Transforming Businesses into Extraordinary Brands
I’ve been lucky enough, at industry events and at CaboPress, to spend some quality time with the talented folks over at LifterLMS. Not only do have they created a great product, the LifterLMS WordPress Plugin, they are also really good people. So when Chris Badgett reached out about being a guest on their podcast, LMScast, to talk about branding, of course I said yes!
In this podcast episode, Chris and I talk about branding as it relates to creating an online course.
Your brand is your core business asset. It is the reputation you have in the market, the perception your audience has about your business, and the feelings and thoughts they associate with your products or services. With a strong, clear brand, decision-making is easy, your value is clear, and you can charge your worth with confidence and certainty.
Today, I led a one hour, free webinar for the awesome iThemes Training community on branding. More specifically, how Clarity Breeds Opportunity and the steps needed so you can Brand To Boost Referrals, Attract Clients, and Expand Possibilities — and the recording is posted FREE for you to watch anytime you want.
This webinar provides you an overview of five critical stages of effective brand development, then focuses on a few of the foundational steps needed to get true clarity and begin transforming your business into an extraordinary brand. You will leave this webinar with a deeper understanding of how to communicate your brand message and stand out from the crowd, and the difference branding makes in securing new clients and receiving more opportunities.
If you have ever struggled to communicate your value or speak effectively with prospects about what you do and why you’re the best choice, this webinar helps you do just that with confidence and ease.
Ask Me Anything. I’ve seen links and chatter about Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions on various websites, but didn’t pay too much attention because often I didn’t know the person and therefore, I didn’t have any questions.
Then ManageWP reached out and asked me to participate in their Ask Me Anything blog series, right after Page.ly co-founder and Pressnomics creator Joshua Strebel.
OMG. Of course, I said yes. Then I started to get really nervous.
On September 9, my AMA discussion opened and hooray questions began coming in! Questions about family, vacation, games, Legos, and the Grateful Dead, as well as questions about developing client resources, the Genesis Framework, systems and processes, branding, family, managing workload, getting paid, and more.
This past week, I joined for an interview on the WP Elevation Podcast. In the episode, I share what it’s been like to work as part of a husband-wife team, why personal brands are so vital to your success, and where I see Bourn Creative going in the future. I also talk about how we got clear on our ideal client, what I spend my average day doing, how we create content regularly for the blog and our marketing, business growth, ongoing support and maintenance, and more.
Hear all the details in the full interview, or check out some of the highlights and brief overview below.
Troy kicks off the interview with discussion around how Bourn Creative got started:
Bourn Creative was founded in July 2005 as a pure design company, offering brand design, email marketing design, and print graphic design services. We quickly added web design services, began using a private label content management system, Light CMS, then discovered WordPress in 2008 at version 2.7. We loved the functionality it brought to our projects, but we stuck around for the community and it has been a mainstay of ours ever since.
Originally the business was started out of necessity. We had a 2 year old, Jennifer was pregnant, and we had daycare issues. Starting her own business solved those problems. At the time we did whatever it took to get up and running, get income coming in, and take care of our family as best we could.
From day one, I had always managed the financial end of the business, then a few years in, I began teaching myself to write code and eventually joined the business full time to lead development.
Over the years, our client profile has evolved and shifted, and today we work with small to medium-sized businesses in what we like to call the “not-quite-enterprise” space, providing a complete suite of design and development services, specializing in custom WordPress publishing solutions.
This year we celebrated our 10-year business anniversary and with each year has come greater clarity and focus about what work we want to be doing and what clients we want to be serving.
Prestige Conference is less than a month away and I simply can’t wait. I spoke at the last Prestige Conference in Minneapolis, attended the one in Las Vegas, and am seriously looking forward to the next one August 1-2, 2015 — and not just because I’m speaking.
