BRAND | How to Use Your Brand to Build Your Business

I am so excited to have newly branded my podcast – BRAND with me, Julie Ciardi! I am now entering my sixth year, sixth season, if you will, of the podcast. It’s been just a passion project, something I have loved so much. I started the podcast before I ever really had the business going. I was getting certified as a coach and decided to start sharing my voice, start sharing my message. Originally, it was called Divorced Mommy, and it's evolved over time to what it is today in what I am loving as the most simple name ever – BRAND. I'm going to get into why it's called that, what it's all about, and what you can expect from the podcast moving forward. What I can tell you is it's not drastically different than even what I was sharing four or five years ago.

My mission continues to remain the same. That is to help more women create businesses that give them freedom, flexibility and impact on their terms. I don't know about you, but I spent 20 years working for a company that was going to take every ounce they could out of me. Whatever I would allow. A job I didn’t even love. It was impacting so many areas of my life, and I know too many women that are doing the same. I also know that women have the most amazing gifts inside of them, and they're meant to be shared. The full potential of a woman should be allowed to flourish in their time on this planet, but there are a lot of paradigms. Some are society based, some are just being female. There's a lot that holds us back from fully stepping into our full potential.

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I'm so passionate about this because I believe that when more women step up and create vocations, businesses, things on their terms, more good will happen in the world. More good will happen with the clients that they serve. Generational shifts will happen with their children and grandchildren. We're just going to have happier women! And, how do I know this? Well, here's what I'm going to tell you – The version of Julie that's speaking to you right now through this microphone versus who I was when I was back at IBM in corporate is dramatically different.

I’m the same person, with the same gifts, and same potential. None of that changed. What changed was when I saw what was possible and knowing that I had had enough, that I was frustrated. I was not living my true purpose. I was not living and breathing work that I loved and loving the work that I was doing. That was not happening. I've always wanted to work. I love my three children so much, but I knew I wanted to work. I knew that I wanted to take my potential and bring it out into the world. I just didn't know what was possible in terms of the avenues to do that. When I found entrepreneurship and the idea that I could create a business that actually was in alignment with who I am, with my potential gifts, with how I wanted to make a difference in this world, but also how I wanted my days and weeks to look like. To create freedom.

When I was working at IBM, I had no freedom. My calendar was fully booked all the time. I did not have the kind of freedom that I have now. You know, some people do want to build these empires online. That's great. That's not what I wanted do. As I became an entrepreneur, I realized how much I wanted freedom. I wasn't going to build a business that created more of a box for me and that created the same kind of environment that I was within IBM. I don't want a big company with lots of employees, and I don't want to be the CEO of my company and not be the one working in it as the difference maker. There are some people that think I'm crazy for that.

There's a lot of people trying to build really big businesses with the whole goal and intention being that they work themselves out of that business. They are CEOs, and then they eventually sell the business. That’s not what I'm doing. Not at all. I have a very clear vision for building a business that I am in. I am helping women change their lives by building brands, building personal brands that are the core of their business, so they can be successful in creating businesses by their design. It’s how they want to build their businesses. I have this vision that over time, that will take me into mostly speaking and writing eventually. Now, that's not my model. Right now, my business model is really working hands-on with women, either in group programs, some one-on-one offers, creating some courses, but eventually I want my personal brand and who I am to carry forth into the next phases, which eventually will be speaking, maybe teaching and writing.

I don't have this vision of developing a big business that I sell. I'm not interested in that. But some people are, and that's great. That's my point. You have to know why you're building your business. What is important to you? What do you want your days, weeks, months to look like? How much money do you want to make? What is your ultimate vision for your business? When you are clear on that, it really helps you to be able to step fully into building it the way you want to. And so, as I have taken some time to really think about this myself, I also realized, and I've shared this before, that I was getting too broad in my message, too broad in who I was helping. It was time to bring it back to basics. The back to basics is predominantly the people that I work with – the women that I serve, they are the product.

I really don't work with product-based businesses. I work with women who are the product. They are the product in their company, in their business. They are the coach, they are the consultant. I even work with some musicians. What people are buying is you – your talent, your expertise, your leadership, your coaching, your skills, you. You are the product. That's who I help. What I have come to learn over the last five years of doing this, of building businesses, is that the success of a business is my personal brand backing that business. There's no doubt.

When you are the product, you have to understand how to market and sell you. What I’ve come to find in the women that I see out in the entrepreneur space, is that as women, we can have a hard time doing that. Again, it goes back to all the paradigms:

• Don't be too much.
• Don't put yourself out there too much.
• Don't be too loud

Unfortunately, that’s what a lot of women are conditioned to think, where often guys can just put themselves out there. We have these inner blocks that come up for us, I think more so than men, and we need to put an end to that. The way we put an end to that is by showing up and building personal brands and businesses that actually change the game.

