Authentic Achievements With Special Guest Sue Kirchner
🎙️ Episode 37: Building Wow! Brands with Sue Kirchner
Welcome back, dream achievers, to another inspiring episode of Authentic Achievements! 🚀 In this week’s edition, we are thrilled to have Sue Kirchner, a seasoned business growth strategist and the brains behind Brand Strong Marketing, join us in the studio.
Sue Kirchner is not just a strategist; she’s a powerhouse in guiding emerging businesses to create Wow! brands that propel them towards unparalleled success. With over 25 years of experience, Sue has become a beacon for small and mid-size companies looking to scale faster, easier, and more successfully.
In this insightful episode, Sue takes us on a journey through her own experiences, sharing the secrets behind her proven method that enables organizations to attract the right customers and employees. What makes a brand “Wow!” and how can it be the game-changer for your business? Sue breaks it down with actionable advice, drawing from real-life success stories. But that’s not all! Sue Kirchner is currently penning down her wealth of knowledge in a forthcoming book, a treasure trove based on her quarter-century experience of helping businesses accelerate their growth. The book promises to be a roadmap for identifying, communicating, and delivering on your brand, an essential guide for any entrepreneur or business leader seeking to elevate their brand strategy.
Join us for this captivating conversation as Sue shares not only her personal journey but also dives deep into the principles that have consistently transformed businesses. From entering new markets successfully to creating an unforgettable customer experience, Sue Kirchner leaves no stone unturned in her pursuit of helping businesses reach the next level.
Find out more at https://brandstrongmarketing.com/ or connect with Sue: / suekirchner / brand-strong-marketing / @brandstrongmarketing / brandstrongmarketing / brandstrongmarketing / brandstrongmktg If you’re an entrepreneur, business leader, or anyone aspiring to turn dreams into reality, this episode is a goldmine of insights and strategies. Tune in, take notes, and get ready to infuse the “Wow!” factor into your brand. 🎧 Listen now and get ready to elevate your brand game with Sue Kirchner on Authentic Achievements! ✨ #AuthenticAchievements#WowBrands#BusinessGrowth#SueKirchner#PodcastJourney
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Transcript:
0:00[Music]
0:06[Applause] hello and welcome to today’s episode of authentic achievements where I’m joined
0:12by The Fabulous Sue Kesner Sue hello hello thanks so much for having me oh
0:18I’m so looking forward to this I know every time we have a conversation it’s always jam-packed with Insight but
0:24before we get into that because I know we can let me introduce you a little bit broader to to our audience watching and
0:31listening so sue is a business growth strategist who helps emerging businesses create wild Brands allowing them to
0:38scale faster easier and more successfully as the founder of brand strong marketing her proven methods
0:45enables organizations to attract the right customers and employees to enter new markets successfully and create an
0:51amazing customer and colleague experience increasing sales to take the business to the next level consistently
0:58on the back of that experience and she’s writing a forthcoming book which is pulling together the 25 years of
1:05experience helping small midsize companies accelerate their growth by focusing on identifying communicating
1:12and delivering on their brand Sue tell us more about your journey and how you
1:17got here please sure I’d be happy to who doesn’t love talking about themselves right but uh yeah so I’ve had kind of an
1:25interesting Journey um to get here because I’ve been allowed to do things
1:31that other people might not necessarily U get to do in their career so kind of excited but um I’ll just start with um
1:39what kind of defines me or really pushes my passion for people and organizations
1:46are different there are always differences that you can find and extrapolate on um to help build your
1:53brand but um one of the things that I think kind of defines me is I grew up in Latin America so I’m not Latin American
2:01uh but my father uh worked for Motorola and we he would go into Puerto Rico and
2:07he went into Mexico and he would start up these factories um and so that allowed me to spend my formative years
2:14from about uh fourth grade until uh 11th grade in high school um living in
2:19another country learning another language seeing how other people and cultures um you know grow and Thrive and
2:28interact with each other and that kind of led me into what I wanted to study in college then uh which was um I have a a
2:37Spanish degree um as something easy to do at the point but then I was also
2:42interested in again this whole idea about differences and talking about things that other people don’t know
2:48about because when I would come back to the United States um and talk to my friends they just they had no concept no
2:54concept of what it was like to live in another country or even where this other country was um so I would love to tell
3:01stories um and try and get them up to speed about what it was like uh to grow up to be living there and things like
3:07that so I wanted to get into storytelling and I thought at the time that gosh I’m gonna go into advertising