Have you seen the speaker lineup? Prestige gives you unprecedented access to their speakers, and with so much experience and expertise in one place, you can get all your business questions answered and get on your way to making leaps onward and upward. Speakers include:
Plus, I’m not doing a normal presentation — I’m leading a hands-on branding workshop called Clarity Breeds Opportunity: Brand Communication Tactics To Boost Referrals, Attract Clients, and Expand Possibilities. The workshop is a longer format session to allow attendees to complete exercises on the spot, so they leave the event already having made progress to improve their business and brand. How cool is that?!
Do your marketing efforts feel exhausting? If you feel like you’re always chasing new clients instead of them chasing you, it’s time to make a change. You may be a business with a presence — a name, a logo, a place — and you may have secured your social media profiles and pages or thrown up a quick website, but that doesn’t set you apart from the crowd.
Are you ready to generate a lucrative income stream of ideal, high-paying, ready-to-get-started clients and new opportunities?
If so, join me for a FREE webinar — yes, it’s completely free — I’m giving with Prestige Conference on May 27, 2015 at 11:00 am Pacific. I promise you’ll learn at least one new thing you can put to use in your business right away.
Let’s just get it out there — I never loved our logo.
The copyediting concept was just a quick idea and great play on our name that Brian came up with when filing our business paperwork. I mocked it up and went with it to get the business off the ground, never intending to keep it. But everyone we met loved it. People raved about it at conferences and networking events when they asked for my card, they raved about it when calling about new projects, and over time, it just stuck.
For the first several years Bourn Creative existed, I was by myself. The colorful rainbow branding we’ve had for years evolved out of my love of color and my desire for something other than the logo to represent me, because at the time, I was the business. I loved the color, the positive feedback, and the praise we received from others about how much they loved it.
Then Brian joined Bourn Creative and took over the company as CEO and all WordPress development, and the brand had to evolve. It didn’t represent a company, but me and my freelance history. So we redesigned the Bourn Creative site, simplifying the rainbows. And about 18 months later, we did it again to “man up” the brand even more. But…
How I got my first client, where I go to find clients, and which should come first — the website or marketing and branding or marketing, are just a few of the things I share in my interview on Born to Influence, The Marketing Show.
Born To Influence, hosted by Mette Muller and Esther Kiss is for entrepreneurs and business owners looking to build a legacy. The show, published daily, Monday through Saturday, features expert interviews on business and marketing. Each episode is guaranteed to include actionable advice that works — so you can apply it in your business immediately.
I am excited to share this interview with you! Esther was a great host, and we get pretty candid on what goes on behind the scenes of a successful business.
A website header is the area is one of the most valuable areas of your website. It runs across the top of the page and appears on every page of your website, except on sales or landing pages templates that have it removed.
The purpose of your website header is to promote your brand and make your site instantly recognizable to those who are already familiar with you. For many businesses, the header is the perfect place to efficiently and effectively convey exactly what your site is about and what your business does.
Have you ever wondered, How does he/she do it? How does he get so many clients? How does she show up everywhere?” I’ll bet you have. I have. And I’ll bet that thousands of other business owners have too — Why? Because there are TONS of blog posts, articles, and resources available online to teach you how to get more clients, attract more leads, and make more money.
Many articles give you tasks to check off a list and marketing tips to implement — and that’s a problem.
Take this situation for example: Lilly is doing all the right things. She’s taking action to market her business. She has a Facebook page and a Twitter account that she posts to regularly. She blogs at least once a week, she posts articles to article marketing sites, and bookmarks her content with social bookmarking sites. She attends networking events and publishes an email newsletter.
She is working hard, but she isn’t seeing much benefit. She is doing all the right things, but she isn’t getting new clients or even new leads fast enough. She feels like she’s spinning her wheels and she’s frustrated. She sees other people achieve the success she wants for herself and she feels like she deserves it because she’s working harder than they seem to be.
The nerve of some people absolutely amazes me. Well, let me rephrase. The poor and completely inappropriate application of marketing principles and strategies amazes me.
Recently a woman — we’ll call her Susie — contacted us for a quote on the design and development of a completely custom WordPress theme. She wanted the sun and the moon and had high expectations as most of our clients do. But she clearly wasn’t ready to invest in the up leveling of her brand and was a bit miffed at our quote. She made it clear that she wouldn’t be hiring us.
