Mad Marketing Mums

Ep 57. Get Noticed or Get Lost - Branding Essentials with Tara Ladd

• Kryshla Salaris and Clementine Holman • Season 6 • Episode 56

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Welcome back to the Mad Marketing Mums podcast! In this episode, we sit down with Tara Ladd, founder of Your One and Only and cohost of Brand & Butter, to delve deep into the world of branding and brand identity. Tara and her team at Your One and Only are renowned for crafting disruptive, psychology-driven designs that truly stand out in the marketplace. Known for their bold approach and straight-talking style, they work with brands that are ready to make a statement.

Today, Tara shares her extensive knowledge and insights on how to create a brand that resonates with your audience and distinguishes you from the competition. Here’s what you can expect from our conversation:

  • Understanding Brand Beyond Logos: Learn why a brand is so much more than just its logo and how it represents the values and beliefs of its audience.
  • Evolving Brand Perceptions: Tara discusses how the internet and user-generated content have transformed traditional branding into a more dynamic and interactive process.
  • Building Human Connections: Discover how to humanise your brand to build one-on-one connections that convert and retain customers.
  • Practical Strategies: Gain actionable strategies to shape or reshape your brand in ways that align with modern consumer expectations and digital trends.

This episode is a must-watch for anyone eager to learn how to use branding as a powerful tool to connect with their audience on a deeper level and drive their business forward. Whether you're starting a new venture or looking to revamp your existing brand, Tara’s insights will equip you with the knowledge to make informed decisions that help your brand thrive in a competitive landscape.

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Welcome back to the Mad Marketing Mums podcast. And today we are talking. With Tara Ladd, the founder of Your One and Only, all about branding and your brand identity and how to do that in a way that creates, oh, try that again. And how to do that in a way that resonates with your audience and sets you apart from the competition. I think that's really key here. you're one and only is an unpretentious brand agency, crafting disruptive brands that can't be ignored with psychology driven design. Tara and her team pride themselves on working with. Ballsy brands love that and love your straight talking. Tell it like it is approach Tara. That's something I've really admired about you for all the years I've known you. We've been Instagram So it is an absolute pleasure to have you here today to share your incredible knowledge and experience with our listeners. thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here actually. So thank you so much for inviting me. Look, and I have to put my hand up and say, I'm not a branding expert, No, me neither. looking forward to this as well for what I can do to improve my brand. Because this is the beauty of having guests on our podcast is we get to learn a Totally, as well. Yeah, a little masterclasses. know. don't tell everybody the reason why we started the podcast. Chris, Oh, yeah. Free PD. Yeah. so Tara, a brand is not a logo is something that we hear constantly. We tell our clients, customers, anybody who asks us about branding. But. What do people think brand is versus what it actually is? Can you, define what brand is? I think we've, it's really evolved if we're being completely honest over the last few years and a few years, a couple of decades now. Hatshame age, but it's like, we used to be able to, we talk about traditional marketing of, TV, radio. Print and that was like, it was, you could have your brand as a logo. It was not necessarily as a logo, but it was that big visual kind of in your face because it was like a few people monopolizing the market. You had those big brands and then all those like littler brands didn't really need to worry about it. Then we saw the evolution of the internet and web 2. 0 which is user generated content, people being able to have conversations. And we started to notice that. Brands needed to be more than just as a generic kind of faceless entity. They needed to have that one on one connection. People were going to do their own research. They were going to go and find every single bit about your business online. And if you did not control that narrative, they would absolutely tear you to shreds and have conversations about it. And I think Jeff Bezos is the one that says is your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room. And that goes so far beyond a logo. A logo, I like to say, is the letterbox to your house your brand being the house, different rooms, different audiences have different personas and different ways to speak to them and different ways to decorate to them. However, people are in the house because they share values, they share alignments. And so what I say a brand is the humanized attribute to a business that connects people. on a belief system level, like the, what they believe in, what they choose to invest their money into the conversations that they have. Because if you say people walk around the streets or drive cars or whatever their brands are that they're purchasing, it's a reflection of who they are. As a person you can tell if someone gets out of a Mercedes, they want you to know that they've got a Mercedes. It's a status symbol. Whether they've worked hard for that, there's no hate on people that have a Mercedes, but it's it is a status symbol. You see them in areas, you're not going to say someone driving up a beat up car in the middle of double Bay, like it's, it's a status symbol. Definitely a reflection. And it's the same thing, not just with, monetary purchases. It's you talk about who gives a crap, for instance, you're buying toilet paper because it's it's all about the environment. It's about sustainability. You're buying into their cause of altruism. Like it's so much more than just, I sell you something now. It's who are you? What are you about? What do you believe in? Do I feel comfortable giving you my money? Because where is that money going and is it going to be used for good? And do I believe in what you're contributing, your money into, we've seen this with people boycotting brands because they're investing in things that they don't align with. And so it's really important to be upfront with who you are and what you do as a brand, even as a small brand, because you have the ability to really diversify and be, I guess this is why we say a little bit rebellious, because you don't have that weight on your shoulders just yet to appease a huge audience. It gives you the ability to be. really focused on targeting a niche that aligns with everything that you do and believe in. And therefore, if you do that from the start, you will get an audience that you just love and cherish because it will be supporting and, funding you to continue to do the work you do for the audience that loves and believes in you. That's what I think brand does. So would you say then, especially at the digital age, we're building relationships, they're not face to face necessarily, but so would you say then, because, we are trying to build a relationship with a human being your brand is essentially what your business would be. If it were a person. In A way, yeah? hundred percent. Yep. So we ask our clients when they first start up, we say, if your brand was a celebrity or person of influence, who would it