3:13copywriting that sounds like something you know at the time I was like okay that’s a job where you can get paid to
3:19write other than just being a novelist or something like that um so I got my degree um in journalism because there
3:26was no advertising copywriting degree at the time um but but I’m glad I did
3:31because it helped me so much with u my current um profession on that is that
3:37with journalism degree I was able to understand how to do research how to ask questions how to probe people that’s
3:45sounded bad but how a probe to find um the answers to um what you really wanted
3:51to know or to hear from somebody um as you’re going so um anyway so after college uh right
3:57out of school I went to Motorola it went went to work there in their marketing department since I was the only one who
4:03spoke Spanish uh I was allowed to do all Latin American Marketing for cell phones
4:10which at the time in the early 90s was when they were taking off um that was
4:16they introduced the flip phone and everybody was excited about cellular and everybody had to have one so I was able
4:23to then touch and be able to at a very early age do all different facets of
4:28marketing uh whether it was working with Distributors whether it was doing advertising whether it was doing trade
4:33shows PR um creating marketing Communications materials it was wonderful to have that wide breath of
4:41experience um instead of being focused in on just doing PR or just doing
4:46advertising so that was wonderful um and I worked at Motorola for a number of years helping them with cell phones and
4:52two-way radios um but then uh Motorola decided at a certain point that they
4:58wanted to have all of their Latin American Marketing and operations and anyone who interfaced with them they
5:04wanted them all in Miami uh and I live in Chicago move to Miami uh or anywhere
5:11else in Florida at the time so I was like all right well you know again I have something different and a different
5:17experience than I’ve seen with other people in the Chicago job market had which was I know how to help us
5:24companies sell in Latin America um and so I started my first entrepreneur
5:29journey of which a lot of people are like oh my gosh I can’t believe you’re going to start your own business you’re
5:35going to leave Corporate America why would you do that um and it was one of those where I was just like you know
5:40what what’s the worst that’s gonna happen I I try for six months uh to
5:45build a Consulting business around Latin American Marketing and if it doesn’t work um I go find that job that I’m
5:52gonna have to go find anyway because my job is moving to Florida so so anyway so
5:58I started out on cons Consulting um I had some great mentors who helped me um
6:03to figure out what Consulting meant uh and uh it was absolutely wonderful but
6:08after a certain amount of time I had children didn’t want to travel that much to Latin America anymore and that’s when
6:15I then leveraged my marketing experience and got into brand strategy uh which was
6:21important uh it was a a friend of mine who worked for an ad agency said hey the Ad Agency owner is trying to spin off
6:27and create this brand strategy firm would you be interested in working there
6:33and I I did for a year it was a great experience I met um a bunch of other people we created this business we
6:40created the process we learned all about brand strategy how to sell it and things like that um but at the end of the year
6:46the uh business owner decided nah it’s not growing fast enough I’m gonna go ahead and shut it down so again my first
6:53kind of entrepreneurial uh you know experience of being part of building a business but then seeing that it didn’t
6:59go anywhere fast enough um but there were a couple of us who said you know what let’s try and do this ourselves we
7:05we just put all this energy and effort and work into it and we love what we’re doing let’s build our own brand strategy
7:10firm and so we did for a number of years uh we had a company called identity
7:163.0 uh because at that time Fast Company with you know company at 2.0 and all this kind
7:23stuff everybody was on okay it’s the next generation of identity and branding and and things like that so we did that
7:28for a number years and again gaining more experience on how to build a firm how to sell something
7:35intangible um you know and and it just it was absolutely a wonderful experience to build um this brand strategy firm and
7:42it it went successfully for about five years a couple of my part business partners had to leave for personal
7:48reasons and things like that and um and then at that time I then said all right well I’m the only one left standing here
7:54at this brand strategy um firm uh but you know with small children I want to
8:00see if I can actually build my own brand can I do that can I put my money where my mouth is uh and build a brand but
8:06with small children I didn’t want to have a big office downtown anymore and you know so I decided to take um a leap
8:14and start my own business uh it was an online retail firm because again at that time anybody can go into online retail
8:22uh and uh so I created a company called chocolate cake club which we did not sell chocolate cake what we sold was
8:30products that would help busy families spend more time together having fun so