Then, Susie paused for a moment and spoke very seriously. Hello! Didn’t we know? Susie is a BIG deal. She has a giant list and she is an influencer.
Susie then made us an offer — She was going to make a special opportunity available for us, to design and create her custom WordPress site for FREE, in exchange for some promotion by her to her list. Oh, and we better act fast, because this opportunity to have our name in the same sentence as hers is only available for a limited time.
Whether you like it or not, YOU are a brand. YOU are what sets your brand apart from the crowd and YOU are your brand’s most valuable asset. You hold the keys to ultimate success for your business — you just need to understand how to build a brand around you.
A brand builds credibility, creates influence, and increases visibility. A strong brand is remembered, respected, and referred by its tribe. A brand can make or break your business — and ignoring your brand can be business suicide.
Branding is all about clearly communicating what makes you unique, special, and different — what genius and value you bring to the table that makes you the best choice for your ideal clients and customers. It creates the platform and sets the stage for you to be an expert, an authority figure, or a thought leader. It creates the expectations your audience has for your business, and their interactions with it and you.
I’ll be in Los Angeles, California on October 5, 2012 networking with 150 smart, savvy business women and entrepreneurs — And I want YOU to join me!
This year marks my fourth SUCCESS Summit, and each event gets better and better. Hosted by my good friend Cathy Alessandra, publisher of Today’s Innovative Woman, this event is one you don’t want to miss — and not just because I’m one of the featured speakers either!
The 4th Annual SUCCESS! Summit boasts an awesome line up of speakers ready to provide you with the tools and knowledge you need to grow your business and find balance in your life — and it brings together business women of all types, from highly successful business owners to brand new start-up entrepreneurs. If you’re a woman in business or women are your target market, this is an event you need to be at!
If you’ve been using social media to connect with your audience and consumers for any length of time, I’m sure you’ve heard all kinds of social media advice like:
But what happens when that advice is taken the wrong way. What happens when you take it too far? What is too far? It takes a lot of time and effort to build a brand that is remembered, respected, and referred … but it only takes one bad post to undo all of that hard work and kill your brand in the eyes of consumers.
Now it just may be a few at first who unfollow, unsubscribe, or unfriend you. But then you repeat the mistake and a few more walk away, and a few more, and a few more … until you’ve damaged your brand and you need to move into repair mode. Not sure what you need to watch out for … or where to draw the line?
Presenting your brand consistently across all marketing platforms is a critical part of transforming your business into an extraordinary brand, and social media branding is becoming more important every day. As social media sites continue to grow in popularity, often the very first interaction a person has with your brand is through a site like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Pinterest.
With social media you present your brand in different ways, with the two most common being the written word and the visual design.
The written word encompasses everything you write on and post to social media sites, including your profile information and bio, your status updates, and your comments, replies, retweets, likes, etc. It is imperative that the written voice of your brand be “on message” and consistent throughout all of the social media sites you are active in.
The visual design encompasses the visual look of your brand on social media sites. Some social sites, like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube primarily, let you customize elements of your profile, page, or channel with your brand color palette, graphics, and message, helping you create a consistent, powerful, extraordinary brand that is remembered, respected, and referred.
Have you ever felt like giving up? Have you ever gotten to the point where you’re working like a dog and no one seems to notice, or be paying attention? Do you sometimes wonder if anyone is reading the blog you’re working so diligently to produce content for? Do you wonder if anyone is even looking at what you’re posting on your social media sites?
If you’ve been there at all, even once, take a look at this:
Gina Bell, one of my business girlfriends, invited me to write an article for the newest issue of her Rebelations Magazine. This issue is the “Visibility Boom” issue is devoted to helping you get noticed, get clients and get your business growing!
Inside this top-notch resource for innovators, trendsetters and entrepreneurial go-getters you’ll enjoy my article, 4 Critical Keys to Building a Wildly Successful Website, and 17 other rebelicious articles AND a special feature that will have you creating your own Visibility Boom in no time!
