The I Am [Dot. Dot. Dot.] Podcast

Ep# 49: I Am...Wondering How to Craft a Consistent Brand Identity for my Business & Stand Out Online

September 08, 2024 • Kristen Werner & Mia Steel • Season 1 • Episode 49

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Ever wondered how a single TikTok idea could spark a six-figure business? This week, Mia and Kristen share their transformative journeys from the corporate grind to successful online ventures. 

Learn from their missteps and valuable insights on how visual branding can revolutionise your online presence. 

We dive into the nitty-gritty of consistent branding and the power of brand boards, even for the smallest businesses. Hear about the costly mistakes that big names like Gap and Tropicana made with their logo changes, and why cohesive brand identity is crucial for maintaining consumer trust. We'll introduce you to tools like Canva that make creating professional brand boards a breeze and share practical tips on color schemes and fonts that can make your brand unforgettable.

Prepare to be excited about our new custom GPT app for content creation, designed to keep your content fresh and human-sounding. We'll share personal stories, from hair regrowth adventures to the thrill of finding the perfect cream blush. Plus, we'll give you the scoop on converting Instagram followers into a thriving paid community and highlight some valuable freebies available in our show notes. Tune in for a mix of technical tips, heartfelt stories, and a touch of beauty chat to inspire your branding journey.

➡️ 🪩 JOIN our Membership Recurring Revenue Society now and let us teach you how to grow your social media & build a profitable online community.



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Speaker 1:

This week on the podcast, we are going to be talking about how to level up your branding, why branding is important to your business, but if you are building a brand online, your visual branding is very important. Buckle up and let's go.

Speaker 2:

I'm Mia, a mum of two, a former burnt out ambo who sold it all to travel Australia in the caravan and turned a single TikTok idea into a six-figure content creation business, leveraging UGC.

Speaker 1:

And I'm Kristen, also a mum of two, with over 15 years experience in branded marketing. I went from the corporate world to being made redundant and decided to back my idea of starting a branding business and a successful wedding venue side hustle, generating six figures all whilst living on the vineyard.

Speaker 2:

One random DM between us sparked more than just a friendship. It ignited a passion to mentor women online around the world.

Speaker 1:

We know what it takes to make it work online, and we're here to show you what's possible.

Speaker 2:

In less than 12 months we built a six-figure membership together. And here's the kicker we have not met in person yet. That is a kicker.

Speaker 1:

We're here to show you the power of reoccurring revenue and how achievable it really is. We don't sugarcoat things around here. We talk about the real shit, the good shit and the bullshit. So buckle up, let's go. Welcome to the I am dot dot dot podcast, the podcast of busy creators who want to consume useful shit for their biz and their life and learn how to turn their audience into a paid community. I am Crystal Winner, joined by Mia Steele.

Speaker 1:

Hello again Now, I don't know if it's because this is round two of this podcast, because I didn't hit record, but I felt like I spoke very fast. I could slow the intro down on that one, literally so. Pod dog usually upsets our podcasting. That's my dog usually just decides to bark at any irrelevant time and goes outside and comes in. Luckily, pod dog did bark because we were four minutes 32 seconds in and me is like did you hit record? And I was like, yeah, pod dog saved the day recording. Recordingording is boring. Who?

Speaker 2:

would record a podcast. Like I just want to talk to you, ooh brother ooh. You're recording now, though, right, I can see the red button. We're good to go.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, recording now. So, mia, tell us how you are today, tell us your I am what.

Speaker 2:

My, I am dot dot dot. I'm wondering how to stand out online.

Speaker 1:

Kristen, I'm coming to you as the branding expert and I need to stand out online, okay, well we're going to get you some nude pics and set you up to stand out. No worries, no, oh my God, poddog is looking to go outside again. I'm recording, poddog, you can't go outside. You can tell when we've done four podcasts, because we're going rogue at number four.

Speaker 2:

I know, yeah, we need to do a podcast after a few ones, that'd be funny.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that would be good, but anyway. So, yes, I love branding. It's my jam, it's my ramadama lingong, whatever you want to call it. I fucking love. So for those that you don't know, my background is brand and marketing. I started at university. I did a Bachelor of Visual Communications. I love saying it like that. I feel like it's just got so much more weight. Bludger, you're a bludger I know, I know, and there was 86 of us that did a Bachelor of Visual Communications in my year. Five people got jobs, yeah.