8:36that they felt like they were eating chocolate cake and enjoying uh their life and things like that so um I loved
8:42it it it was I was so passionate about that firm um you know building the brand
8:47it resonated so deeply with busy working moms who was my target market um and it just was absolutely
8:54wonderful and I learned all about if you have a website how do you drive people people to it uh so that was a great
9:01experience um and and lesson learned um but again as as time goes on you know
9:08Amazon kind of uh shut down a lot of very small internet retailers um and I
9:14was forced to after about seven years of of growth growth growth growth and then not growth um to shut that down and uh
9:21it was you know kind of devastating at the time because i’ never had business who who kind of I don’t want to say
9:28failed but just didn’t grow where it needed to grow um you know due to unforeseen circumstances and things like
9:34that so but I um you know said you know what I’m not done I want to make sure
9:41that I can uh continue to build a business and grow and so I created brand
9:46strong marketing um which was definitely started as a way to say all right what do I know in life what are I experiences
9:54uh I know how to Brand I know how to define an Market and I know that if you
10:01uh with digital marketing and how that changed the entire marketing landscape and sales landscape I know how to drive
10:07people to a website and That Was Then the Genesis of uh brand strong marketing
10:12and um I love it it’s been I’ve been doing this for almost nine years or this
10:18iteration for almost nine years now but I feel like it is the culmination of
10:23every step that I’ve had along the way of seeing um you know businesses how
10:28they Market themselves how they tell their story how they grow how they deliver a customer experience I’m able
10:34to now aggregate that um after 25 something years and present a great uh
10:41solution to um you know companies who really want to grow I love that and I
10:46love that you know what what comes out throughout about your story is the power
10:51of Storytelling you the one thing that I’ve always thought is the thing that
10:57connects us all globally a of our age our race our gender our culture is we
11:02teach and we learn through stories so being able to uh help pull out that
11:10story and then share that story with the world is a really great way of helping people to connect isn’t it um and it
11:16sounds like that’s something that has kind of really been prevalent throughout the journey that you’ve had and sounds
11:23like he’s also very prevalent in now how you help other organizations in
11:29in finding their story and then amplifying it would that be fair absolutely absolutely because it’s if
11:36you want to sell anything um whether it’s a product or a service or a change
11:42initiative internally or if you want to sell an idea even um you have to tell
11:48that story and you have to be able to articulate it so that you can get somebody else excited about it um so
11:54that they want to help you and and that’s what I love doing um and and what I love about brand
12:01strategy too or what I love about working with my clients is it’s not just
12:07telling a story about what you do you have to sit down and you have to understand the audience and say how is
12:13this story relevant to them how is this story going to make them feel how is the
12:18story going to fit into their life so that they want to embrace your idea or
12:24sell you know buy your product or or you know follow you on that change initiative and things like that so yeah
12:30I absolutely love all of the components of Storytelling which is you need to understand your audience and then you
12:36need to understand the structure of how you get your ideas across um and then you need to figure out what is the best
12:42mechanism for telling your story because sometimes that’s different for you know people I love that because we we are all
12:48different as well aren’t we we we learn in different ways so you some of us might be more visual some of us might be more auditory um and I often think I
12:56talk a lot about um the power of Storytelling in leadership you and it’s about again creating that story and
13:02sometimes having to tailor that story for your audience um a little bit like um I was liking it to you’ve written a
13:09book and you now want that book to be able to be sold around the world but for it to resonate with an audience in a
13:15different country you might need to make some minor tweaks to it so you don’t change the main story because if not
13:21it’s just a different book but you might have to change some elements of it so that it resonates it does that translate
13:29across to Brand strategy and things that you do absolutely absolutely because I I I tell my clients your your brand
13:35promise what what you tell people they’re going to experience when they interact with your organization that
13:42should always stay the same that that brand promise of why you started your business what you’re passionate about
13:48what you want people to experience should stay the same however if you’re talking to an employee the way that you
13:55tell that story might be a little different because how that brand is going to to affect them is a little
14:00different than how it’s going to affect a customer or how it might affect an investor who’s interested in investing