It's really important for me to lean into what I believe are my gifts and my talents. I know that my number one purpose here on the planet is helping women step into their true personal brand.

What is a Personal Brand?

When you are the product, how I see your personal brand is this – First of all, there's you. There's you, who you are, what you care about, how you need to show up authentically as you and not someone else. It’s not showing up as who you think you should be, but you. Being unapologetically who you are, that's first and foremost. Second, it's your message. What do you believe? What are your core convictions? What is the main message that you are meant to spread in this world? Now, from that main message, we go much deeper into what the the pillars of messaging would be underneath that, but getting your message right is so important. Your message is a huge component to your brand. A successful brand that is referable, a brand that makes money, is repetitive.

It’s putting out the same messages over and over and over again. I see a lot of people make this mistake. We think we need to create new content and messages all the time, but that’s not true. You need to become known for something – known for your message, known for you, then delivering your messages. You and your message are heavily linked together. It is your voice that is going to spread your message. Again, that needs to be authentically who you are. So it's you, it's your message.

The third part is your method because you are the product. It's really important. There's lots of coaches and consultants and leaders and people doing what you're doing. It's important that you stand out with your method. What is your method, your framework, your formula, your approach. It doesn't have to be so practical where it's like step by step. That's not what I mean. It can be something that's very specifically tied to your personal brand archetype, which is another point I’ll get to a little later on. What you need to understand is that your method could be a step-by-step type of process or solution that you bringing to the world. Or, it could be your methodology. It could be your way of teaching something, your way of sharing your philosophy. It can be practical and a framework and a method kind of what we're used to seeing, but it could also be a philosophy and an approach that you take.

I have several methods that I use inside of my business. I have one that's called the NOW Goal™. I have another one that's called the Referral Marketing Method. I also have a simple marketing framework which is more step-by-step based. But even in the step-by-step, I'm never telling you to go do this one strategy, this one way. I will never do that. You’ve got to find the right strategy for you. I always use methods and frameworks to help give guidance and an approach. We’ve got to find the right strategy specifically for you because we're all different.

Then, I also have a fundamental philosophy that I share often, and that is that I take timeless marketing and business strategies and principles, and I match them with amazing tools like the Gene Keys and Human Design together. I bring in the inner work. The soul and intuitive based stuff in addition to the timeless marketing principles. That's a philosophy, an approach that I'm known for. You've got to figure out what is the method, approach, and/or philosophy that is right for your business. That is going to help your niche believe that you’vegot the answers they need, and take a the steps to work with you.
Another component is your mastery. You’re mastery is something you’re never done with. We're always working to become better and better and better and more of a master of our craft. If you're a coach, a leader, or a consultant, you want to get better and better at your craft. I see more and more coaches, consultants and female business owners spending more time trying to navigate the online marketing and sales space in more and more programs and working with more and more experts in trying to find the next shiny thing that’s going to help them grow their business instead of working on their mastery. This might be you and trust me, this was me, too. I spent mmore time there than with my own clients and with mastering my craft.

We are not here to just master the online marketing game. That's not why I'm here. I don't think that's why you're here. We are here to master our craft, to unlock our full potential so that we can create businesses that really help people. What we want to be doing is actually spending more of our time helping people than trying to find the people.

So, what is your personal brand? It is you, your message, your method, and your mastery. Then, you continue to evolve that. Now, I like to add into that your offers are also part of your brand. Here's why. Let’s say your’re a relationship coach whose brand is to really help single women find their soulmate and you do so through a membership. You could have another person that's also a relationship coach who helps women find their soulmate after divorce. This is very different. The way she does it is one-to-one. She works one-to-one with a woman after divorce to help them find love. Again, those are just totally different offers in totally different niches in relationships. So, I really look at offers as also being an important part of your brand.

Here's another reason why. If you are a high-end one-on-one coach that charges a hundred thousand dollars to work with you for a year, there's plenty of people that do this, and they only take on a few clients and it's high end. You better believe that is a very different brand than someone that has a low cost membership with thousands in their membership. You just feel the difference there. Brands very much are about feeling too, by the way. Can you feel the difference there? Yes. So your offer strategy is also a part of your brand. So when we work with our clients, we are looking at you being authentically you and how to make sure that you are living that. What your message and messages look like and what they are, your method and your offers all combined. The really fascinating this is that we are designed for certain offers and to fulfill offers in a certain way. Some of us are meant to have memberships with thousands of people in them. Some of us are meant to work with a few high ticket clients one-on-one high. Some of us are meant to be in hybrid models.

I am definitely more on the hybrid model, less on the one-to-one, but some one-to-one in there. But that's me. But here's the problem – A lot of entrepreneurs bounce back and forth with what they're going to try. And then when it doesn't work, they feel like they just wasted so much time. This happened to me. I went down the low end membership route at the beginning of of 2022. Now I know that that was never going to be the right thing for me.