If you’ve been thinking of your landing page a just a holding area where your website visitors can launch browsing excursions to all the other areas around your website, I’d like to change your way of thinking. You do not want your visitors to leave your landing page to browse your website. Your landing page isn’t just a portal or a launch pad. It’s the first place you’re going to clinch a conversion and win a new customer.
If you haven’t been thinking of your landing page as a place where you land conversions, your strategy may need some revising. Here are five keys to creating a landing page that does what it’s supposed to do – win customers.
We ALL were excited to go see Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace in 3D. Brian LOVES Stars Wars and his love rubbed off on Natalie, Carter, and I, and now we all watch the movies A LOT! The kids play with our Star Wars action figures, and we collect the Star Wars Lego sets.
For this particular movie, we bought the VHS tape when it was new, then we bought the DVDs as they were released, now it’s onto the Blue Ray Boxed Set … We saw this movie in theaters twice when it was originally released and have watched it at home at least 25 times. But now it’s 3D. It’s a new, different way to experience the movie, and of course we had to see it. This is a brand than has successfully spanned generations and continues to thrive with new brand experiences.
On February 14, 2012, I will be joining my mentor, self-made millionaire Ali Brown for an in-depth look at branding and how it can affect the success of your business.
I’ll be sharing 5 Steps to an Extraordinary and Lucrative Brand With Ali Brown’s Success Club on a call that is guaranteed to be jam-packed with high-value content you can put to use right away!
This past week put both Brian and I on overload. We were not only in catch-up mode from my Arizona trip for Ali Brown’s Millionaire Protege Club retreat, but also three of our biggest clients all needed giant projects done all at the same time!
Needless to say we were really looking forward to some detached-downtime over weekend with the kids. On Saturday after soccer, we played boards games, Wii, and Legos all day. Then on Sunday we hit the pumpkin patch and Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm with Brian’s mom, June.
When June arrived at our house on Sunday, we were getting in the car and she asked, “Which pumpkin patch are we going to?”
“What?! There is only one pumpkin patch to go to,” I replied. Then it dawned on me. There are a few really good pumpkin patches around our house, but I only ever think of one. For me the words “Pumpkin Patch” and “Bishop’s Farm” mean the same thing.
The Bourn Family just got back from a week-long, tech-free camping trip at Burney Falls in Northern California. We lucked out with fabulous weather and enjoyed the downtime to relax!
This year we camped with Brian’s parents, my parents, and one of my sisters. It was the first time I have ever camped with my parents as adult with my own kids. The trip brought back so many fun and memorable moments from my childhood — as my mom and dad continued the same camping traditions I remember from my childhood with my kids:
When building a brand, there are three approaches you can take. You can brand a business, brand a person, or brand a thing.
When branding a business, the brand is built around a value, an idea, or a service. The relationships and the connections formed are with the brand name and the values of the brand itself, instead of an individual person or product. With this approach, the brand may have multiple products or product lines, services, or programs under its umbrella, and team members or employees are easily interchanged.
When branding a thing, the brand is built around a single product or a program. With this approach, the visual design, the message, and the marketing all revolve around the branded item. The focus is on how the consumer interacts with it, how it benefits them, and how they feel about it.
Your brand is what the consumers can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. It includes the visual, written, spoken, and tactile aspects of your brand.
Your visual brand encompasses all aspects of your brand that are represented visually. From your logo, business card, and brochures, to your invoices and envelopes, to your Facebook photo, avatar, and Twitter background, to your website, email newsletter, and blog, and even the clothes you wear, every time your brand is seen it is sending a message.
As a business owner or entrepreneur, your corporate identity is a part of your overall branding. It is an extension of your your visual brand and includes everything that has your logo and contact information on it. It adds consistency to your brand and uplevels your professionalism.
Also sometimes referred to as a stationery package, a corporate identity package, or the identity and visual graphic design of your business encompasses things like:
