Your Brand is Your Best Business Strategy: Part 1

Unlike my grandmother, you know your worth.

It was a different era. Grandma Lucy, who grew up in the barren plains of South Dakota, wasn’t encouraged to discover her passions, take time for self-care, or be any form of a liberated woman. She tended the family farm and the children and when the children were raised, she began a longstanding career as the postmaster general in her small, Iowa farm town.

I spent many of my younger years with my grandfather. We had a routine I loved; visit Grandma at the post office, explore the library, and make it to the legion by 4pm for a Shirley Temple and a beer. A literal cherry on top, I have fond memories of that season in life.

Fast forward to starting my career as an entrepreneur. In the last year alone, I’ve been uncovering so much about myself and my desire to pursue my dreams; and honestly even what those dreams are to begin with. The tenacity and strength to even try— it comes from that stubborn old bird named Grandma Lucy. While she may not have been in an era where she was allowed to pursue her dreams, she was certainly a hard worker and a helper in her own right.

Much like Grandma Lucy, you are a helper. You’re a salt-of-the-earth person who has a dream and works hard to pursue it. Unlike my grandmother, you know your worth and have the ability, and desire, to pursue your dreams.

You know you have good things to share with the world to make it a better place. You might be an accountant helping locally owned cannabis businesses create good cash flow and profitability or a business coach working with nonprofits. Maybe you’re helping create brave spaces for women to take adventure trips or a photographer with a passion to tell stories.

You know your calling.

Whatever matters to you is where you’ve ended up. And the reason you’ve ended up there is a conglomeration of the stories and experiences that make up who you are. Those stories and experiences have made you the right person for the job. They’ve given you the values, the personality, and the wisdom to work with your type of people. Those stories have also given you powerful anecdotes on what your clients need and don’t need, should and should not do, and all the information you need to understand who you are talking to and what they want to hear from you.

You are uniquely and expertly qualified to work with the people you do.

Why do your clients love you?

Why would they rave and send people your way?

Because you are a human, with a passion, that shows up authentically, in a manner unlike anything they’ve ever experienced.

Does your brand reflect that completely authentic and unique experience?

Chances are, probably not.

Listen, I’m a branding expert and entrepreneur. I know how challenging it is to curate a visual representation of your brand, one that is authentically yours and unique.  Why is it so hard? I’ll tell you.

Particularly as women, we’re taught not to show up fully. We’re taught to be smaller and sit quieter and serve better. I thought the life I was living was authentic. I would have dubbed myself one of the most genuine people you would ever meet.

As it turns out, I was a chronic people pleaser who was queer. I never had the chance to show up as my full self because I was effing terrified.

I’m now a recovering people pleaser. I’m out and proud and learning how to live my most authentic and audacious self. Audacious? Yeah that sounds scary. But as my business coach recently told me, the best entrepreneurs are wildly audacious and a little bit delusional. You know what? She’s right.

So what does this mean for you?

Take a look at your brand.

Does it reflect you in the most real and true way that it could? Does it get down to the bones of who you really are and the way in which you serve people?

OR

Is it a shell of the business you’ve created? Is it a watered-down version of what you know to be completely and radically true?

If it’s the latter, we’ve got some work to do.

Your brand is your best business strategy.

Because when you roll up as the most authentic version of yourself, and show off the very best of what you do, you’ll end up with a waiting list so long you won’t have to worry about finding more business.