14:06in your business um or even a referral partner so yes there’s you know I used
14:12to have um or when we used to do these uh deliverables for clients we used to
14:17have here’s your brand promise and now here’s your brand promise translator meaning how do you take that and then
14:24write the the key messaging in a way that’s most relevant to that audience it’s still promising the same thing but
14:31it’s telling the story in a different way that attracts that type of audience more effectively I love that because it
14:37is it’s all in how well the receiver receives isn’t it you yes often often we
14:44we we deliver a message and we can get very frustrated that the person didn’t get it and it’s like the problem is you didn’t deliver it right you didn’t
14:52explain in a way that they understood um and we’ve got to be able to um it’s it’s
14:58it’s been a great eye opener for me my little girls just turned seven trying to explain things to a seven-year-old you
15:04really have to know them you have to know what you’re saying to get it across if not they take everything just so
15:10literally that it’s been a that’s been a real help for me in improving my communication but I love that whole
15:17translator and how you’re able to already think about actually how what would this look like if I were
15:23explaining it to this group of people or to this group of people so that actually
15:28people want to see themselves in the story don’t they absolutely the story resonates for them yeah no matter who
15:35you’re talking to they want to be the hero of the story even if you’re talking about yourself you have to translate it
15:41in a way that makes them the hero of the story and um yeah it’s exciting and it’s
15:46funny building on what you were just talking about a professor told me a long time ago and you know how certain things people say just stick with you forever
15:52kind thing well uh Professor ad had at the time said you know when it comes to communication problems the messenger is
15:59the problem if if there is a communication problem it’s the person who is delivering the communication it’s
16:06always their fault because they either didn’t get the feedback that they weren’t being understood or they didn’t
16:12deliver it clearly in things like that so I I always love that and it stuck with me now I have to say you were
16:17talking about your daughter I have to say sometimes my husband and I use that as a way to passive
16:24aggressively no the problem started with the messenger that’s why I didn’t
16:29understand what you were telling me so oh I love that I think we do don’t we we we
16:36sometimes we find those catchphrases and I remember many years ago being told I
16:41didn’t have the uh vocabulary um to actually be as successful as I could be in kind corporate life so I went and
16:47learned a whole new vocabulary and then realized the people that I led no longer understood me because I would sit there
16:54and say things like well there’s a plethora of opportunities and I think at one point I told somebody that I run a paretic team and they thought I was
17:00telling them they were pathetic and I was like no you’re remote could you not just say remote and I was like yeah I
17:07probably could I think sometimes we over complicate things don’t we in our desire
17:13to make things look um better or more impressive than perhaps they were
17:19particularly in the way our society is driving that desire for Perfection for
17:25something bigger than it is is that something that you have have to um help
17:30clients with when you’re bringing their brand stories to life yes absolutely
17:35absolutely so um I like to say that when I do my upfront initial um brand
17:41identification process with the CEO and the executive team for a small business and things like that I like to say that
17:47you know what my my job here is to be the mirror is is to hold up this mirror and say I want you to see yourself as
17:55others see you um and once you can see yourself as others see you then you can
18:01build on the perception or change the perception that they have and it may be that yes you have to tweak your
18:06messaging uh you have to make it more relevant for that particular customer um or you have to sit down and say you know
18:12what you absolutely fell in love with this one aspect of your business but
18:17you’re the only one that’s not other people your customers your employees other people are in love with dis
18:24different aspects of your business and you need to understand that and you need to figure out a way to then build on it
18:30um and communicate it um to other people so yeah it’s it’s definitely I I love
18:37the part of my job where I come in and can say you know what here is what your
18:42organization does amazingly well after I talked to your customers after I talked
18:48to your employees or any other important stakeholder group that you that you have is to say you know what you started your
18:54business for a reason um and and as a business owner as o you’re constantly
19:00dealing with problems and issues and day to-day it just drags you down and certain days you’re like oh my gosh why
19:05am I still doing this um but then I can come in and say you know what it matters it it’s working this is what your brand
19:13stands for this is what your organization is absolutely amazing at and how can we make it more amazing or
