Learn Why Your Brand Matters + When You Must Start to Build It | #228

I find tremendous IRONY about branding.  What's Your Guess on what that IRONY might be?

⏱When do you build your brand?
🧐How do you build your brand?
🤷How do you know if your branding lands with your ideal clients?

Learn 3 Things Your Brand Is NOT! Plus...>>>listen to the full episode to learn a bonus 4th "What Your Brand is NOT!"

🎯Target your brand with 6 powerful questions to gain clarity and confidence about how you show up for the people you serve.

☎️Tell me about your brand!  How did your brand evolve? or How do you describe your brand now?

🎙️Don't Miss out On the Insights of #226 - Is Podcasting Sustainable?! You'll walk away with more clarity on how podcasting is the BEST LEVERAGE for your business - on either side of the microphone.

⬇️ ACTION-PACKED RESOURCES + NEXT STEPS ⬇️

Looking for organic growth through evergreen content? 💎 🏃🏽‍♀️⤵
Book a call with Jen coachjenrogers.com/VIPCoach

Tired of Just Talking About Launching? Grab my FREE Training:
The Nitty Gritty Podcast Training 🚀🎙️⤵
coachjenrogers.com/PodcastNittyGrittyTraining

Apply for the next 90-Day Podcast Cohort!🎧🏃🏽‍♀️⤵
coachjenrogers.com/podcastcoach

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📞Ask me your Question or Get Featured! Ask Jen Anything

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Be anxious for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. Philippians 4:6

Chapters

• 0:01 When do you build your brand? How do you build your brand? How do you know if your brand is landing?
• 6:44 Let's start with the three things that your brand is not!
• 7:03 What IS a brand?
• 7:09 😱Jen's 3rd grade flashback
• 9:00 What is the IRONY of branding?
• 10:30 The Power of Branding + Confidence in Your Offer
• 12:56 Six Questions To Ask About Your Brand
• 14:06 We start September 3 with the next Launch Cohort!

Transcript

Time To Simplify
Jen Rogers | Creator of the 90-Day Sprint | Certified Coach | Keynote Speaker

I help startup Christian women entrepreneurs leverage resources so they can stop running around with their hair on fire and have time for the people, places + play they treasure most.

Time To Simplify
Learn Why Your Brand Matters + When You Must Start to Build It | #228

❌ Your brand is NOT A logo…

❌ Your brand is NOT A slogan…

❌ Your brand is NOT Your description of your brand…

>>>Read on for the bonus 4th mistake to avoid when it comes to your brand.

[00:00:00] Jen: When do you build your brand? How do you build your brand? How do you know if your brand is landing? These are all great questions that we are going to explore today on time to simplify. If there were a way to simplify your branding, would you do it? If there were something as easy as 1, 2, 3 brand me. Would you do it? I would. Let's be honest, there is nothing like that. There is no easy. 

[00:00:31] Jen: 1, 2, 3 brand me, in fact, branding takes time and yes, we spend a lot of time in the boardroom, if you will, coming up with creative ideas about how we want to show up. But until we actually put ourselves out there and share our message, we won't know whether our branding lands. And here's the thing. It's not just landing for our clients. 

[00:00:57] Jen: Our branding is a reflection of [00:01:00] not only how we feel, but how we experience life, the energy that we have, how we show up when we are in our best state. It's not just our message. It's not just those words that we put together. Hi there. 

[00:01:15] Jen: I'm Jen and you are listening because you want to simplify not only your brand, but your life. 

[00:01:22] Jen: and you're here because I've shared a message with you that resonates. And that message is my I help statement. If you've been an entrepreneur for, I don't know, maybe two minutes, you know that you need an, I help statement and something that sounds so simple as "I help", turns into something that is so much deeper than just a couple of sentences strung together, sharing with the world, what it is that you do. Hey there I am Jen Rogers and you are listening to Time To Simplify and I helped start up 

[00:01:57] Jen: Christian women entrepreneurs leverage their [00:02:00] resources so they can stop running around with their hair on fire and have time for the people, places and play they treasure. Most those people, those places and that play, they are critical to your overall wellbeing, to your spiritual, your mental and your physical wellbeing. If you don't know what your brand is, you will struggle. And the dichotomy is you won't know what your brand is until you struggle. Find out exactly what I mean in one hot second.