be? Then they go, Oh, I don't know. And I'm like there's your first step because usually you can find someone in, that's got a bit of a presence of some kind of personality attributes that you can align with. Are you a Meryl Streep or are you a Lily Allen? And they're very different people. And you, even First instance, you go, okay, I want you to sell, or I want you to go out and I want you to make an ad as if you're talking to people that like Lily Allen versus Meryl Streep. Instantaneously in your head, you're like, okay, I can't talk like this, but Lily Allen would, and just to give you some clarity here, it's our brand, as we say, it's Lily Allen with a kick of Reese Witherspoon. And so then people go, Oh yeah, got it. And so the way we show up, the way we speak, the way we're a bit like rebellious, they can catch onto that. But it's just a really good starting point. You end up creating your own personas based off who you are as a business. And generally it starts off with the founder story. It's what it is. The founder creates the business. They've got the vision. They've built what they want this business to be. And then it grows. And then as the business grows and people are joining in, They usually hire from a value alignment, right? This is what we're doing. This is the shared value, and the biggest problem that we see is brands hire people cause they need them to do a job. And they hire someone to do a job and then they find that there's toxicity in the workplace or there's not any kind of collaboration is because they haven't done that strategy from the get go. of what they're buying into. If you've got shared values of, for instance, who gives a crap that they're all about buying into sustainability and they're all about, donation and they're working hard. It's an, it's like a social enterprise. And if you don't believe in that, then there's going to be problems internally. So it's, it stems at the base of everything that you do. And when you have a team of people that are, hired for shared values and a shared purpose, there's so much more to the job than and so I obviously am all about hiring a team that aligns with what I believe in. But it's also about when they believe that they're working for something that's so much bigger than a paycheck, then you're going to see the results off the back of that. So that's where I start with most, it's what's the brand personality, what's the intention, and they're the basic. foundations of a strategy. So the way I look at it is that there's five core pillars of a brand strategy. So it's purpose, mission, vision, values, all that type of stuff. Then there's positioning. So we're in the market to people you're talking to. Are you a specialty coffee brand in the local hipster coffee shop down the road, or are you in the aisle five of Woolies? Do you know what I mean? There's very different audiences there. And then we talk about perception. Once you have. And you know where you need to be in your alignment and what they, what you want to communicate to people. How do you visually articulate that? And then how do you verbally articulate that? So are you going to someone's website that says, Oh, Hey, how you going? Or are you like, welcome to our website, like completely different times, different messaging systems. You know what I mean? So you're talking to different people when you know what people want, what they're like, and I'm not talking about, Oh, they're a 35 year old female that lives in, Western Sydney and drives a Like their demographics. We're talking about we're talking to the person that, that gets Uber eats on a Tuesday night because they're just so overwhelmed from work. And they'd rather spend that hour with their kids on the lounge than going into the kitchen and making their food. They're buying time. They're buying time with their kids. They're buying, it's so much more than just an Uber eats. Like it's easy to do. So when you speak to the emotion of why someone's. Doing something or why they behave, then you can wrap that into your voice and the messaging that you put out. And that's perception because people go, Oh shit, I feel seen. And then the, then you've got promotion obviously and personality. So all of them tie into one another and there's always part of those missing, which is where people run into a problem when they start to grow, start to scale or my team don't listen to me and I can't get them to join in or blah, blah, blah. And it's Whoa. What's the internal culture, because that is part of the strategy. Like all of this stuff is part of the strategy. So we've seen big businesses grow, get big and, they've got all these boycotts about what they do and what they, we saw this happen with Twitter. I take over with Elon Musk and X, how, very progressive they were as a business. And as soon as he came in, sorry, if you're an Elon Musk hater, but I think he's a dick. You've got facts. You've just got he canceled. What was his like inclusions and his inclusivity team, like all of them just got the dump. And I was just like, what are you doing? And obviously off the back of that, we saw consumer spend and ad spend removed from the platform. People. heavily moved somewhere else and they lost, and he's lost a shit ton of money because of it. So it's it does impact founders also impact that, founders obviously now need to have a presence. So what we were talking to you before about faceless faceless accounts, I don't believe that you should be doing that because I don't think, I get it introverts don't like showing up, but that's where the connection happens. They need to see your face. It's what goes into their mind. It's how you talk. And if you can't do that yourself, just get someone else that can. We totally went on a tangent then, by the way, we started here and we ended up over in Mexico. On the resort having a bunch of daiquiris and margaritas at this point, which is totally my realm. I Now I keep nodding my I, if you're listening to this you wouldn't have seen that I've just kept nodding my head and it's like everything that you've said has just pretty much been like a summary of my life. My last year and some decisions I made this year as well. So I get it. Oh God. it's been really Difficult. And I think if anything it's really identified the problems that people have had within their business. Cause to be completely honest, we had it pretty easy leading up to that. If we're, it was actually really easy. You just jumped online, you had a few people that would refer you and you got in the game. Now, what we're seeing is people that really know their shit come to the front. We're finding the problems and we're finding people that really know what they're doing and the ones that really know what they're doing will shift and adapt. And we'll find that the ones that kind of make it through at the end are the ones that were able to put their money where their mouth was. Yes, and that's my biggest problem with this faceless content trend. And it is a trend a hundred percent. And as you spoke about before, yeah, you can ride that trend and you can make some money amazing. then that trend might collapse. And Good for you. But I think what the people selling this faceless content are doing is preying on people's insecurities, people who don't want to show up on camera a get rich quick scheme. And I also think it's very, it's the same as the roadmap course. Where essentially for those who are not familiar with it, there's a 500 marketing course that you can buy and that course teaches you how to sell that course and you get the MMR rights can take that