19:18how do we just continue to tell the story of how amazing you are to the ideal client who will find that valuable
19:26I love that so you made so smart it reminded me of um many years ago standing up in front of um a room full
19:33of people much to my bosses a horror yeah because I was the UK head of sales
19:39at the time I said to them the first thing you need to realize is nobody actually wants our product and they all just called on me and like what on Earth
19:45I was like let me explain what I mean I said we were an accounting software organization I said unless you’re an
19:51accountant you didn’t go into business to do accounts so you need our product but you don’t want our product so we
19:57can’t try and be the next apple we can’t create this design no one’s going to sleep outside HMV all night waiting for
20:03the next version because it’s accounting S I said we’ve got to understand that actually what they want is more time in
20:10their organization what they want is more time with their customers so helping people understand to your point
20:15you did it so beautifully that piece that says you might think this is the thing that’s really important but the
20:21thing your customers value the thing that they see is amazing it’s something
20:27completely different and until you’re in alignment your message is going to miss the miss the Mark isn’t it exactly you
20:35have yeah they like you said they don’t really care about you or your product or your service what they care about is what it can do for them how is it going
20:42to make my life easier and then how is that going to make me feel that’s where the magic happens with branding is to
20:49say you have to understand that your product or service does something for
20:54people and what is that and who wants that once you understand all of those components now you can spend money on
21:01marketing and and really try and highlight what it is um that makes you different and see your business grow see
21:08your sales you know augment and accelerate and things like that so it’s uh yeah it it is it is opening I always
21:15say that and I don’t know you know it’s been 25 years of of learning it’s not about me right it’s it’s about what
21:23other people want and and I love being able to do that with my clients is to say stop you just told me every feature
21:31about your product and I know you’re super proud of that um and a lot of engineering work went into that and
21:37that’s all amazing but as someone who’s going to potentially buy it or use it it
21:44that doesn’t matter to me what matters to me is like you said it’s going to save me time or it’s going to save me money or it’s going to make me look
21:51beautiful or it’s going to make me look amazing to my boss so I can get a promotion or it’s those feelings and
21:57emot itions that’s why people buy a product um or buy a service and so you
22:02have to tap into that so your features and your product is amazing but what is it doing for someone that’s what you’re
22:08selling I love that because I we we think we’re such logical beings and that
22:14we you know make all of our decisions very logically and factually and yet the reality is our emotional brain responds
22:2024 times faster than our thinking brain so we always respond with how it’s made us feel and then we justify how we how
22:27we feel what we do next um and I love that actually you know that and
22:32therefore you’re bringing that the other way around and saying well actually let’s work on how they want to
22:37feel and then explain that to them because that is going to be how they make their decision in the in the first
22:43instance anyway is that’s what that that’s what they’re aspiring for either that feeling of the problem is solved or
22:49that feeling of that desire has been granted either either one of those is is
22:55going to probably be what’s driving them to look for a something that we can help them with isn’t it exactly exactly and
23:00it’s frustrating it’s frustrating for people I mean and it’s I same thing with myself I sometimes I have to get outside
23:07help and counsel to get out of my head and say what is it that I’m I’m delivering and the value that I can
23:13bring to people but yeah it’s it’s definitely one of those where you have to say um take a step back what is this
23:20product or service doing okay you just told me what the benefit is but still what is the what is the benefit of the
23:27benefit that you just talked about and you really keep trying to drive them to get at that core emotion that you can
23:33deliver with your product or service um because that’s where the magic in the brand is is being able to figure out
23:40that emotional trigger that makes people want to buy and buy from you I love that
23:45because that’s a bit that makes you you and makes you unique doesn’t it you’ve had such an amazing and varied Journey
23:51already what would you say has been your greatest achievement in work yeah um
23:59I think my greatest achievement has been being able to have a career build a
24:05number of businesses that were mine um that that has been mine and and my greatest
24:11achievement has been learning from each one of those businesses along the way so even even when I had to sadly close one
24:19U or move on from another it’s being yeah I am most proud of being able to
24:24stop and say okay what have I learned how can I reinvent myself if I’m