[00:02:34] Jen:  Hey there, I'm leading you on this journey because well, about the first year of podcasting, I did most everything wrong. I didn't have a brand. I didn't have a mission and I didn't have a podcasting coach. I figured, Hey, I'm an expert at talking. So starting a podcast was my way of ministering to Stepmamas was on the hard of their Stepmama journey. 

[00:02:57] Jen: The thing is, I wasn't fully [00:03:00] healed. I wasn't in a place where I could minister in a way that would be helpful. So God used that first year to really help me grow and to figure out lessons learned, if you will, to launch my show in a proper way. 

[00:03:15] Jen:  I share more about this in episode number 226. 

[00:03:18] Jen: I share the importance of being healed from your journey before you attempt to teach other people. I also share how necessary it is that you understand how podcasting is aligning with your bigger goals, with your business goals, with your ministry goals, with your hobby goals.

[00:03:35] Jen: So be sure you check out episode number 226, and I like to keep things simple. So I'm going to put that link in the show notes for you so you can easily access that episode.

[00:03:44] Jen: Did you catch those three mistakes I mentioned as to the reason why I'm leading this journey? I want to save you a ton of pain. The three big mistakes I made, where I didn't have a brand. I didn't have a mission and I did not have a podcasting coach.

[00:03:59] Jen:  [00:04:00] I figured, How hard can it be to start a podcast? The thing is it's not hard to start a podcast. It is hard to stay committed when you don't know what you're doing because confused minds we know in sales, confused buyers do not buy. 

[00:04:17] Jen: When you are confused about what you're doing, when you're feeling uncertain, when you have no confidence, it's very difficult to keep moving forward. My mission is to help you avoid the common mistakes new podcasters make. 

[00:04:31] Jen:  you don't need to lose a year of time trying to launch your show well. You must know the purpose of your show and I can help you determine that. My current client, Tony Mascolo, host of the soon to be released podcast SMART TO MEDIATE, 

[00:04:46] Jen:  shares a little bit of what it's like to be in the coaching hot seat.

[00:04:51] Tony: I'm grateful that I met someone who could take me on a journey because I have a feeling I would not, I wouldn't have lasted long [00:05:00] if I I jumped right in without knowing everything I know now, done one or two and it just would have become too difficult to go further.

[00:05:07] Tony: You've taught me that the journey is a long one. It starts with one step, you know, just like all those things you heard. And that's great because that fits in with the framework. So, um, I am happy. I'm excited. I feel that I'm only partially along the road. Um, and then, uh, and I still feel I have a lot to give.

[00:05:28] Tony: I also realized one thing. I need to break up my podcast into smaller thoughts, that deliver. 

[00:05:34] Jen:  

[00:05:34] Jen: I believe Tony hit the nail on the head there. When we want to share what we know, we want to share all of it, fast!

[00:05:42] Jen: Yet in the episodes that Tony will produce, we will focus on one thing. and in today's episode time to simplify, will focus on branding. And that's exactly what you hear Tony wrestling with. 

[00:05:54] Jen: As far as my journey, what is my journey? How do I help people? How do I show up? [00:06:00] He said, I feel that I'm only partially along the road. I want to normalize that. When we are working on our brand, we have to show up first. That is the dichotomy I mentioned earlier that we have this idea in our head about how we show up and what we want to project. 

[00:06:17] Jen: Until we actually do the thing, we lack the clarity and the action is where the clarity comes in. And the action it's going to be messy. It is absolutely going to be messy! Yet, it will give you insight and it will also give you encouragement on the direction to move forward.

[00:06:36] Jen: let's dive in by starting with what your brand is not. Are you ready? You're going to want to grab a paper and pencil for this one. I promise.

[00:06:44] 

[00:06:44] Jen: Let's start with the three things that your brand is not!

