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Visibility By Design

Hey small business owners, startup founders, and personal brand builders: marketing is hard.  That’s why I teamed up with the founder of First Hill Marketing, Darrell Dennis II, this past week at Chief Financial Credit Union in downtown Rochester, MI.  As part of the workshop series, participants not only received an interactive workshop with others but also a complimentary headshot from me to add as a tangible digital asset to use in promoting their brand. Check out my photo below to see my setup!

As a community builder, I believe we learn and challenge ourselves best through connection with others. When you are ready to take your brand to the next level, or as Darrell says, “Climbing the First Hill of Marketing,” you do it through interacting with humans, not AI.  Use AI as a tool, but not as a substitute for authentic human relationships, which can help you look at your brand more clearly.

So, back to the basics: what is marketing? Darrell always asks this at the beginning of the workshop so he can gauge the audience’s baseline knowledge.  Marketing is the fundamental concept of showing what problem you are solving for your ideal client in a manner that conveys value, and when/where/how you sell that offer.  How you promote your brand comes in many forms:

  • Blogs (such as this one)
  • Podcasts
  • Social media
  • SEO (and now AEO with the advent of AI) optimization
  • Email marketing (which I would love for you to sign up for here)

1.) Interactive Workshop in Small Groups

Darrell led the group through an interactive worksheet by taking pen and paper while working in small groups.  Participants defined:

  • How they currently show up, especially for personal brands. (You are intertwined with your brand, good or bad.)
  • Defining their brand’s story in one sentence.  (Hint: it’s related to your Why)
  • Brainstorming some behind-the-scenes they could show this week on socials; your ideal client wants to follow along with you on your journey. (For me, it was doing the The 100 Day Project on socials and showing my ideal client that I can bring joy to my clients as I re-learned how to roller skate in my 50s.  We can do fun and hard things together.)
  • Their online presence in three words.  These become your guidepost for your digital presence. (It takes the guesswork out of what copy to write, or post to make on socials.)
  • How to focus on outcomes, not just features of your product or service. (Your ideal client wants to be seen, heard, and liked.  They want to reach an outcome that they are hiring you as the guide to get there.)

Workshop participants often don’t want to be told what to do; they want to discover it as they interact with other participants.  This exercise and tangible workbook are meant to be done in the first round of the workshop, then brought home and worked on more deeply as your brand develops.

3.) Your Photos Tell a Story to Your Ideal Client

As you take photos casually with your cell phone, or when you hire a professional photographer, all these add up to telling a story.  Ideal clients respond to that story with their attention, and when you can, answer their questions.  

Darrell shared a great tip: If you post a photo with a question and get engagement in the form of direct messages (DMs), that’s your signal to create content about those DMs. Don’t call anyone out specifically, but if one person is asking, then you can bet others are thinking about it too, but they didn’t take the time to type it out.  Answer that DM, but also tell them the answer by posting other photos or using Canva to create a graphic that spurs on more discussion!  AI can be a great tool once you’ve harnessed the actual feedback from your ideal client.

3.) What is Your Differentiator?

When I meet small business owners, start-up founders, and those with a personal brand, I often ask them (1) who is your ideal client, and (2) what is your differentiator?  This can be a hard question when you are new to the start-up space, but those who can’t answer it often say, “Wow, no one has ever asked me that before!”  It’s a sign of respect and care to ask small business owners about this so that you can help organically connect them to others who might be their ideal client, but to do this, I have to understand their unique view of how they are solving the challenge for clients.

My differentiator for entrepreneurs, for example, is that my personal branding sessions are designed to elevate, inspire, and create experiences for them to look and feel their best during a photo session.  I do this by acting in a sensory-informed manner and by developing a mood board in advance of the photo session so that the photos tell their story to their ideal client.

Let’s do this together!

Interested in learning more?  Send me a DM, text, or email about the Climbing the First Hill of Marketing event being planned for September.  What questions do you have about personal branding, photo sessions, and marketing?  Save your spot and book on Eventbrite soon!

 

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-With love and the greatest hopes for your success, Ginger 🧡