24:30Reinventing myself and and then how do I more importantly take those learnings to
24:35help somebody else and so my other proudest achievement is looking back at my client list and being able to say wow
24:43all of these companies have been able to continue to grow um after I have come in
24:48and helped them tell their story more effectively and understand their brand and understand who their ideal target market is um and and you know just not
24:56that this is my proud achievement but there have been moments where I’m presenting to the CEO and to the
25:03executive team and I’m coming back after doing all the research and Analysis and I’m saying okay here’s what your brand
25:08is and after I’m presenting they’re crying and it’s just it’s it’s you know
25:14one of those amazing feelings to say I helped them fall in love with their business again this is why they started
25:20it this is the value that they are providing to their customers and to be able to give them that gift of saying oh
25:27my gosh yes this is why we do this this is this is why we will continue to move forward and expand and grow and invest
25:35because we can make a difference to our customers oh I love that I actually got
25:40I got goosebumps because it reminds me of the one thing that I I believe of all of us is that at our core we want to be
25:48listened to we want to be understood and we want to be respected and when you’re playing that back to them when people
25:54are crying it’s because they feel listened to understood and respected um and we we know that we have those
25:59moments you if you I was watching a movie yesterday and and was just a Christmas movie but um there was a
26:06moment where you saw the parents’ eyes and they were they were like so proud and and so emotional and it takes you
26:13right back to how you feel when you’re watching the same thing because you get it you connect on that level don’t you
26:19and I the fact that you do that for for clients and then they’re able to then take that out and amplify it must just
26:25be the greatest feeling in the world it is it is and then you know the key the key is to say okay well now that I’ve
26:32I’ve made you emotionally connect with your business again how do we then let’s build on it let’s get the employees as
26:39emotionally connected let’s get your customers as emotionally connected and and let’s work on that strategy so
26:45amazing and and it is all of that isn’t it so with within any organization you
26:51know you’ve got to get to the hearts and minds of what the organization wants um or the company what the what the clients
26:57want and what the colleagues want and when you can get all of that singing the same way to your point earlier that’s
27:03really where the magic happens isn’t it exactly that’s when you can brand strong that’s when your when your growth just
27:09starts to accelerate and to take off so um it is it’s you know whether you call it magic Tipping Point whatever it is
27:15when you can get all of that in alignment um companies grow and they’re amazing what they can do amazing so if I
27:25you if I were company out there thinking about um when when do I when would be a good time to start when should I bring
27:31in somebody like you to help me understand and therefore amplify My Brand Story yeah so there’s a couple
27:38reasons when I think it’s essential to bring in a brand strategist or invest in
27:43that so um the first is um you are about you have opportunities to grow let’s say
27:50you’ve been you’ve been in business a while you’ve made it maybe to the million dollar Mark and now you really
27:55have opportunities to take off and scale get your story straight because your marketing and your story has probably
28:01not been changed since you started the organization and I’m sure it’s different so this is the time to invest and say
28:08all right we’re going to need to spend money on marketing or hiring new salespeople we need to get that story
28:13straight um and understand our value and who we’re going to be targeting so that that’s one the second is you might be at
28:19the point where you’re entering a new market let’s say you’ve decided to expand and go into a new geographical
28:24Market or you’re upscaling who your customer is or going International anything like that in that point you
28:31have one chance to make a first grade impression so make sure your brand story is strong um another could be that um
28:40you’re going through a merger and acquisition let’s say your growth strategy is to absorb a competitor or or
28:45to move forward and people often forget in those m&a deals that there are human
28:51beings involved in all aspects of that transition so you need to be communicating to the new employees
28:58coming in your existing employees new customers old customers you need to tell them why this is such a great uh
29:05transaction and how it’s going to make their lives better um and and so that’s another big reason to bring in a brand
29:12strategist and then the last reason to bring in a brand strategist is maybe you’re you’re just you’re not
29:18necessarily not growing but you’re not hitting the um the targets that you have
29:23whether that be bringing in new customers or bringing in employees even employer branding especially before
29:29covid and during covid has become a very big concern for companies is the fact
29:35that I could grow if I could bring new top talents in but no one knows who our