Speaker 2:

That was it. Is it Bachelor of Arts jobs? Yeah, that was a special arts like I remember. If you build did bachelor of arts to get?

Speaker 1:

oh god, no, we went in arts. We were bachelor of visual communications. We were the hip crowd. We were the artsy fucks. We were the hip crowd the alcoholics like we definitely were. We definitely were. We got drunk a lot and shapes were our hangover cure.

Speaker 2:

Yeah that was how we roll. It should be a college girl, or you stay at home and go to uni.

Speaker 1:

That's at home, go to uni, yeah, yeah, it was not college, but had some college friends. They look like they were having some fun times.

Speaker 2:

I'm not gonna lose loose like when you went out with the college kids.

Speaker 1:

They were fine loose.

Speaker 2:

I was a college kid and it was oh yeah, I can't believe they let us do some of the stuff we used to do it's probably best that people don't know that that happened.

Speaker 1:

So, when it comes to branding, I have forever loved branding. Whether I don't know, I've always been into arts and crafts. I was did the design at school. English, like that. Whatever that is left side of the brain, whichever the one the creative is, that's my side of the brain. Whichever the one of the creative is, that's my side of the brain. And so, for me, I'm just incredibly passionate about it because I know the power that it has and I know that, with the likes of Canva, branding has become easier, which is great, but it can also be very overwhelming because of all the things.

Speaker 1:

Like, when I started my career, I started as a graphic designer in the oil and gas industry. I'll leave that there. Yeah, no, my career started actually, because I'll never forget when I finished uni, one of the girls that we did uni with. She said we went out to dinner one night and, like, all the parents came out and like we've graduated, that's very exciting. And one of the dads said to me he said, oh, so, like Roberts, that was my last name, roberts.

Speaker 1:

So what are you going to do? And I said oh, look, to be honest, I'm just going to wait until something falls in my lap, I should be right. And he's like, oh yeah, that'll be right. And then, literally a week later, I went to my girlfriend's mum's 60th birthday, I think and I was sitting across from this woman who was like experience as a graphic designer and I was like, huh, yeah, I would actually. She's paid paid work experience. I was like, huh, is it? That was a crossroad in my life because I was going to be going to the snow to do. This is walk down memory lane, welcome everyone. Um, I was going to be going to the snow to do I really wanted to do that for like a bit of a gap year before I got a job and I got

Speaker 1:

accepted to go and work at Falls Creek and I was having this like, oh, should I, should I? And then I got offered this and like, um, yeah, mum and dad said to me look, kristen. Um, the snow sounds fantastic, but we know that jobs in graphic design don't come up often and this is a great opportunity. And I was like fuck opportunity. So, anyway, I took it and I remember, I will never forget and this again comes back to branding itself. I can tell you the exact outfit I was wearing. I had pink shoes, pink high heel shoes I'll find the fucking photo Pink high heel shoes, black pants. I had a beautiful pink jumper it was a target jumper, pink jumper with like a crosshatch kind of thing on it and I had a big pink leather folder with all my art stuff in it. And so I wore that to my first day and I remember meeting my boss down the bottom, went out there, had a great day, and then, all of a sudden, by the Thursday, I'd been there four days and she called me into her office and she was like would you like to stay on? And I was like a bit longer. She's like would you like a job? And I remember leaving and I was like I was like a bit longer. She's like, would you like a job?

Speaker 1:

And I remember leaving and I was like she gave me like the form and I was like Mom, dad, like she's just offered me $65,000 and like I'm just out of uni. And they're like, are you fucking what? And I was like that's not bad, not bad Straight out of fucking uni. And so here I am like, and then so I called this friend. I was like Sonia, you're never going to forget what happened, like realize what happened. And she told her dad and her dad was like, of course you did.

Speaker 1:

So that's the start of my career, but that was basically graphic design and the reason I went there is because when I was in that particular job, there was the oil and gas industry.