course and sell it as your own for whatever price you want to and make money off it. but it is unethical. I think to sell a course marketing, if you haven't had firsthand marketing experience or success yourself or for clients or whatever, and. And there's all these people online now opening accounts as digital marketers and the real digital market marketers are going don't lump me in with them. It's MLM, like it's network marketing, pyramid scheming. Like it's, So it's it's just So we've become like, what is it that, that story about the two competing hair salons, one across the road is cheap 20 haircuts. And the other one's gone. I've fixed the cheap 20 The fixing of the cheap 20 haircuts, unfortunately. Maybe it's actually fortunately as well, because we can end up converting some people and showing the realities of what marketing and branding is. This is your chance to also be disruptive too. It's we see. What I'm seeing is, yeah, I guess this comes from experience too. When you've got 17 years experience you've seen a few things in the game. So like I was around during the GFC and. We watched what happened during that time and it was no different to what's happening now. And so we know that if you are a brand that is usually just giving your audience some advice, if you are a brand that is normally struggling to reach like a higher value brand or a higher value client, now is your damn chance to get in and try and get them because they're probably dropping their spend. And it gives you a chance to now Pitch your worth to them where they otherwise wouldn't have seen it. So instead of framing, we are, we still have to acknowledge that it is really difficult time. People that are getting on going at people are still spending money. Like I hate that. Let's just not gaslight the whole fricking every business owner on the planet right now to say that you're not trying hard enough because we can always talk about, don't start me with the how much time in a day thing. If I see another person talk about that, I swear, I'm like, okay, Tell me now, single person with no children, who is a dude and no responsibilities. No offense guys, this is not a stereotype, and it's like versus the mom that's jamming five hours of business ownership in with two children that come roaming home at, and then you've just got to stop. Switch to mom mode. It's it's not the same thing. It's just not the same thing. And you can't expect someone and you can't get on. And if I say another person say, if you're scrolling your phone, go and check the time you spent scrolling your phone, that's how much time you could. It's shut up. That's a trauma response. Go away. Shut up. And, you know what, sometimes for people, yeah, and some people like to scroll. That's the way that they calm down. It's fuck's sake you do you. you do you. Just understand the consequences of what you do. Yes, that's exactly right. And yeah, but I think it's like you, you watch the trends happen and you watch things go. And like you said, there people are, and it's notorious because people always want the quick fix. It doesn't matter what industry it is. People want the quick fix. They want money fast. They want weight loss fast. They want all of the, they want to be the athlete fast. They always want things fast because no one wants to do the hard work. And so what I'm actually saying right now, my friend Beck chapel, who's a marketing strategist. We had this conversation the other week is that people want to do the thing quickly and good things actually take time. Let's use Taylor Swift as an example. Shall I if we're going to talk about brand. That is the epitome of brand. If you want to see what brand does, that is the epitome of brand. It is she's been popular, but she hasn't been to the status that she's in now, right? But she's been popular. She's had a fan she's been around for 20 years. for ages, right? 20 years. It's taken her that long to become the most powerful woman of the U. S. If you want to. Yup. And you know what she also did there is consistency. She did the same thing over and over and over again. And what all she did was adapt. To what was going, she'd speak and she'd sing to things that were going through her own life, which puts her in to the, where we sit in life. And so I spoke about this on LinkedIn actually recently, where the, she's actually got like her fan base is predominantly over the age, like highly over the age of 45, know, it's mums. because we grew up with her in high school. correct. remember when her first country album came out and my mom and I were like, she looks like a doll. She, but she did on her album, but we remember the songs that she did. Like when you hear the lyrics, it is like a high school romance, And some of them are, and it's highly relatable. Hundred percent. And then now we look at where we are in society. Cause I love this stuff. This is what I talk about on my own page because I can't really talk about too much on your one. And it's very, I get a bit like, ah but I am very much on, women's rights, equality. And I am, absolutely, woke me one on one because I'm on Google the definition, but that's, yeah, I am absolutely all for, societal change and what we stand for, and she has point in time where she's speaking to things that are highly correlated with what a lot of other women are dealing with and she's calling it out and she's calling it out on a level that, fuck the patriarchy. Everyone's going yes, fuck the patriarchy. And so now you've got all these women. Cross generations, like we're over, we've got boomers, we've got people that are now joining into the mix because they're like, you know what? I don't even like her music, but I am so for what she stands for. And everyone knows that she is what she stands for because she's got years of evidence to back up who she is as a person. And so she hasn't created. She hasn't become a billionaire because of just her music. She's become a billionaire because of her belief system, what she values, who she is, and people buy into that. Like I said, this on my feed the other day, I will confidently walk around in a Taylor Swift shirt, never being to her concert. A sister bought it for me because I am absolutely for, yeah. You go take them down. You do that, and she's talking to circumstances that are relevant to what her audience are going through. And it doesn't matter what experience that you've had. Like I've had this, my husband and I've been together since we're 18. So I never had big breakups, I still speak to the things that she took, like in the man, for instance, where she talks about having to constantly battle to get seen and heard and the conversations. And This is the conversation that society is having now. And they're going, Oh God, Taylor's been talking about this for ages. And then all of a sudden they go back and they go and watch all of her stuff and they go, I'm now a fan. And so she's building this not just with women that are older, they've now got kids. So now she's like cross generations. This is they're studying her in Melbourne unis. Like it's, what she's done is Just, it's really interesting, and that's brains, because she could go out tomorrow, and she could sell whatever the hell she wanted to, put a name on it, and it would sell. Yeah. Yeah. I like, and I like the analogy that you made earlier about the logo being the letterbox. The Yeah. get people in your house for the party. it? It no. brand, those values. It's like showing up to a house party. Do I want to go in, do I want to go in the kitchen where this is the vibe? Do I want to go in the living room