29:40company is we don’t know how to talk about why this is such a great place to work um and and it’s stalling our growth
29:48and so I’ve come in and helped small businesses sit down and say let’s do this whole branding process but instead
29:53of focusing on attracting customers we’re focusing on attracting top talent what does your brand offer to employees
30:00and let’s let’s really blow that strategy and that message out I love that because they you we often think of
30:06one and not the other don’t we and actually unless you get them all singing together um and and if they don’t make
30:14sense if they if they’re not cohesive um then people start to doubt it don’t they so I use the phrase if your lips and
30:20hips don’t match what I say and what I do aren’t the same then people are going to go well something’s off here so if
30:27our brand promise to our clients doesn’t mirror the brand promise to our colleagues in a um not to be the same
30:35but but as in to follow the same value set to follow the same desire of kind of
30:41experience that we deliver then we’re not going to we’re not going to be successful are we because we’re not
30:46going to deliver on that promise to either exactly I mean the brand is it’s more than just the messaging it is the
30:53culmination of the message and the experience and if you are break in that
30:58messaging in any way shape or form whether it’s as you said the way you treat your employees or the way you
31:04deliver the customer experience or even as much as simple as the way you answer the phone those all of that adds up to
31:10say wait a minute they said they were great at this in their in their marketing but they’re not I don’t see
31:16where the greatness is and suddenly now you’ve broken that brand and you you’ve destroyed that perception that you spent
31:22so much money and effort trying to create I love and and it’s so hard to
31:27build isn’t it and so easy to break yes yes indeed which is which is true of of all
31:34the best things in life isn’t it things in life um but I think it’s that yeah I
31:40I love that one of the other things that that kind of come out so clearly through your journey and through you helping
31:45your clients is that constant uh learning and iteration the being able to
31:51look at every situation and say okay what can we take from this um what can we take that actually we can use again
31:57because it’s great what can we take that says maybe we do that differently this time this situation we need to you know
32:04we need to to move something through um and and that allow allowing you therefore to to um constantly keep
32:11moving forward and and it strikes me that you um that you have that passionate
32:18curiosity yes about um everything that you do about the kind the businesses you’ve ran the businesses that you
32:24support now about the stories and why they resonate with people how important do you think curiosity is um in what you
32:32do and and in uh how you actually really help people to hit that sweet spot of
32:38where they want to get to yeah it it is absolutely essential um I I I am curious
32:45I love bringing a new client on and just digging in and getting to understand
32:51their business their culture their customer base their industry I love that
32:56research part of it um you know and the Curiosity but then I also love the Cur
33:01you know you have to be curious from a standpoint of you have to be willing to open your mind and just listen to what
33:08people say um so when I’m doing the interviews about well why is this company so great why do you work with
33:13them what do you think their brand is you have to be curious enough to just listen to everything they say because
33:19they may say something that is just pure gold and you need to be able to to recognize it a and write it down but you
33:27also need to say be able to dig deeper again we’re trying to get at the brand
33:32touches your emotions and most people don’t like to talk about their emotions especially in a business context right
33:39so you have to be curious enough that when they say oh I love working with this company because of this well
33:46why why does that matter to you let’s dig a Little Deeper let’s let’s you know
33:51I’m really curious what does that do for you how has that helped you in your career that you worked with this company
33:56and things like that and so being curious allows you to be able to dig
34:01deep enough to find those moments or to find um those nuggets of gold where you’re like that’s it that’s the brand
34:08this is what they do and why they’re an amazing company to their customers I
34:14love that and it so often is isn’t it where I mean we do very different things but H I have similar moments where you
34:20really listen to the person and they come out with absolute gold and they’ve absolutely got it they’ve just not seen
34:26seen it they they’ve not heard it in the same way that you have and and when you play it back to them they’re like oh my
34:32God it’s like you’re in my head and it’s like no I just really listened I really listened and yeah and
34:38it’s you know it’s one of those things where you can go to a client it’s like you need to talk to your customers more often because they’ve got it they know
34:45what you’re good at and they they are actually talking about you in a way that has made you successful to this point so