Speaker 1:

And so I would get PowerPoint presentations from oil and gas people that are like their stuff. Wouldn't it just be like maroons and blacks? That was blue. It was that, as the blue was our brand color. So we were like, and in this company of hundreds, there was three of us that were graphic designers, and then the marketing team. There was the one marketing manager that employed me, and there was obviously no social media back then, but as we grew, there was only five of us as we grew anyway, but they didn't have a brand department, they were just the graphic designers. We basically did all the branding and all of the marketing, like from the what do you call the fucking things that they do every year in the company? The big books, the financial?

Speaker 2:

The financial review things.

Speaker 1:

I'm not sure if I'm having a perimenopause moment or what, but like we did all the in-house documents, like everything we did. But the powerpoint presentations used to get me because they'd come and they were horrendous and you'd have to clean them up. Clear them up, make them visually like, communicate visually. And the amount of times that you know people would bring things and I'd open them, my brain would nearly explode. But then by the time you'd work through it, you realized how to communicate it visually and you'd have people believing like, oh my god, this is sensational, I can't believe you made sense of it and that brings me joy yeah, and words

Speaker 1:

exactly, and I think, if nothing else, as I've built my career and what I've loved, what I I love about graphic design the most, and I think what I love about what we do and I love about branding and I love about that, is when I'm faced with a problem. And probably what I love about weddings, too, is when I'm faced with this thing where you're given a problem, a graphic design, somebody wants to create a logo, somebody wants you to do their wedding, somebody wants us to help them build their membership, and you go fuck, I don't know if I can and you go fuck. And then you start and all of a sudden it's not working. It's not working like this is fuck, I'm going to fail this time. And then all of a sudden you add a little pet of orange, or you move it that way, or something happens and you're like there it is nailed, it nailed, it done.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. And for me, that's the part I love the most about branding is that moment where you just go now it makes sense. And so if you're thinking about this and we're not all graphic designers I respect that, but when you're building your brand, there are some really important things that you can do to make it stand out and important things that you can do to just add something different and make sure it's consistent and build a brand that is trustworthy. And I suppose the biggest thing for me, no matter what I will say to you forever and a day, is that your brand builds trust. So the more consistent you are, the more clear you are, the more you stay on brand, even when it bores the fuck out of you.

Speaker 1:

You build trust and that is across everything and that's across our personal branding. When we talk about that, that's across the way you show up on video. We're going to talk about the few things that you can do, but that would be my biggest piece of advice and you know, know, one of the things that always makes me kind of reinforces, that is, there's a couple of brands. Take gap, for example. Years ago, gap did um a change in their logo and if you don't know the logo, go google it. Right now you know it. The second, it pops up, but they changed their logo.

Speaker 2:

They spend multi hundreds of millions of dollars not because somebody well, and I think, as a brand sometimes, and this used to happen in the corporate.

Speaker 1:

They spend multi hundreds of millions of dollars. I know it's worth it. Well, and I think, as a brand, sometimes and this used to happen in the corporate branding that I used to do is that you get people in the marketing department or people in other departments, and this is why I had to implement the brand manager role that I had later and we'll do this on another podcast because it's actually quite interesting but people just decide you know what I like? The color purple. Cool, we're just gonna. Why don't we just do the logo purple?

Speaker 1:

yeah, and so that's why a brand guideline is so incredibly important, especially in your bigger businesses. But you as a solopreneur, you as a small business, you need a brand board.

Speaker 2:

You need something that your brand can work from visual creatures without even knowing it, like you don't have to think oh, I like that color. Oh, she's changed. Like you just know, it's just inbuilt. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And what's really interesting, especially in that corporate space, the amount of times that you know you get marketing, people are actually the worst at it. They'd be like yeah, but you know what? I just like green. I'm like green, no, that's not it. And so by having a brand board and having something like that, you've got the ability to turn to that whenever even you get a bit like oh, I don't know, does it fit in with my branding? So that's why you need one for as a solopreneur. But if we go back to Gap, for example, so they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this brand logo upgrade and they got so much backlash that within six days later, they had to change everything back again because people like no, that's not okay they lost brand.

