01 - Knowing Your Why Or Overarching Theme
Choices
- Renaissance Business
- Separate Businesses
- ::Hybrid Approach::
Work Models
- ::Group Hug (Renaissance Business)::
- ::Slash::
- Einstein
- Sequential
I’ll go with the Hybrid approach.
My work model is a combination of Group Hug and Slash.
I need something to make income immediately (freelance writing).
Freelance writing is like my Wellspring Day Job because it feeds my passion for writing.
This freelance business funds my other unpaid projects (books, blog, adventures, and other passions).
My ideal audience for my freelancing and my other unpaid projects are the same - united by certain psychographics.
My audience are people and organizations who are spiritual, creative, and service driven. They have a humanitarian purpose.
My Brand Equation
Inner Work → Outer Work + Social Change
Try: Branding as not something you do to yourself. But simply your way of communicating the value that people get.
Communicate your value, your why, your mission statement so that people will join you.
An overarching theme is just one form of “why”
Why = value, philosophy, driving force
Try to become the adulterated you in your website
You need: money, meaning, and variety
Systems Thinker = Multiple businesses
Brand yourself as someone who can do different thing
Look at branding as an online representation of what you are all about
02 - Communicating Your Why Through Story
Experiment: Try changing your offerings once a while
Your website is your home in the web. Make it fun.
Creative Agency
Introductions - Don’t tell everything you do. Trim it a bit depending on context.
The Briefcase Technique
Pull out little pieces of your personality and story and work it into copy, site, and design.
Orient your brand story on audience
Brand story = Your values + Your audience’s values (overlap and connection points)
Steps
- Who do I want to work with? Who is the audience that I want to share values with?
- Make a list of the attributes and qualities of your ideal audience.
- Formulate materials around it (colors, design, story)
Branding = about you & your experience + about your audience & your vision for them
Don’t be someone you are not.
Find your youest you.
How can you express your individuality and find the overlap with customers that actually need your thing?
What do you know about your audience?
When you’ve worked with people who really got you, what were they like?
- Humble
- Kind
What values do they have, that your audience also has?
What’s the opposite of your ideal audience?
- Business-y
Who do you really not want to work with?
What I want to tell them about myself
Shared values
What they care about
Spiritual
Creative
Service-oriented
03 - Communicating Your Why Through Design
Start with your why or overarching theme.
Look for recurring words and themes.
Think about the language, colors, etc. that your ideal client will be drawn to.
Design Flow
- Questions_words about brand_business
- Figuring out 1-2 archetypes
- Starting with the actual design
For inspiration look at
- Animals that you’re drawn to or that embody your personality and business.
- Your favorite things (book cover designs, etc.)
- Art galleries
Brainstorming with people from outside your industry.
Brandality Quiz
Content I share
- Things that are beautiful or related to your passion
- Motivating quotes and stories
- The most helpful information you can find and create
Brands I look up to
- Oprah
- TOMS Shoes
- Lego
Yearbook superlative
- Most likely to move away
Values
- Imagination
- Vision
- Independence
Brand weaknesses
- Vague identity
- Relate ability to the average person
- Not staying in one place, doing one thing for long enough
Brand’s goal
- To transform people’s lives.
- To create something new and imaginative.
- To enjoy life passionately
Quote
- “Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.”
Archetype: Creator
Archetype
Magician
AKA
Inventor. Transformer. Visionary.
Catalyst. Charismatic Leader. Shaman. Healer. Medicine Man. Intuitive. Wizard.
Goal
To make dreams come true, understand the laws of the universe.
Strategy
Develop a vision and live by it, help other people transform their lives using new methods, invent new methods and processes.
Fear
Unintended negative consequences, that their inventions/methodologies don’t work like they plan.
Voice
Expansive, moving, articulate.
Customers Feel
“I want to experience that.”
“I’m on the cutting edge, fascinated, enchanted.”
Live Your Brand
Know the dates trends and help define new ones. Transform into the best YOU possible.
Weakness
Becoming manipulative
Talent
Finding win-win solutions, imagining a better future
Brand Archetype: Caregiver
Quote: “When you’re a caregiver, you need to realize that you’ve got to take care of yourself, because—not only are you going to have to rise to the occasion to help someone else—but you have to model for the next generation.” ~ Naomi Judd
Motto: Love your neighbor as yourself.