34:52listen to them grab onto that insight and run with it so I love it so I could
34:59chat to you all day as you know but I’m very conscious of your time so before we um wrap up and ask people how they can
35:06get in touch with you could you just share with us if there were one piece of advice that you would like to go back and give yourself earlier in your
35:14entrepreneurial Journey what would it be um yeah the piece of advice I would
35:19give myself is learn how to sell because when you take that entrepreneurial
35:25Journey you are your you are your biggest salesperson or maybe even only salesperson and things like that and um
35:32yeah it’s when I first started an entrepreneurial Journey I’m like oh you know I’m just gonna say what I do and
35:38business is going to come my way well it doesn’t work that way um and I spent so much time o you know learning about
35:45branding and and storytelling and how do you attract an audience whether that’s a
35:50customer a colleague a partner whatever that is spent so much time learning how to attract but then I didn’t spend time
35:57focusing on building my skills well then what do you do after you’ve attracted them how do it’s like how do you then
36:05you know take it to the next level close that deal um you know that that’s definitely something I would have said
36:11at the be at the very beginning is take sales classes find a sales coach do
36:16something that helps you give you the confidence the courage whatever it is to
36:21be able to go out and say hey I can do amazing things for you you know and here
36:26how um it’s you know it’s just something that I wish I could go back and and have added more of that and I think it would
36:33have solved a lot of more uh you know sleepless nights and pain and doubting
36:39myself and impostor syndrome and all those things that happen when we’re a business owner um is just having the
36:46confidence um to sell it’s true is and and I think one of our biggest concerns I say having run
36:53Sal teams for like 25 years one of our biggest concerns is we we don’t like to sell because we don’t like to be sold to
36:59correct and therefore our biggest fear is we’re going to turn into the thing that we hate most which is someone is going to sell to us um and actually what
37:06the art is is getting people to buy because we don’t mind buying things
37:12right we don’t want be sold to and it’s is it’s a subtlety isn’t it but once we can get ourselves into that place it
37:18says actually what I’m going to do is put the information out there in such a way that buyers know what what’s
37:25available and therefore can make an informed Choice versus I’m going to be in this place and we’ve all we’ve all
37:31seen him somebody connects with you on LinkedIn and then immediately can solve all of the problems in the world that you’ve got without having first said
37:38hello or checked whether or not you have any of those problems you’re like would you do that if you walked up to me in a
37:44bar and you didn’t know me would you literally just blurt out like everything you can do to to to save my life or
37:51would you maybe just say hello yeah it’s to meet start with a convers ation yeah
37:58I I definitely like say that it’s you know it’s you get more asking people
38:03what’s going on in their life and then you can respond to it versus coming and saying hey you know how cool I am I do
38:10this this this and this it’s like yeah okay great I’m happy for
38:16you it’s been amazing to chat to you so if anybody out there that’s really
38:21looking to be able to would you say refall in love with them business and and kind of really get
38:28clarity on that story and be able to to
38:34create that story in such a way that people can move into the buying space
38:39they can actually see what there is that is available and therefore make that informed Choice are they the kind of
38:45clients that you’re looking for absolutely absolutely and how did they get in touch
38:50with you I will obviously make sure everything is in the notes below but what’s the best way for them to reach
38:55out and start that Journey yeah the best way to reach out and start that journey is is my website brandr strong
39:02marketing.com um and uh you know they or they can certainly find me on LinkedIn
39:07Sue kersner and message me through either one of those um or email directly
39:13Sue brandr strong marketing.com um those are always ways that uh I love being
39:18able to um have an initial consultation with people because again it goes back to that Curiosity and and love of
39:24learning is I just like to you know have a conversation with people and say hey what’s going on with you and what do you
39:30wish your business could do and maybe there’s a way I can help you I love that I think that’s why we get on so well you
39:36one of my greatest joys in in life is hearing other people’s stories that’s why I love doing things like this
39:41because I get to meet amazing people like you and hear your story and what’s not to love about that because we learn
39:47something in every conversation don’t we soe it has been an absolute Joy I’m really looking forward to our next
39:53conversation and but thank you for being here with us and for everybody watching and listening we’ll make sure that all
39:59of the ways to contact to are in the notes below and thank you for being here with us until next time so much for
40:04having me take
40:12care