Speaker 1:

Trust that quickly. Another um company, tropicana the drink, the soft drink brand. You probably could close your eyes and visualize that that 80s um it's a yellow soft drink and the tropicana brand it's like that bird, yeah. Well, they changed that logo as well and the sales dropped 20, resulting in 30 million dollar loss when they changed their branding.

Speaker 2:

So they had to change it back wouldn't you feel awful if you're the person that changed it? You're like, oh my bad yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

so you know there's things that you may not realize. The trust that you build in a brand, you know, like if apple all of a sudden decided you know there's things that you may not realize. The trust that you build in a brand, you know, like if Apple all of a sudden decided you know what, we're just going to go to black boxes and we're not going to package them as fucking meticulously as we do, we're just going to shove them in a box. You would open that and instantly you'd be like hey, what, what happened? Like you may not ever buy that product again. You've lost brand trust.

Speaker 1:

And so you know, when it comes to your own branding and the reason I want to make sure that we talk at a level that the use and eyes of the world that are building small businesses that just have a canva and think it's not that important, it is like it is. So I think having a brand board and something inside the membership we do teach is a whole section around building your own brand board and brand board, and recently, with a couple of the members, I have actually worked on brand boards for them because of the importance, because allowing them to know that they want to go to that next level, and so it's an offering that we are actually going to be releasing is offering creating you your own professional brand board that then you can apply that branding to your brand. So watch out for that, and we'll share some more ideas around that. It'll be in our stand store as well, as we'll hit you up on the email list, but it's something that we absolutely going to start doing because of the importance of this. So, really, when it comes to a brand board, for example and what we teach inside the membership is, if you go to Canva, you can open, literally type in brand board and you'll get a brand board, and what that's going to do is it's going to give you a logo where somewhere you can put your logo, somewhere you can put your brand colors, somewhere you can put your fonts, somewhere you can put your mood board and images.

Speaker 1:

There is something to say. You know what. It doesn't matter. Don't get bogged down in the visual identity, don't worry about a logo, don't worry about colors, but, at the same time, just maybe have a think about what brands you know, even on social media. That second you hit them, you're like oh, I know them, whether it's the light, just the, you know. Whatever it is, I imagine there's something that you're like oh, I know them. You want people to say that about your brand, whether you think I'm not big enough for anyone to care. People notice, like that's the important thing is people actually really do notice.

Speaker 1:

So your logo is not the most important thing you can ever do at this point, but you do need something that does signify who you are, and that might just be your name or your business name in a certain font. So let's not overcomplicate it. Canva can create your logos. Let's just start somewhere. A color scheme. Now, this one's really, really important, because this is what is going to really lay the foundation, especially with your social media, and if you're moving into a branded community and things like that, it's going to be something that your members are going to notice about you. And I remember recently we did I did a story, uh, on our instagram. I was in the car somewhere and I took a screenshot of like had the coffee, but I had the laptop set up because I was waiting for an appointment, and somebody commented and said, before I ever knew this was you, you guys. I knew it was you guys because of the pink and the. Yet the pink and the yellow was like, ah, so little things like that.

Speaker 2:

It'll be memorable.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's it. So, in creating a colour scheme, go to Pinterest, scroll Pinterest. Yes, there's going to be colours you love, but one thing I will say is, if you are in the health industry, for example, a bright red and a black are we?

Speaker 2:

yay or nay on that, mia Probs not.

Speaker 1:

So just think about the industry you're in. You might love the color red, for example, but red is quite a polarizing color. Now, if you are like, this is going over my head, there's so much to know. Inside the monetizer kit, which we do offer in our stand store, there's a whole section around color psychology, and that can be relatable. Yeah, it's really interesting because it's also relatable to the color of clothes that you wear. If I was in a red jacket right now, I guarantee you the energy that I would bring to this is completely different to my bright yellow jacket. So there's a psychology behind color that is really important when you're creating your brand colors. And so you might like the color red, but you're in the health and wellness industry. Red is not a great color for health and wellness, so going to.

Speaker 1:

Pinterest and literally coloring, typing in color palette health and wellness. It's going to give you some color palette ideas. Now you can bring a red in, but it might be coral. It might have different hues to it that make it be softer and cleaner, and more in the pink than the bright, red and the dark. So things like that are important and you can do that inside.