and chill out with the stoners? What's the, what's going on? And each part of that, can I ask you Tara? Because this is a thing that I get a little bit mixed up with. I'm sure maybe we'll have some people in there who are listening. What's the difference between brand identity. visual identity, which I feel like I have a handle on, but then you've got personal brand as well. Okay, Maybe tie it into Taylor Swift as well, since, this has now become a Tay episode. this is welcome. Yeah. So brand identity is essentially just the core. So we talk about an identity, it is an identity. And too often we've seen brand identity be confused with visual identity. And again, you talk about the, is it MMR? Is that what you were calling? Whatever the reason, yeah. That's the same thing with a lot of designers. We'll go out and sell branding. And so people will just assume that they, but actually they don't know the strategy of it. So they're creating a pretty picture, but they haven't created any brand substance whatsoever. And so brand is, you're essentially creating the person of the business. You're creating a human attribute. And so that's not just the brand. It's the way I say is that we're going to an event. Let's go. And someone goes, Oh, hang on. What event is it? It's a good question. So what event is it? Who's going to be there? What do we need to wear? You can't create a visual identity until you know all of the specifications of what you're going to, like whatever event you're going to. It's the same thing with the brand. Who's the audience, who are we trying to attract, what type of market we're trying to fit. And again, going back through those five pillars again of the purpose, why you're in business, vision, mission, values, all of that stuff, the objective your personality is going to dictate what you look like. It's second, visual identity is always second to the brand identity. And this is why we will work copywriters In my personal opinion, unless the designer, like in my case would be doing the actual strategy and then getting a copywriter in, they need to both be involved in a brand identity. And so yeah, brand identities, your set of values, it's the culture. It's actually the personality that you're creating that you want people to be attracted to. Your visual identity. So it's like internal, external culture as well. So it's you're positioning. It's like recognition. It's like how you're going to get out and attract people. And your visual identity is how you need to look to attract those people. So if you're high level luxury brand. You're going to already instantaneously go, okay. I know what type of imagery I need to use here and the market that I'm going into, the way I need to speak to them. And then I know that I'm going to need a specific color palette. You're not going to go out there like really blazing unless you are disrupting, which is another thing I've done with a jewelry brand recently. But yeah, it's very safe. You notice all high luxury brands, they're all black and white. I was gonna say white and beige, or They're all safe. serif font, have you They all yes, because that indicates luxury. It's absolutely. Yep. And it's very, it's done specifically. And I always say, if you want to do something, you need to study how brands have done it. And I think at the moment, people need to actually be looking what brands that we're doing in the fifties and the sixties, not now, or even recently, because what we're needing to do. today is actually the same type of creativity that they were doing in the fifties and sixties. And so if you don't know your history of branding. You're not going to know anything about that. And which is why I think, history repeats itself. We're actually going back to the 50s, 60s era without all the chauvinistic bullshit. But we're bringing back that, that creativity of how you actually need to storytell and bring in an audience for entertainment and make it something that people want to see. And so there is so much more to that. You can have the best looking brand going around, visual identity going around, but if you have no messaging and people don't know who you are and what you stand for, and you cannot for the life of you, get an order, get a lead in the door, then all you've done is create a pretty picture. It's not, that's the difference. And then when we talk about personal brand, every single business has personal brands in it. That's it within the business. For instance, if you have a team of five people, you will always kind of start with the founder story, but the business itself is for the audience. It's never for you. So if you go out and you're trying to build a brand, don't go out and go, Oh, I liked the color pink. Too bad. It's not for you. It's for your audience. However, if it's your personal brand, absolutely choose the color pink because it's your face, it's your personality, it's who you are as a person, when your business brain goes out, you're actually attracting an audience. So you need to have shared values, shared alignment. You need to have buy in from a group of people, and that's where you sit around. And that's why businesses rebrand when they grow, because they go, okay. We're now here, we're probably attracting a different audience. We now need to go out and say, how do we speak to them? And how do we need to show up as a business? And what type of culture are we leading internally that can externally, be portrayed. And that's why you see a bunch of different people being pushed to the front and what they do as a team. And Hey, this is what we're working on. And it's like this big group mentality, right? They want to know that who they're going to buy into, what Have a positive culture. You don't want any toxicity, like they're buying into that. Personal brand is a bunch of little people, like personal people that sit within the umbrella of the big brand. And that's actually really important because if you have every single person, say you've got eight people in your team and eight people are really active on social media, that's eight times the leads that can be generated back to the business. And so what you're looking at is eight individual personalities with eight different personality attributes and similarities and conversations and stories that they can push out that connect people on different levels. That's eight times the chance of you being able to bring in people based on one person's story. I can guarantee you that most, I've had a lot of people, I don't have a big following on my, I haven't been trying to build it yet, but just the conversations that I've been having have been really deep. And so my personal brand, I think it's about 810 at the moment. I've had so many leads already come from that because of the way that I show up as a person. I talk about motherhood. I talk about living with ADHD. I talk about my son having a transplant. There's all of these things that are just so deeply related to who I am as a person that people go, Oh my God, I relate to that. I did I had a client that came through that had a son that had a kidney transplant. They chose to work with me purely on the fact that our kids didn't have transplants. And she we like, most business comes from personal story. It actually, you can get out and share things, but most of that comes from personal story because they go, Oh, I felt that. And so that's why this storytelling element is so important, but you need to construct the stories and the narrative that you want to have as a business brand. That's a personal brand. That's also where you go what do I want to say