[00:06:52] Jen: 

❌ Your brand is NOT A logo…

❌ Your brand is NOT A slogan…

❌ Your brand is NOT Your description of your brand…

[00:07:03] Jen: So what is a brand? 

[00:07:06] Jen: It's how people describe their experience with you. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Meeks was definitely not inexperience. I wish to remember. She did have a brand as a teacher. She was one to avoid. Mrs. Meeks was a year-long substitute teacher who had it in for me, at least. 

[00:07:26] Jen: That's how I remember it. When my swanky jeans with the shining gyms, rhinestones and pearls on the hem of the bell bottoms were stolen from my unlocked hallway locker, 

[00:07:38] Jen: She brushed aside my shock and grief at something being taken from me. Which fed into my inner fears of my cool factor going way, way down. Those jeans... I have a vivid picture of them in my head. They represented a young girl I desperately, desperately wanted to become and felt as [00:08:00] though when the jeans were stolen, 

[00:08:01] Jen: I had somehow fallen far short of the mark. When I had the jeans, I saw myself one way. When they were stolen from me, it tore at the very core of my being. That's the power of branding. It infiltrates a person's thought life. It compels someone to make decisions about where they invest and where they don't. 

[00:08:25] Jen: That particular pair of jeans represented a status symbol in my eight year old mind. 

[00:08:30] Jen: And without them, I felt less than. 

[00:08:33] Jen: In full transparency. I did not want to share this story. 

[00:08:37] Jen: I didn't want to go back and revisit it. I don't like how it makes me feel that rejection and that hurt are still associated with that stolen pair of jeans. If your jeans have never been stolen, perhaps you can relate to being a mom of a teen who absolutely must have a particular brand of shoes or concert tickets, so they can fit into a crowd. 

[00:08:59] Jen: All of this has me shaking my head at the irony of branding. Everyone wants a cool brand to be like everyone else to fit in. Yet they want that cool factor because a brand is a symbol that stands out and stands for something unique. Here at Time To Simplify, 

[00:09:18] Jen: the one thing I do well is sprint there's so much power in one 90-day, sprint. It literally is life changing. There's so much focus on deciding and committing to accomplishing something in 90 days. That's a part of my brand. But that's not all. My brand is also fun and bold and authentic, hardworking, and inspirational. How did I get here? The hard way friend. 

[00:09:45] Jen: I went through so many iterations and attempted to serve in too many different ways. So I blended in with all the others, no matter how good my services and offers were, I wasn't noticed. 

[00:09:59] Jen: I'm not going to [00:10:00] lie. 

[00:10:00] Jen: It hurts, a lot. Way more than my eight-year-old identity crisis. To put so much effort into this calling as an entrepreneur in bear so little fruit was gut wrenching. I've lost count of the number of times I sing the common entrepreneurial refrain. I quit. For example, there are many podcasts coaches. How many of them do, you know, intertwine their brand with a promise to work with you 

[00:10:29] Jen: to create a binge worthy podcast you can release in 90 days. I know of no other, 

[00:10:35] Jen: And that's the power of branding. Confidence in your offer. I have absolute confidence that you can launch your show in 90 days when you show up ready to do the work, your podcast can be launched. It took me some time to get here and it will take you a little bit of time to get there as well. 

[00:10:55] Jen: The great thing about launching your show is you find what is the your [00:11:00] podcasting voice. That's the expression. What is your voice? You find your voice, where your voice comes out as you practice, as you begin speaking to those, you want to serve and you learn from them. And you incorporate what you learn into each show. 

[00:11:15] Jen: It brings you tremendous clarity. If you're just starting out and you don't have clarity, it's okay. We just don't want to stay there. And this is what we do on time to simplify, we identify one thing and we say, okay, what are we going to do with this one thing? And today, of course, it's 

[00:11:31] Jen: what is branding for you, and it will be uniquely you. I mentioned my Launch Your podcast in 90 days. That's my offer. Lots of clarity around there. What is your offer? What clarity do you have around the services that you provide? If you're just starting out and you don't have an offer, it's time to change that. Even if your offer is something as simple as one step [00:12:00] of joining a community. 