Speaker 2:

I was gonna say, if you think of the medical industry across like ambulance, that they've always got the reds and the blues, because there's meaning behind that. It's, I was going to say, if you think of the medical industry, across like ambulance, they've always got the reds and the blues, because there's meaning behind that. It's just, that's just what they do. They're not going to come out with a pink paramedic uniform with the you know, purple cross. It just signifies, it has a meaning Exactly.

Speaker 1:

The difference between red and black and red and blue are enormous. Red and black is very harsh, very to the point, very just. We're red and blue. Blue is the color of things like oil and gas, things like the big corporate, money, like lots of corporates are blue because they're soft and they're approachable and they're caring and they're kind but they're authoritative. So the blue and the red are complementary. So there's a lot of thought that goes into this kind of stuff and at your level you can start thinking about that psychology.

Speaker 1:

Now, how do you want people to feel with your brand? And that can be the color of your choice. And if the color you love is red, that's fine. Then find a color that's going to soften it, complement it, take off that harsh, harsh edge if you're in that health and wellness industry, just for example, as we're talking. So the the idea around that develop, developing that visual identity is around your logo, creating one or looking in canva to get one, all right, your color scheme and I would usually say one main color.

Speaker 1:

And then at the moment, with social media and with the likes of Canva and probably what you're creating now, you know you could look at between three and five different colors that are complimentary. Below that, do you need more? No, do you need less? No, you could have two main colors, that's all you use, and then a couple of complimentaries outside of that. But't go crazy. But don't limit yourself, I suppose, to just those potential moments where you're like, oh, but actually maybe this time I might use a bit of this color or this color, try and keep it as tight as you can, and then, within those brand boards, you can also create your mood bod. So mood bod, no, mood board. Um. So, oh, the other thing font. So fonts are very important as well. Again, something that people maybe don't put too much weight on, but a font can make or break a design, make or break a brand.

Speaker 2:

Ugly.

Speaker 1:

Ugly and, you know, do this by looking on social media and seeing what you like and always having like a bold, bigger font and then your everyday writing font. So usually with a brand board, I'd suggest having your main heading font, then having a subheading font and then having a main text font and deciding whether that's a San or a San Serif font. You Google that. You'll find out what that is. Yeah, it's just deciding the fonts. That, again, you can just like what you like. That's fine, but just making sure you use that across your social media, across your e-books, all those kinds of things, all across your correspondence. Use those. And this is why we're making a brand board in Canva. Then there's the option to add your images. So, again, just go to Canva. Or, if you've got your own brand images, amazing, drop them in. If not, go to Canva and find images that compliment you and your brand, graphics that compliment you and your brand. Put them all in this mood board, because this is what you're going to turn to when and, if you need it, when you're creating things. So that's the basics of a mood board, but if you want more, obviously we go into much more detail inside the membership.

Speaker 1:

So the next part is defining your brand voice. Now, this is something that I mean with the incredible tool that Mia's created, the chat GPT tool itself. That's pretty good, which, if you would like that, it's in the show notes, or jump into our stand store. You can grab that right now. It's incredible. She's trained the GPT app itself and we've created our very own chat GPT app itself. That will be incredible for your content. But that's going to help you define your brand voice. You do need to do it as a person, but the GPT will help you do that. But it's basically how you communicate with other people. Your tone of voice means how you communicate with other people. Your tone of voice means are you casual, like when you write an email? If you write your emails very formal, very just, you know, robotic and not really personable, and then somebody jumps on a live with you and they're like what?

Speaker 2:

This is completely different.

Speaker 1:

There's a really that's not good for your brand and your brand trust at all, especially if you're building community, like community wants to know what they're getting themselves into. And one thing that I remember doing a couple of live coaching calls a while back and got on a coaching call with she became a member, one of our incredible members and she said to me she was like oh my God, you're exactly like you are on TikTok. And and she said to me she was like oh my God, you're exactly like you are on TikTok.

Speaker 2:

And I was like I was going to say that I've heard a lot of people say that they see these coaches on social media and then they get on a call with them and they're like you're so different.

Speaker 1:

Like I was not expecting this. So yeah, really, for me that's a massive red flag.

Speaker 2:

What about you? Yeah, yeah, you just have to be you and not put a you know a face on social media and then be different elsewhere, because it's just, people aren't going to go back.

Speaker 1:

No, and I think you know, if you're building a community, even more so because it's part of building trust, like you're really building a community of people that trust you. So you show up as you are and then be that. And then that also means in your tone of voice, in your correspondence, like be that. If you're a bit of a swear bear, like we are, we'll often put in some of our social media posts, you know, yeah, and just sometimes we'll kind of curse out the kind of so it doesn't spell the whole word, but that's who we are, like it's and that's how you need to build. Your brand is who you are and be really authentic with that. So that can also go in your brand board.

Speaker 1:

But that's just as you start to build this, just keep reflecting on who you are, who you want to be and why you show up as that person. And then it's really just when we're building our brand, whether it's as a community or whether it's just online, as you start to build your free community, to then build a potential paid community. It's just really interacting with people, kind of like we've just said treat people how you want to be treated and stand strong on that. So if you are somebody that shows up on social media in a certain way and then you show up in a live completely different and there's a real disconnect that is so harmful to your brand so harmful, yeah, and that can be detrimental. So it's really important to realize that you are your brand, you are your greatest asset. So how you turn up as a person on social media is just as important as how the carousel that you created in Canva shows up on your brand, because it's all representative of you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, people buy your stuff because they like who you're showing up as, and if that doesn't correlate with who you are inside your membership or in your correspondence, if someone is having trouble with their course login or something like that, that's going to reflect really badly on you and it's going to affect your sales, because, especially with social media, it doesn't take long for people to talk and to call shit out.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, yeah, and you know that kind of brings it to the final wrap up of these ideas. And then, mia, I want to ask you a question as well. But every single touch point needs to reflect your brand. So everything you do and that means from the little picture on your Instagram tile of who you are that should be the same as the one that's on TikTok, should be the same as ones on Facebook and that should be the same as the one people get, maybe on your emails. Like it to the point where you get bored of it and, yes, you might want to upgrade them. Like.

Speaker 1:

Mia and I are very excitedly going to do a little brand shoot soon. We're probably going to meet soon. Oh my God, shut up, oh my God. Oh my God. Yes, we don't have to like Photoshop our photos together anymore. I know we might actually meet in person, but that's a side note. But just making sure every single touch point is on brand is far more important than you may ever think, and I just want you to think about the experience for those of you that are Apple purchasers and Apple buyers. Think about from the second you pay for that fucking thing to the second. You get it home and you unbox it and you feel the quality of the box. And then you plug it in and it turns on and you open your phone and it's charged Like every single touch point is fucking orgasmic in the branding world.

Speaker 1:

like they've no way, yeah, yeah, so like it's not like a no offense pcs, but you shit, uh, it's not like opening a fucking pc and there's 75 fucking cords and that doesn't plug into that and that doesn't plug into that and that's not charged. Like you, you open an Apple computer, like when I open my laptop and you spend a shit ton of money on it and you open it and it's charged and you just press go and it talks you through the whole process the box is beautiful, the stickers, like everything syncs together. Yes, like the experience. And so you can have that with when people open your social media and they see your stories and they get a DM from you and then they get a voice note. Like you can have that experience as somebody who's growing a community and an audience on social media and these are the ways that you do it.

Speaker 1:

Please don't undervalue the importance of building a visual brand and your brand online. And so, mia, I wanted to ask you, considering that you know, when our worlds collided, I was obviously the OCD, was like oh, look at the branding. What have you learnt that you maybe had never thought of before in this process? Like what's something new.

Speaker 2:

I don't have that branding and marketing background. I came from healthcare so I was just like, yeah, I'll just jump on TikTok and create content and everything that I did whether it was a website or, you know, the little communities that I had there was never any really consistent branding because I just didn't, it wasn't at the forefront of my mind. But now that I know I notice it everywhere now. So when I'm looking at a content creator, looking at their website, looking at all their socials or even their emails, I notice it and it just makes such a big difference when you look at someone who hasn't thought about their branding. It's just a black and white and it almost increases the value of what they're putting out there because they've taken the time to think about it and implement it and look, it's fine.

Speaker 2:

Like me, I didn't not. I didn't really think about this stuff before I got into this whole marketing world. And you know, you learn and you grow and you adapt and you apply these things. You learn and you grow and you adapt and you apply these things. But in this realm we're in sales and marketing, so you need to look the part if you want to grow big.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And even to you would never walk into. I don't know. I know Witchery is under fire a bit, but you would never walk into a specific shop that you love and it would just be different every time they're on brand, all the time they stay like that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and even to the point of, like you know, we've been working with some of our members to do their branding and upscale kind of their branding and I've said, look, I want to do this process just to show you the difference kind of of how to use these skills. So we created simple brand boards for them where we changed the little icon that they've got on their social media and gave them a color there. We created the color palette for them, gave them a couple of reels, covers that they could use not to splash everywhere, but just to use so it's consistent gave them a couple of templates to use for their ebooks and their freebies and what that. What that is doing and why this is important is because these few people are moving into a paid community where their stuff doesn't have to be like rock star, change everything. But you go from this oh okay, that creator's doing really amazing things, but it's a bit haphazard all over the shop to okay, things are starting to look consistent. Now they're charging for a community. All the stuff stays same content, just the actual design, layout and execution is a little bit more on point and it just changes people's psychology, changes the way people think, feel and act with your brand and that is important If you're going to continue to grow in this space.

Speaker 1:

And you know the amount of creators that online their online presence is immaculate, you know their reels and all that. They spend hours on it and you can tell. You're like damn, and they go give you a freebie. You're like, yeah, I'm going to have that. The amount of freebies I've opened and gone. Are you fucking kidding me? Like, are you kidding me?

Speaker 1:

Do not waste my life, opening this and just because the way that it's designed has no representation to what I've seen online, and so the trust absolutely out the window, like just and that's personal. That might not be everybody, but for me personally I'm like if you spend that much time creating free social media and not that much time creating yes, it was a free ebook, but if you want me to pay for something and this is the free version no fucking way you're having my money. Like that's me personally and I know that's not everyone, so I don't want people to be like oh my god, but my freebie's not designed that well. I mean, we have a full PLR library that I designed for you to just add your own stuff to, so that PLR library is there. We've got it for you to use.

Speaker 1:

That we've designed it from a designer's point of view, you can just put your branding and colors into it, but just and there's not big things that those creators had to change either it's little things like left aligning the text. Don't have it that the text goes the whole way across, like little tiny things that we talk about inside the membership, inside the monetizer kit that can talk you through this stuff. But I don't want to overwhelm, because I could talk about this for hours.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, keep it. You just have to keep it simple. It doesn't have to be. You know, of course, Kristen's a graphic designer. She's all over this stuff. Yeah, but keeping it simple and consistent, boom.

Speaker 1:

And the way that you're going to be consistent is the brand board, because the brand board is then going to allow you to go when you go to Canva and you go oh, I want to create an e-book, cool, you can choose any design they've got. But then you add your branding to it, your brand colors, the fonts, the images and then, all of a sudden, now you're on brand.

Speaker 2:

So that's how easy it can become. Yeah, it's a bit like your target audience and your niche. When you know those two things, you don't stray too far from them, because that's part of your brand as well.

Speaker 1:

Same with the colors. Yeah, absolutely, Anyway, could go on for days not going to.

Speaker 2:

So let's wrap it up with our loves and don't love yeah look, my don't love this week is mowing the lawns without a ride on. We used to have a ride on when we had a bit of bit of an acreage loved it. It was my time away from the kids. I'd put the headphones on. A couple of beers in the back love it. Now we have a push because we're not on land anymore and I don't like it and my partner's broken his leg, so it's my job now.

Speaker 2:

Good, yeah, good, give me the ride on any day, any day. I reckon I could do that as a job, just about oh yeah, get. A good podcast on the ride on You'd have a ride on.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm going to ride on, I love it. Catch you later, I'm you later.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to moe and my loves this week is our custom gpt that I built. That's going to help with integration. Our audience just jumped on that thing. I was not expecting that. It just flew off the shelf. So basically, chat gpt is great, but if you don't prompt it properly, it's just going to sound like a robot. It's not going to sound properly, it's just going to sound like a robot. It's not going to sound like you, it's just going to spit out generic stuff.