here? And so for me, that was where I found it really difficult. Cause you don't want to just be like, Hey, I had eggs for breakfast. It's not really what a personal brand is, right? You still have to cross relate what you want to do. And so I was really struggling because I didn't want to get on my personal brand and be like, Hey, I'm a visual designer because I felt like I was so much more than that. And so I'm studying change. And so it's actually what I've figured out. It's taken me like 10 months to do, by the way, is that we I focus on the psychology of attraction. And so you're one and only builds that from a brand and consumer point, but from my personal brand, it's speaking about societal change and how we can become lackable, like talking about biases and why we believe in ideologies. And we're talking, I'm talking to a much broader audience. Bigger conversation point over there, wrapping brand into it, obviously it's important, but that's it funnels in, it all funnels in. And so I talk about ADHD, which talks about inclusivity and disability and stigmas in society. And then we talk about motherhood, which that's talk about stigmas in society, we talk about that and we talk about, worth and value and all of that. When you think about it, every single person has a connection. There is a person at the end of every business. There is a person at the end of every transaction. And if we keep showing up as though that's a person buying my stuff, then you're missing out on so much opportunity to build advocacy, and longevity and loyalty. I have clients that literally will not go anywhere else purely because we've just built really good relationships. And I think that's what it comes down to. It's just, you have to. have those moments of shared connection. And that's, that is literally brand Yes, and a little bit of vulnerability as well. When you were speaking about personal brands within a business, I was immediately thinking about the example of the digital picnic, and I know that they have worked with you and you did the rebrand with Yep. We do work with them. Yep. But I love now, cause it wasn't at the start very much about Sheree, but now we're getting to know the other characters, I say in inverted commas, the business and their personality traits and you see it as, Oh, I can see absolutely why they're working there they really walk the talk in terms of their values. And, and they, I think the digital picnic's a great example of somebody who's been a disruptor in the market and very different to other marketing agencies. And I know Absolutely. helped them portray that in their messaging. Yeah. So I think Cherie's always had a really strong hold on what she's believed in. And I said that this is your differentiation. It's not, I think you need to push that to the front. Obviously she ever came to it on her own as well, but like we spoke about Every single person within that business has their own unique story, but also there's a really. good advantage, many disadvantages I might add, but there's a lot of advantages to being neurodivergent. For instance, like the ability to just think outside of a box is like crazy. The fact that they've got a whole team of people that can think outside the box like that is I'd be like, shut up and take my money because you're not going to go down that. Same old bullshit, like part of what everyone's doing. Give me something different and they have fun. And I think that's what you want to see. You want to see a team that have fun together. You want to see that connection. And a lot of people don't think that people want to say that. I saw a post yesterday saying people don't want to know how long you've worked together. People don't want to see behind the scenes or birthday celebrations. I'm like, but they do. Like they actually do. We're inherently nosy. It's in our DNA, we want to know that. Yeah. yeah. And I think that separates a hundred percent. Yeah. your videos, that has that personal connection and a lot more the business as usual content. Oh. And I, you just go, every single post about a team member has always been the most engaging post, everyday pregnancy announcements who's leaving the company, who's been into that, like all of those types of things are what, because they're generic content it's what. You can experience across the board. It's not just in your industry. Like people come and go, people go and have so I think it's important to pepper in the personal stories, you obviously have your marketing plan and what you need to push out. But that is Brent, like that is brand story. And I think when we see. Marketing these days is that it needs to be, and you guys would know this as well. You have to have brand story in there because if you're not showing the brand story, all you're doing is selling or you're trying to sell and you're missing that opportunity of connection. Brand story is the connection. It's why you started. It's why you exist. It's why you're different. People struggle with differentiation. The differentiation is you. That is the differentiation and it's always going to be you. I can tell you now, you could have, I could give every single one of us, I could have a team of 50 people, a group of 50 people, and I could say, I want every, here is one text to everyone. I want you all to draw a house with two windows at the front. Two clouds in the sky and a chimney on a house, like whatever, give them a prompt and every single one of those pictures will be different because everyone's own interpretation of that would be different. And that's To the table. so why is your brand's very first impression so important then It's cemented into your brain. We talk about our brain and behavior, right? And everyone's trying to get attention. Actually, a masterclass going out about this, but it's, everyone's wanting attention. But what do you do when you have that attention? I think that this is the thing. Everyone wants attention. What exactly do you want attention for? Because you get it then what what is it? So you get it. And then, and so they go, I want to be viral. I want to be, you're laughing. Cause I know you've probably experienced it. I was about to say, I wanna go viral. Yeah, I want to go viral because they think that getting in front of more people means more sales. But if you can't sell to the people that are already in front of, like already in your own audience, like how do you expect to sell to the people that are just going to come in later, the goal is to engage your current audience, build the community and make sure that you've got people that are continuously talking about your brand and what you do. And so I guess the first impression is. You can't botch that up, because once someone has made an assumption about you, which can be made by the way, in 0. 