[00:12:01] Jen: So you can be in a community of people you serve, so you can learn about what their pain points are, what they need, what they're looking for, what problems do they want to solve? speaking of community, be sure you join us off the main socials by heading on over to CoachJenRogers.com/Community. 

[00:12:20] Jen: It's important when we meet that we do so away from all the noise bells and dings that accompany the common spaces and places. Find out exactly what I mean by heading over to CoachJenRogers.com/Community right now. 

[00:12:34] Jen: remember. we've covered what branding is not, it's not a logo. Your brand is not a slogan. And your brand is not your personal description of your brand. How can you learn how people experience you then if your brand. is how people experience you, then how can you learn? This is definitely a form of market research. 

[00:12:56] Jen: When you join me and other podcast launchers inside the next 90 day [00:13:00] sprint, we'll cover this in detail for now. Let's tackle it through a self assessment. Here are a few questions to journal about. I came up with six of them. Number one. How do you like to interact with people? Number two. What problem or problems do you solve? Number three. How do you make your audience feel? Number four. How will you ensure brand consistency on your podcast and across other social channels? So what your client sees is what your client gets. Number five. What's your biggest fear right now about showing up for your business. Number six, how can podcasting compliment your time freedom and financial freedom goals.? Those are the first six that rise to the top. There are many more [00:14:00] yet these will get you started. If you want to go deeper with me and launch your podcast by the 1st of December, then joined the 90 day podcast sprint. 

[00:14:08] Jen: We start September 3rd. I find out all the details for this upcoming launch. As well as future launches by heading on over to CoachJenRogers.com/PodcastCoach. I'll post these six questions inside our private community. If you'd like feedback from other movers and shakers in the podcasting arena, be sure to join us! The links for all this goodness are in the show notes. Before we sign off and get ready to listen to the next episode, 

[00:14:39] Jen: I want to model a couple of different ways that you can ask for market research that you can perform it. One, you can simply ask on your show. If today's episode landed for you, will you share it with a friend? 

[00:14:52] Jen: Or I could ask. Hey, one of the ways that we get the word out about how you can not only build your brand launch, your podcast or [00:15:00] launch your business is by leaving a five star review on your favorite podcasting platform. 

[00:15:05] Jen: Now, if there's a platform that comes out that has more than five stars, I'm going to ask you for all the stars! ✨✨✨✨✨ Definitely want to be able to promote the show and invite other people in. So the more visibility that we have, the more people are drawn to the brand.

[00:15:20] Jen: Early in this episode, I shared the three mistakes I made when I first launched my show. Here's a bonus fourth mistake. I thought the podcast was my brand. And instead, what I learned is I am the brand that the things that I do revolve around the brand that I am creating. And I just want to say I'm so grateful and thankful for you, for you showing up for you, leaving your reviews for you, commenting on posts on Facebook and on LinkedIn. 

[00:15:52] Jen: It is such a treasure to connect with you. I very much want to connect with you inside of the community. So one more time, I'm [00:16:00] going to invite you to join us. CoachJenRogers.com/Community. 

[00:16:05] Jen: I'd love to connect with you. One on one. 

[00:16:09] Jen: One final note. launching a show is not for everyone and that's totally cool. It's important that you have clarity around that. The power of leveraging podcasting is you can guest on a show and guess what? You need to understand your brand. 

[00:16:25] Jen: You need to know how you show up. You need to know what your offer is. You need to know what you stand for, no matter which side of the microphone that you're on. And if you have absolutely nothing to do with podcasting, other than being a podcast listener, you still need a brand. 

[00:16:41] Jen: If you have a business, you need a brand. I hold open one to two private coaching slots per month. If you're interested in exploring other ways outside of podcasting, that you can grow your startup business. Be sure to send me an email at Jen@CoachJenRogers.com .

[00:16:59] Jen: All right, that's going to do it for this episode. I cannot wait to connect with you soon. God bless you. Take care and I'll catch you on the next episode.