Invisible Details

Competition is one of the best things for business. It affirms an actual need and market for the industry or niche you’re in, and it encourages innovation and creativity. There is a tendency to hold competition in a specific light, and it becomes easy to look at what the competition is doing rather than to focus on innovation or actually solving a problem. Rather than striving to be creative, you just try and catch up with what other people are doing, hoping to gain some of the same traction. Copying is easy and following trends is simple, and there’s a better way to build your business than to only look at what others in your industry are doing. On today’s show, we’ll be talking about the alternative to focusing on “what everyone else is doing” and improving your offerings in ways that make your competition’s methods irrelevant.

To some, discounting a product means more customers and easy sales. To others, discounting damages brand perception, which can have negative long-term results. Whether you like discounts or not, there comes a point when you simply can’t rely on that strategy in a way that makes sense for your brand. You want people to notice your product, but you don’t just want to spam people with, “Hey, my product is still for sale!” It isn’t hard to find “marketing gurus” who swear by discounts but never actually teach anything useful. Discounting is the easy way out, and if you want a brand perception that is rock solid, it’s time to get creative. On today’s show we’ll be talking about ways to build interest in your product or service even past launch date and practical ways to market what you’re selling without resorting to discounts.

We talk a lot about the “invisible details” of a brand on this show, but there are many characteristics of a brand that display themselves in an external way. People are attracted by what is external and they are moved by what is inside. As you work to make your vision a reality, you’ll need to make a decision about how you want your brand to “speak” to your audience. The words you write, the replies to send via email, and even the imagery you use comes from this singular idea of tone. How you communicate your message is just as important as the message itself. In today’s show, we’ll talk about how to define the tone of your brand (and sub brands) and why having a clear concept of your brand’s character is important for the longevity of your message.

We are at an incredible point in human history. Technology is advancing faster now than it ever has, and the world is changing by the minute. In almost every situation, you must keep up with the times or be left behind. Yet whenever advancement happens, we see nostalgia emerge. People begin to crave the old way of doing things and are captivated by reminders of memories and stories from “before.” It’s easy to find examples of this nostalgia in a modern context, and it certainly begs the question of advancing for advancement’s sake or maintaining the traditions that have made your brand what it is. In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about how to remain relevant with your target audience, whether you plan to go all out on the latest and greatest or if you decide to continue your brand in the way things have always been done.

Whenever someone uses the saying, "It was right under my nose," they're referring to the idea that something was so obvious but they couldn't see it because they were so close to it. In fact, you can see your nose at all times, but because you're so used to it, you never realize that you can actually see your nose all the time. When you're really close to your business, it's easy to start missing things because you're too close to it. It can get harder and harder to maintain any level of objectivity because of the time you've spent crafting your brand and putting in the work. In order to truly evaluate your brand, you need objectivity. You need a way to get a high-level view of what you're doing so you can make the best decisions going forward. In today's episode, we talk about how to get that objective feedback and the importance of realizing you can't do it all on your own.

You’d love if people paid above and beyond your competition to get your product or work with your business. What wouldn’t feel great about someone saying they’d be happy to pay more to work with you? But what if they said they opposite? What if someone said they were more than happy to pay extra to not buy your product? That would feel, well, a little less great. In today’s show, we’ll talk about how to identify problems that would cause people to want to avoid your brand, and how to address the issue of conflicting values between you and your target customers.

Everyone wants to scale, whether it’s in profit, audience size, influence, skill, or some other type of gain. Scale prevents stagnation, so in order to remain relevant, you must grow or improve in some way. How you do business changes as you scale, and the details that were once easy to implement are now much more complicated. Because the nature of your business changes, the ways you interact with your customers and clients must also change. A lot of companies have had this experience: when they were smaller, they could give every order the care it deserved and treat each customer like they were their only one. However, as they scaled, and as twenty orders a month became a hundred orders a day, they simply couldn’t give the kind of attention to each order as they used to. It’s the same if you have a smaller audience. While it was once easy to respond with multiple paragraphs to every email that came in, your inbox sits cluttered and covered with cobwebs because it’s dozens if not hundreds every day. Aaro

So who defines what your product is worth, anyway? If you go back far enough, you’ll find all levels of trade and exchange, ranging from gold, animals, servitude, and more. In more modern times, we use paper, metal, and digital bits as currency to exchange for the things we want. Business happens because at one point it was agreed between people that a thing had certain value and could be traded for other valuable things. At its essence, you might say that the value of something is determined by what someone is willing to exchange for it. But is that all there is to it? Knowing how to price your product can be very complex, so in today’s episode we’re going to talk about evaluating the value of your product and who actually determines what your product is worth.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “What comes first, the chicken or the egg?” It’s a silly question based on the idea that a chicken has to lay an egg in order for there to be an egg, but the chicken has to come from an egg at some point. We often do the same thing when trying to figure out what we want our businesses to be. Some people start with who they want to help and figure out how to do that later, while others start with what they want to do and then figure out who they can help with that. In today’s episode we’ll look at both paths and how to go about pursuing one if you start with the other.

Does it ever feel like you promote your product but nobody cares? Have you ever launched a product and kept refreshing your browser, excitedly waiting for the sales orders to come in, and a few did but then just seemed to fizzle out? Maybe you’re just about to start marketing your product, and you’ve spent hours thinking and writing out why your product is the best there is. I’m going to go ahead and spoil the show for you. If you’re talking about your product more than you’re talking about the customer’s life as a result of your product, you’re making a mistake. In fact, if your marketing plan includes a disproportionate focus on the product instead of on your customer, you’re making a mistake. And it’s a mistake rookies make. This might seem counterintuitive, but it’s true. In this episode, we’ll be talking about how to avoid this mistake and how to improve your copywriting to boost sales.

The history of business has always moved and evolved from one generation to another. Values change, focus changes, and the way of doing things continues to adapt to the new consumer. One of the biggest changes that has happened over the last decade or two has been the emphasis on transparency. The general public is no longer satisfied with simply buying products. They want to know what’s happening behind the scenes. This is why there has been an increase in transparency reports and “drawing back the curtains” of how a business operates. Even huge corporations are not immune from this, and many have found the need to change business practices because their customers are demanding they be held accountable. Regardless of the size of your brand, it’s important to understand what your audience values, and as the growing trend of transparency becomes more and more relevant, it’s time to think about what transparency looks like for your brand. In today’s show, we’ll be talking about what brand transparency means

Do you know why you’re building an audience? Do you have explicit reasons for increasing your number of followers or subscribers? Are these reasons vague in any way? Building an audience is one of the best ways to increase revenue and grow a business online. It is a method that is tried and true, and while the steps themselves can seem complicated, the goal remains. But “build an audience” is not the end goal. It is a means to an end. If you’re building a list but aren’t really sure what you’re building it for, this episode is for you. If you feel like you need to send out tons and tons of emails but it’s not leading to anything and you don’t have any idea of what it could lead to, this episode is for you. On today’s show we’ll be talking about defining your reasons for building an audience and why the implications of vaguely growing a following without purpose can be detrimental to your brand.

As much as some people want to deny it, change is part of life. We get older, our physical appearances change, our personalities evolve over time. The world around us is constantly changing. But what if you don't resonate very will with the brand of your own business? What if your customers or audience live completely different lifestyles than you do? What if your competitors or peers seem to have certain ways of doing things that you don’t agree with? Sometimes you may have to adapt and change with the flow of your business, and other times you may need to fight against the “status quo” and the pressures of changing who you are. On today’s episode, special guest Cory McCabe joins the show to talk about the idea of maintaining your sense of “self” as you grow and how to protect against the pressures of unnecessarily changing who you are to fit some predetermined mold.

Connecting with people online is primarily a visual endeavor, full of color, images, video, and words. If someone is on your website, there’s a good chance they’re experiencing it visually. This isn’t limited to online experiences, either. Brick-and-mortar shops and retail businesses thrive on trying to catch your attention a thousand different ways when you come into the store, attempting to use clever marketing tactics and “color psychology” to sway you into buying. There’s enough on this subject to dedicate entire college courses to it, so today we’re going to be talking about some basic principles and why you should take extra care when choosing colors and images to represent your brand.

There are many instances where a name change for your business is inevitable or an improvement toward achieving your goals. It could be a minor technical change, or it could be a complete overhaul. Even though it might sound intimidating, there are a lot of reasons you may want to change your brand name, all of which come with great benefits as well as challenges. Change is difficult for most people in general, so these things have to be handled with great care and intentionality. In today’s show, we’ll talk about how to bring your audience along with a name change and how to communicate your plans effectively.

There’s a saying among backpackers and campers, “Leave it better than when you found it.” It’s a call to explore and enjoy nature, but leave it as undisturbed as possible. After you pack up your campsite, you clean it, remove all traces of your being there, and continue on. The saying originates from a man named Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the modern Scouting movement, who once said said, “Try and leave this world a little better than you found it.” This is the essence of a brand vision. It’s how we want the world to be, whether big or small. It’s the reason we started in the first place. In today’s episode, we’ll be talking about how to define your vision and how to get other people excited about it and invested in it.

It’s pretty common to hear that business is built on solving problems. If you want to make money, solve problems. If you want to have a successful brand, solve problems. But then there’s the moments when you realize what you’re trying to build doesn’t really solve any problems. You hear the term “nice-to-have”, and you adopt that term into your mindset. “My product isn’t a necessity.” “What I do doesn’t solve a problem.” “It’s just art.” “I don’t know how to tell someone how this thing benefits their life.” “It’s just a nice-to-have.” If this is you, you’re not alone, and you’re not breaking new ground. That’s because “nice to have” doesn’t exist. Today’s episode is a crash course on how to market and brand something that doesn’t solve a direct problem, something that people might refer to as a “nice to have”. We’ll even show you how companies are making billions every year even though they aren’t solving problems.

Talking about your brand can be a heavy subject. Once you bring in target audience, funding, mission statements, content marketing, and all the millions of other things, it certainly can feel like you’re carrying a giant on your shoulders. Or two. Today, we’re going to lighten up a bit and talk about how to determine if your brand should be serious, funny, both, neither, or a combination of all four.

If you’ve ever put a lot of work into something, you know what it takes. You know the long hours it takes to get results. You know the investment of time and money it takes to accomplish your goals. And then there comes those times when you need to make a choice: do you keep investing and pushing and working, or do you let it come to an end? Nobody wants to be called a quitter. The idea of wasted time, money, and energy is enough to make any of us uncomfortable. How do you stop, pivot, or end something with grace and confidence? On today’s episode, we’ll be talking about knowing when to call it quits, when to double down, and times when we personally decided to end something to make way for other things.

Target audience is one of the hardest parts about building a brand. It not enough to simply make something and hope people get excited about it. Even if you already have a definition of your target audience or customer, you may find yourself hitting a wall and not understanding how to deepen your connection with the people who follow and buy from you. You need Deep Audience Clarity. You need to know your audience better than anyone. In today’s show, we’ll be talking about the kind of clarity that will take you from a surface-level definition of your target audience to a place of deep understanding.