7 seconds, it's they've made a judgment. You see someone walk down the street in a, in the most random chicken outfit and you see that person, you're like, what are you doing? And then it doesn't matter. You see that person again, they could be in completely different attire and you're like, you're that guy that walked down in the chicken outfit. It's just the way our brains, it's the way our brains encode memory. And there's a system, so you get exposure. That's step one is exposure. Step two is. Attention. So you've got the attention. Okay, cool. Expert, you put yourself out there, you get the attention. Then it goes down in, is this worth staying in my mind? You're in short term memory. Is this worth staying? What's the emotional connection there? Does it smell does it feel different? Like what's, what is it about it? Is were they nice to me? Did I have a bad experience? And this is where. It then caters down into different people. The first impression can change for every single person. You could go out with a group of five people to a restaurant. It could be the most beautiful restaurant you've ever been to. Four people at the table have the best meal of their life, but the last person has a hair. Everyone else that sat at that table are going to say, Oh, it was great. And then the person that got the hair is going to be like, Oh, I had a hair in my food. And then you're going to see, that's when you need to understand that every single experience is everyone's own unique experience. So someone can have a beautiful experience with you. You can't then go, I'm amazing because one person had a great experience. You then actually have to look at the person that had the bad experience because of the bad experience is 13 times more likely to cast a shadow than a positive one. So I like to say, you look at your brand like a tree and you try and push out as many. Positive associations about your brand as you can get because the positive associations will build the branches and then every time someone has a bad Like a bad, experience that, that, that is a negative association. And that chops down 13 of 13 of those positive associations. And so this is when we start to see people needing positive reviews on their website. Because if you don't have any positive reviews, but you have that one negative review, people are going to go, Oh, they crap. However, if they've got 15 positive reviews and one negative review, people are like, nah, maybe that person just was a dick. Or maybe that was Off experience. And so that's when your perception changes on. are they bad or was it just that person was bad? And that tilts. And that's really important cause that's the first impression. So it's about making sure that you're showing up it's setting the right intention and you're getting the result that you want. And if you don't, a way to counteract that is to then comment on that negative response and be like, I'm really sorry that you experienced that. How can we, Fix this. And then someone goes, okay, so it's setting the expectation. The first impression is an expectation and we're judgmental. Doesn't matter what anyone says. We judge books by covers. Could you imagine if you went into every single bookstore and they just had words? Yeah, we're going in and we're going with, we're attracted to the color. We're looking at who's on the front. We're feeling the textures like we, it's just human nature. And so what we want to try and do is change behavior. And that's how ideologies and belief systems are built is based on what we've been brought up with, what we think is normal and each different person based on like different income areas and different cultures, all experienced a different normality we're What we see and what we're exposed to shapes our perception of what we see is our reality and our reality is our own. And so that's why a first impression matters and knowing your audience matters because you need to speak to an audience and set the intention. That aligns to that right audience. Does that explain it enough? Yes. yes. Yes. Yes. ha. You think you're going to have a good experience, what's the most luxurious wine I can get for under 30, it's often what you're playing with. I saw you mentioned something on your Instagram and I wanted to talk about that cause I was like, Ooh, this is a cool topic and that is mere exposure effect. Now, is this just staying top of mind or is there more to it than that? It's basically brand awareness. So if you look at think about now, so I listened, let's bring Tay back into it for a sec. I listened to the new album and I was like, yeah, and I listened to it again. I was like, and then all of a sudden you started to see the music trending. So you start to hear it in a few threads, a few reels. And it's going around like, all right, this one's a bit of a bop. And then you start to like it. That's essentially how the mirror exposure effect works. So what you have to do is be consistent and you have to show up. And it's like anything you can walk up to someone on the street and say, Hey, be my friend. They're going to go get out of my face. But if you rock up and then all of a sudden you have a conversation and then you show up again and they're at another event and you have another conversation, you're getting to know that person. More and more. And to the point where you feel like they're your friend. They become an acquaintance into a friend. And what do you do with friends? I said this to my friend when we had dinner on Saturday, we were talking about, we were talking about brand. And I said to her we talk about social influence. And she's do you reckon it works? I said, yeah, absolutely. Tell me right now, if you were to go out and I said, Oh, You were choosing between three things. And I said to you, Oh, I've got that one at home. It's really good. I said, would you buy it? She goes, guaranteed. I said, exactly. I said, it's got nothing to do with which product was better and everything to do with your social, my social influence on you because you trust me as a person and what I have to say. Brands are exactly the same. You could go and there could be competitors in the industry, but if you've showed up and you've given them information and they've learned from something that you've said, or they've learned something new and they like who you are and what you do. My friends, this is confirmation bias. They will then ignore everything else around them because you then become the person that they go to. And they just ignore and it's been proven that psychics do this. It's like a whole tactic where they will throw out generic things till eventually they hit something that relates. Oh, so you've lost someone recently. Okay. Maybe not. And they'll keep asking questions until they trigger something. It's the same with marketing. Ethically that you push things out that connects with people, right? And so this is why you test hooks. So don't think that you've put something out. It doesn't work. It's got nothing to do with the content. It might mean that you haven't attracted the right, the right audience or the hook, this is why the hook works because the messaging was wrong. And you haven't got that connection with someone because what you've said didn't. Really resonate. They didn't care about that. You haven't hit the want or the need or the motivation or the pain that it is that they're going through. And you shift, I've done it so many times, people haven't even noticed. You just recycle the same content that you think is amazing with a different hook and they go, Oh shit, that was it. That's what they needed. And the more you do it, the more you realize what it is that people actually need and want until you funnel it down. into the right pain and motivation. And then all of a sudden you found the pain point that you address. And it's all just a bunch of testing, but the mirror exposure effect is simply. You keep showing up and you show up again and again and again, and you do it over and over and over until eventually they start to think that you're around a lot more than what you actually are. And it's like that case of you could see a shark attack. Or, you could hear about a shark attack on the news. And you then ask someone three days later Oh, do you think more people die from aeroplane parts falling from the sky or from shark attacks? I'll go shark attacks, but it's actually not true at all. More people die from aeroplane parts falling from the sky. Yeah, I'm learning I can tell you this cause I'm learning this at uni at the moment. I read in National Geographic years ago, you're more likely to be punched by a New Yorker than be bitten by a shark. That's happening at the moment. Yeah. you not heard about that trend? There's like random people, but yeah, it's, so it's biases play a huge role, a mere exposure effect is a theory and part of bias. And that's something that I'm really interested in learning. Confirmation bias is like why we believe certain things. So you will ignore information that will counteract. What you believe in. So critical thinking is really important to challenge your own thinking because sometimes it's actually not always correct. And to listen and have conversations because we are all in our own confirmation biases, business owners, we think we're better than what we are. And sometimes we need that feedback loop from people just to go, Oh, here's where I think you could do better. Or this is where I didn't have an enjoyable experience. And you're like, Oh, okay. And then you find the gap. And the point isn't to ignore someone and go, Oh, that bad review didn't matter. That was just a once off. It's okay, how can we make this better? And that's all it is brand is just fixing things that were broken and making the experience better. And that kind of channels into the mere exposure effect is just to show up over and over until the point is that you become their friend and speaking about. How our brains don't know the difference between seeing someone online every day, like in our stories or them in person. And so you can create a friend and inverted commas by just being online all the time, and like you're saying, merely exposing yourself to them. Not that kind of way. Don't do that. not that kind of exposure, please. But just being there. and just being in the stories every day makes people start to connect with you or it could drive them away. If they're really not into you good. They were never going to work with you or that's what you want. Yeah, that's a good thing. I think a lot of people worry about losing people or unsubscribes. Who cares? Get rid of them, get the people that you want, focus on them. It's yeah, that's where it's at. So most of our listeners at this point would be thinking, I need a brand strategy. So what would be that first step in the process for someone who's got nothing and they want to, essentially start things off right and start with a brand strategy? Do they come, should they be coming to a brand specialist like, like you, or do they need to do something themselves first? It's like a chicken egg scenario, right? I always say that if you've the first two years in, in your business, like it's like trial and error, let it play out, do the things, see what works, see what doesn't. You're always going to have. You should have an intention for why you started. as much as I know this is a Mad Marketing Mums podcast, but I'm going to say something here that might upset a few people. Don't start a business cause you've got kids at home. Because it's not enough of a purpose because your kids are going to grow up and they're going to move on. And then you're going to have this business that you just may not love. I think that if And they're not going to remember what you do. not at all. And it's not going to be easier. There's, it comes with its own levels of challenge. It does provide you with certain freedoms, but it also gives you a whole heap of stress in other areas as well. It depends on, you choose your stress level. But especially at the moment I think that people just think it's easy and it's actually really hard at the moment. And I think it's, you start by. Knowing why you've started a business is your product viable? For instance, you start with the business strategy before you start with a brand strategy. So if your business isn't viable, it doesn't matter what you sell. It's not going to work. So if you're unless you have a key point of differentiation, which is what I said, you. You need to wrap you real good into the brand strategy. And so what I always say, I've got a free download that, that it can go and get, it's, it just highlights all of these steps. It doesn't give you answers. It just gives, this is the things to think about before, investing in something. And so you've got to look at the market that you're entering. Is it saturated? If it is. What's, do the SWOT analysis, like what's, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for everyone out there. It's is there a, is there an area of growth here? Like you're not going to go and enter a DVD market to give you an example. That's gone. It's that market is gone, right? You're not going to go and enter something like that. It's just not a viable thing. We saw this happen with Netflix started with a DVD sharing or whatever it was that they were trying to do. And it went to shit until they realized that, oh, okay, we need to be, We need to be doing online streaming and then obviously here they are. They've now, revolutionized that space. And so it's not always about also having a business that needs to disrupt like what we target. I say disrupt because I don't like working with people that just come to, to get a brand because they don't really believe in it. What I. What I love working with is the small business owners that have a really great idea. And they're really passionate about what they do. So it doesn't mean that you have to have this outlandish idea either. It just might be that you want to do something different in your local area. But they really love what they do. And so you dive into that because there's a reason that people buy passion. Every time I ask on our website, why did you choose to work with us? They like, Oh, you're funny. Or you're like, I love the way that you deliver a message or I like the copy on your website. It's never, you're a good designer ever. It's never that it's always everything else about. And so they're the associations. And so what you want to do when you're building a brand strategy, or at least starting Why are you in business should be number one. Is that my phone? Hang on. Sorry, cut that one right out. Yeah, it's like why are you starting a business? What's the key objective? Because then it funnels into marketing, right? You go, okay, the key objective is to be here in five years time. But if you don't know you need to be here in five years time, what are you marketing for? What are you trying, what are you trying to do if you've got no goal? What's, how are you ever going to know what you've won and what you've done well in, or if you've grown or if you haven't grown monetary income is what everyone uses as a metric, but it's not always about that. I can say right now, monetary income tracking has not been great for me over the last couple of years. However, the growth in my audience alignment has been and so when you're in a market that, you may not attract or be gaining money. That doesn't mean that's not to come. What we were saying about Taylor Swift before, it's like you put those feelers out there and you build that brand until eventually you hit the spot and then the people come in. And it might be that you release something that's amazing and they go, Oh, that I've been waiting for this thing to come out and then they buy into it. And it's because of those years of hard work of you building that longevity of what the brand stands for. They're happy to invest in that. It's evident of what I'm doing at the moment, by the way. And