size business, and I'm going to be a life coach and executive a life coach for C-level executive, so we're talking about CEO, CFO, COO individuals who really take their situation in their business very seriously. They're dealing with multimillion dollar projects, they are writing proposals in a very serious. Their entire jargon and everything from emails to the way they communicate in the office may be very serious. So when I communicate with them, I need to be serious. My tone of voice needs to be serious, versus if I was a business coach for a startup entrepreneur, and I wanted to ensure that they were comfortable, they may never have worked in that environment before where they're at the board table or they're at the board room, and they're not writing proposals daily. They're not conveying through emails in a serious tone, then you want to meet them where they're at. My tone of voice for that customer, for that client, I wouldn't be as serious. It would be fun and lively, so I could relate to them. I want them to be comfortable and I want them to know that I'm meeting them where they're at. I always say that perfectly imperfect, you start wherever you are. Think about your customer. Again, it always goes back to your customers. You have to think about your customer and think about what tone of voice would resonate with them, and think about writing them a letter and think about writing them an email. How would you speak to them? Just really be mindful of that when you are completing this exercise. Where are we going with this? The goal for you is to have a solid foundation so all of your communication will be consistent and on-brand. This is a great thing that highfive.com has completed, and this is a goal for you. Now it's a little blurry, we'll do a printable, I think for you guys to fill it in with paper and pencil if you like, or we can do a digital copy for you as well. This is a great way of seeing how everything connects. We're talking about the brand promise. We spoke about that today. We spoke about the positioning statement. We spoke about the target audience. We're going to speak about our mission next week or in the next few weeks at our podcast and Masterclass. Today, we spoke about tone of voice and in a month from now, we're going to speak about how to do your elevator pitch which is extremely difficult for people to convey. And then of course, we're going to talk about the brand pillars as well in a few weeks. As you can see, if you have this prepared for you and you are onboarding a team member, or even for yourself to go back and just check, am I on brand? Who am I speaking to? You can see in target audience, they have a few different target audience members because they sell a video conferencing software. They know that they will end up having to influence multiple people and eventually have somebody buy it. These are things that you may want to consider as well, depending on which industry and which service you're in. I'm going to tell you who our target audiences by looking at this. We have buyers at a big box retailer, then we also have the consumer, the end buyer. So we have an end-user who is going to be the user and the buyer, and then we also have a buyer who's actually an influencer in some ways, and also the buyer. You may have multiple people as well, that you are going to be targeting in your target audience here, and we call it ideal customer. Again, this is what we are actually trying to achieve by doing our branding series. We want you to go away with something like this so that way you feel organized, you'll know where you are heading towards when you're speaking about branding and staying on brand, as they say, because we want to make sure that you're not confusing your customers at the end of the day. All right guys, that's it. Thanks again for joining us for this Masterclass. and remember, make a plan and take action, and yes, you can have it all. We'll talk to you guys later. Bye. So my fellow bosses, did you enjoy that episode? Now is time for you to make a solid plan and take action. But first, remember to subscribe and follow the Boss It Podcast so you receive a notification whenever we drop an episode. Remember to leave us a review on iTunes. 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