Speaker 2:

So I created a custom GPT. So it's like an app and all you have to tell it I've I've prompted everything for you, so you don't have to prompt it anything. All you have to do is tell it your niche and your target audience and it does all the work for you. It pumps out a month yeah, a month's worth of content hooks, text on screen content, ideas, captions, emails. Obviously, you're going to have to tweak these things a little bit, but it sounds really human and it's a game changer. If you've got that content block, that happens to all of us. You know, like I don't know what to post today. Yeah, it's really really good. So you can find that in the show notes. But that's my loves. Like AI is, yeah, a bit of a game changer, isn't it?

Speaker 1:

And especially when, like, you've trained it with the right things, so you're not having to tell it new things every time. And it asks you questions that it needs to get better results for you. It and it asks you questions that it needs to get better results for you. It's absolutely genius.

Speaker 2:

Love it. Yes, yes, pretty good. All right, what are your bant?

Speaker 1:

lumps and your lumps, my don't loves, which you can see clearly here now, is my regrowth, like mate, it's extreme, mine's worse than yours. Come on, mine's down to here, I know, but my hair's my thing, my thing, like, if my hair's not on point, I'm not a happy chilape, like that's just. You know, everyone's got their little quirks. That's my quirk anyway. I've also got my bit. One of my really good friends is a hairdresser, so, um, you know she's amazing, it's time. But uh, we did this thing. I was like, yeah, I want to go blonde again, let's just do all blonde. And I was like, I know the regress is going to be like hard. She was like, yeah, but it's fine. But now I'm like, yuck, just I've had enough now. Anyway, going to get it done soon, that's fine.

Speaker 2:

Well, it cost me nearly $450 to get my blonde done every time. So I'm just like the balayage. You get to a point where it kind of just looks balayage-y yeah balayage.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's why you get your friend who's a hairdresser and you say, mate, I'll do all your branding and everything for you for new business and we'll work it out. She was like yes, amazing. I was like this is this is where fringe, like this is what is magic right here, yeah. So yeah, I was thinking about like maybe we just go blonde one more time. Then I'll be like okay, man, like let's go back to like streaking it, kind of like how you did it, so it grew out better. And then I was like, oh, do I go red again? Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

I like your orange yeah.

Speaker 1:

I do like that, coral, yeah, anyway.

Speaker 2:

You've got to have blonde underneath that, right? Yeah, you've got to have blonde first and then that.

Speaker 1:

But you know, we'll see. Whatever she wants to do, I'm like cool, just do it. But but that's my don't love. My love is cream blush, Mad for juicy cheek.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've gotten into the cream blushes lately too. It's $80 a pop. I don't know which one you use, but I just want to neck her.

Speaker 1:

No, mine was like $15.

Speaker 2:

She sold it on me. She's like, look, this will last you so long. It's the best one here. It sells out all the time.

Speaker 1:

So I'm like, all right, yeah, the girl down the road at the $15 shop was like this is the best one you'll ever buy. It's been so long. I was like, okay, mk Beauty, yeah, no, I don't know Mine's like a red one. Where I got it from, it's like an australis one or something. And then the one I just bought was a, but it's not as um pigmented, but I still love it because, it's just like glowy I'm here for it love a dewy, dewy cheek all right, team.

Speaker 1:

It's been a mammoth session, we've done some in a row, but we're loving it. And if nothing else, like we said, please subscribe to the podcast. It helps us know and keep sharing what we love. And show notes has got those two little freebies, so we've got the chat gpt that is in our stand store and in the show notes, and then also we have our free three. I'm not gonna say because I'm about to say secrets, I'll say it's not. So may just say it.

Speaker 2:

My brain fucking hurts now I can't say it.

Speaker 1:

Three simple steps to turning your instagram audience into a paid community it's gonna get you there probably most people would write this down, but I'm like nah me, it knows that she could just say it all right, legend, we are out of here, we gotta go. So many good ones too.