If you could know these things ahead of time, which I'm going to teach you how you can in a minute, but if you know these things ahead of time, you can save yourself some time and you can start to get more and more clear in the market of what your brand is.

Again, your brand is you, your message, your method, your mastery and your offers. Both your paid offers, but also your free offers. Your free offers are super important and they need to be super intentional. They need to be on brand for you and they need to feed directly into your paid offer.

My goal is to help more women create these personal brands that are well beyond what your colors and fonts are. Those are the last components you should be thinking about. That should come after you do this other work because it's going to influence those decision. I've done this before where I have picked brand colors for the wrong reasons instead of who I really am and what represents me. You've got to do this work where you bring in who you are, what your message is, your method, your mastering, your offers, and then you can amplify it and beautify it from there.

So You Got Certified in a Program, Now What?

The thing that I have noticed in working with many, many coaches, and having gotten certified by both the Life Coach School and Bob Proctor and the Proctor Gallagher Institute is that people pay a lot of money to get their certifications and then never make their money back, or really struggle trying to grow their businesses. It’s so common. The thing is it’s not their fault. They are doing what they're best at which is teaching methods, tools, frameworks to certify people in, and in turn, those people are able to help others. They're not teaching them personal branding and building a business. My goal is to help more and more women who have gotten certified in wherever they got certified to help them now build their brand.

Whatever they got certified in is just a tool in their tool belt. I think that people go and get certified and then they think they're going to sell that product. So I'm going to get certified as a life coach and then I'm going to sell life coaching. I'm going to get certified as a Proctor Gallagher Institute consultant, and I'm going to sell Thinking into Results, which is their program. I'm sure that goes on and on and on across the board. But, that's wrong. The life coaching is the tool. Thinking into Results is a tool. Any kind of certification is just giving you tools in your tool belt. You're not selling that. You're selling you. You're selling why you can help someone. Go all in with you. Your message, your method, and your mastery alongside your offers.

Nail Your Niche

When you spin in your niche, you can't move forward literally. But, when you get clarity in your niche, it's like a rocket ship. It's amazing. I've seen it time and time again. You figure out your niche and all of a sudden all the content in the world starts downloading to you.

You know what you want to say, how you want to say it, who you want to say it to, you get more conviction, more power behind it, and your business will grow. I promise you. Knowing how important this is, I wanted to find tools that I could use to help my clients get clear on their brand, clear on who they are, clear on their message, clear on their method, clear on their mastery so that their businesses would grow. The tools that I have found to do this are the Gene Keys and Human Design. They help to identify where you've got some shadows holding you back, who you need to step into being to be able to really activate your brand.

It's kind of like you activate your brand by stepping out of some shadow patterns, and we can find out what those shadow shadow patterns are right in your Gene Keys. I personally like to start with the Gene Keys and then move into leveraging Human Design. But, even with Human Design, it wasn't designed for helping people in business. That is why I am actively in a certification program with BG Five to become a BG Five certified consultant. Which means that I'm learning how to use the Human Design body graph specifically for business. Nothing else. I'm not helping people with relationships, I'm not helping people have a better life and all those kinds of things. There are many, many, many, many Human Design experts out there that'll help you with that. I'm getting certified in it for business. So, just like I have my MBA in business administration, on the timeless marketing and business principles, I'm now marrying that with BG Five and getting certified on the Human Design side for business.

This is really important to me. I'm going to tell you why. In order for us to build and co-create a brand with you, we have to mine the gold from inside of you. You've got gold in there. You are full of amazing potential. We have to mine that out of you. The two tools of the Gene Keys and the Body Graph from Human Design are phenomenal to be able to do that. Having been working with myself and then with clients right now on this, it is stunning on how these tools are helping them get to that clarity, and dust away some of the shadows holding them back, and stepping into their true vocation and calling and their main message. It is just beautiful. But again, I'm not selling Gene Keys in Human Design. This is the difference. Really note this, especially if you are focused on a tool in your own practice or your own business, that's just a tool you're using.

Your Personal Brand Archetype

If you are interested in starting to understand what your personal brand is, start with your personal brand archetype. It's a perfect place to start. Just getting that will create an instant change in your business. I’ve actually created a mini course to walk you through how to get your free Gene Keys Profile, how to find your Personal Brand Archetype in your profile, and then you go through all of my trainings on your Personal Brand Archetype, so that you can walk away from that mini course with clarity on who you are meant to be in this world and how others perceive you in this world when you're in your highest potential. It's a really powerful mini course.

Check it out here!

I want more women to get exposed to this because it'll be that first step that you'll take to then wanting to go much deeper on getting to know you! There's 12 Personal Brand Archetypes, and when you know what yours is and you get that training, you can start to practice it in your content and in your brand today.

Take the mini course to find out your personal brand archetype here!