Driving desire: to protect and care for others
Goal: to help others
Greatest fear: selfishness and ingratitude
Strategy: doing things for others Weakness: martyrdom, being exploited
Talent: compassion, generosity
Also known as: saint, altruist, parent, helper, supporter
Caregiver archetypes in the wild:
give customers a competitive advantage
- support families (products from fast-food to minivans) or is associated with nurturing (e.g. cookies, teaching materials)
- serve the public sector, e.g. health care, education, aid programs and other caregiving fields
- help people stay connected with and care about others
- help people care for themselves
- likely a non-profit or charitable cause
Archetype examples: Mother Teresa, Johnson’s Baby Shampoo
Brand Archetype: Magician
Quote: “Dream no small dream; it lacks magic. Dream large. Then make the dream real.” ~ Donald Wills Douglas
Motto: I make things happen.
Driving desire: understanding the fundamental laws of the universe
Goal: to make dreams come true
Greatest fear: unintended negative consequences
Strategy: develop a vision and live by it Weakness: becoming manipulative
Talent: finding win-win solutions, making the complex appear simple
Also known as: visionary, catalyst, inventor, charismatic leader, shaman, healer, medicine man
Magician archetypes in the wild:
- promise to transform customers
- product or service is transformative
- may have a new-age quality
- consciousness-expanding
- user-friendly or contemporary
- spiritual connotations
- medium to high pricing
Archetype examples: Disney, Dreamscape Multimedia, Oil of Olay
Brand Archetype: Outlaw
Quote: “Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as its accomplice.” ~ Tom Robbins
Motto: Rules are made to be broken.
Driving desire: revenge or revolution
Goal: to overturn what isn’t working
Greatest fear: to be powerless or ineffectual
Strategy: disrupt, destroy, or shock
Weakness: crossing over to the dark side, crime
Talent: outrageousness, radical freedom
Also known as: rebel, revolutionary, wild man, the misfit, or iconoclast
Outlaw archetypes in the wild:
- appeal to customers or employees who feel disenfranchised from society
- help retain values that are threatened by emerging ones
- pave the way for revolutionary new attitudes
- low to moderate pricing
- break with industry conventions
Archetype examples: Harley-Davidson, Apple
Creative Brief
What’s your business about at the very basic level?
What’s your why or your vision?
Can you describe your target market?
How are you different from competing brands/businesses?
Do you have (and if so, what are they) 1/5/20 year goals?
How would you describe your ideal project?
How do your favorite clients describe working with you?
5 Words
- Spiritual
- Service-oriented
- Creative
- Nonconformist
- Conscious
Colors
- Wooden Brown
- Pebble Gray
- Leaf Green
- Aqua Blue
- Paper Yellow
- Peach
- White
- Black
Shapes
04 - Branding Archetypes and Running Multiple Businesses
The 100-people project
5 Branding Archetypes
- Thought Leaders
- Teachers
- Serial Entrepreneurs
- ::Lifestyle Brands::
- Boutique Brands
Productivity
- Put your creative work first (30-60 minutes of your passion project first in the morning).
- Consider doing work in a set time period or a sprint.
- Use hole in your day.
- Use productive procrastination to juggle multiple projects.
Shenee’s Brand Chemistry Quiz Result
HELLO LIFESTYLE BRAND!
You rock at what you do but your goal isn’t to take over the world but to be the ::master of your own world.::
Maybe you want to travel the world, maybe you just want an apartment that has a bedroom and an office.
You just want a kickass life for yourself and the people you love and want to have fun along the way.
In order to do that, you just ::live your life and share what you have learned.::
::You experiment. You try new things and share how it influences your life as you go along.::
Most likely you have lots of other projects you want to do. You paint. You write. You like to build cars.
Whatever it is, there is always more and while you want your business to be really successful, you don’t want it to be the only thing you ever do.
You don’t want be the next ________, you just want to be awesome.
What to sell
- Products
- Memberships
- Group Coaching
- Strategy
- Mentorships
- VIP Days
Typical Timeline
- Decide you don’t want to work with anyone ever
- Start reading books + magazines about entrepreneurship
- Start a blog
- Experiment
- Decide you want to do something + do it on the cheap
- Realize you don’t want to do it anymore
- Experiment some more
- Find something you really love
- Do it for a little more money
- Audience starts to grow
- Increase your prices
- Expert status
- Business happy
Where to start
- Start experimenting
- Find the right fit for you
- Take some time to try the things you know how to do
- 100 People Project
Lifestyle brands are paid to be who they are.
Lifestyle brands experiment.