yeah it's, it, that's what it is. So brand strategy is just like, why are you in business? What's the long term goal? How are you going to get there? Who is the person that you want people to relate with? And just set those, they're just basic questions. Make sure that you've got like all your legalities down pat. I think that's a really important thing. People think starting a business is just getting a domain name, an Instagram handle and a business name. No, go and trademark your name. See if it's available. That's a completely different process. Because you could start trading under a name. I don't know how many people have come to us to get a logo developed. I'm like, you can't use that. I'm not taking this money from you to develop a logo that's actually already been taken. Like they can take you down for that. Just doing your due diligence prior. And then when you've got an idea. Like we know it's about creating the audience, just start. Like I say, with a visual identity, just start really simple, start really safe colors maybe it's that you pick a color that you want to be differentiated with, just, but just stay consistent with it. And then when you're ready to, then you can do a big song and dance, but at the start, focus on the connection building, focus on showing up, focus on what it is that you're there for, and then that, like I've seen so many brands that are nailing it and their visual identity sucks. So bad, but it's everything else that's wrapped under that, no one really cares because it's what they stand for. And so that's when you know that people aren't just buying into brands because it looks nice. They're buying into brands because they believe in what the brand stands for. So I think, yeah, when they're starting out Just go and just Google brand strategy. What do I need for a brand strategy? Just do the basics. Hey, you've got heaps of stuff. You can go and have a look on, I think I've done a two part series on what's in a brand strategy to give you an idea, but it will shape everything. And then you can have it when you've got that in the back of your mind. It won't feel like. You're shooting shit at a wall. You know what I mean? Like you were, okay. I have an idea of what I need to be doing, but I'm just testing at the moment. I don't really know. I think target market is always going to be the biggest thing to find. Because when you know that, then everything else just trickles off the back of that. You're like, okay, great. You can sell to them, you can connect with them how to show up for them, everything changes. And so that's why you hear people say, find your dream client, find your idea. It is so important. And that literally, targeting for ad spend, shot, like everything is centric around your audience. So if you, if there's one core thing that you need to do, it's to really just dive into audience finding. which was episode one of our that, because without that, what else are you doing? Exactly. everything else really relies on that. And I love that you say to give it a couple of years. Just to show up, get something out there and then you can get fancy a bit later on. Yeah. And look, I think as you were saying before, some people have terrible visual branding, but the nailing it might depend on your audience too, as to how much they care about the visuals like some audience audiences will be really picky about that. If I wanted to work with a graphic designer. They better look good, right? I better Yep. Yep. looks amazing because then I know the quality of their work and their vibe and that. But yeah, for other people, it won't matter so much as well. So again, comes back to knowing your audience. All right. Now I'm just looking at the time. Cause we have been chatting Sorry. while. No, it's great. Oh my gosh. We were speaking before we. Hit that record button as well about something that you are doing for your own business at the moment in terms of your and making some changes. So if you were able to take us through that and I guess, and how that kind Yeah. to other business owners that I'm Yeah, sure. In I think it was May 20, March 23. I noticed that my, I had a, I guess an epiphany where I realized that I wasn't aligning with where I wanted to go. We had, we've had a last hard. Couple of years specifically myself as the business owner. And I, my, I guess my brand strategy, if we're going to talk about brand strategy has always been to never have more than five or six people. I always want to be seen as a boutique kind of brand agency specialist. Never this big harborside agency. It's never my intention. And the goal was, and always has been, to not be rich and, rolling in dough. I want to just do work that I really love to do for brands that I feel deserve it. And I think that comes across in what I say and do. I will happily jump into people's DMs and have long voice memos of what they need to do. Purely because I don't like, I don't want to charge that shit. Like here's how you need to pressure yourself to other designers. This is what you've got to do. They're like, Oh my God, thank you. I'm like, no, cause I wanted this. Like I wanted, no one had this for me. I had to learn it. Like, why not give some, they're not going to do what I'm doing. Let's give them that. So that that to me has always been something that I'm, I've always been interested in. And it was always about breaking the glass ceiling. As I was saying before, it's not mad men anymore. I. I come from 10 years of ad agency and I saw that shit play out. And I was like, screw this. Once I have a kid, I'm not coming back and being demoralized and chucked in a corner. Like I saw some amazing women it happened to them. And I was like, nah. So. right? Yep. this is my purpose. My purpose was to break the glass ceiling and to legal leave a legacy. And the legacy wasn't for me and my family. The legacy was for other creatives to set a narrative to show other women that they can do it too. So now you start to see this trickle through everything that I've done. And so that again, it's purpose. It's not something that I've just gone, Oh, Hey, here's something I'm just going to slap on because I want to, whatever Give that perception of what I'm doing. It's actually something that drives me to my core. So I'll show up and do everything that aligns to that. And I found that after I had my children, so my firstborn had a transplant, it's a whole thing in 2020. And then I had my second in 21, which was in the COVID lockdown and that threw me for a bloody loop. I'll tell you what. So what happened during that time was actually really needed my team to step up to the plate because mentally I wasn't in the right place to be able to be giving all these amazing creative ideas. So obviously trickling on from that was, the, not a decline, but not me showing up as myself as much as I used to and and coming back to faceless brands that was evident because it just wasn't me showing up as much as I was, and there was a little bit of a, an engagement drop and from that was also taking on jobs from people that. brands that we probably otherwise wouldn't have because we just needed to keep things moving to keep the team in. And then I made some pretty hard decisions where I decided I wanted to scale back. I was like, this is not where I want to be. And if I'm investing all of this time, I want to make sure that I'm investing the time correctly. And so I scaled back as crappy as that was, I let my studio go and I made all these really big, crappy decisions. Ego, ego decisions that I'd probably been holding onto for a little bit longer than I needed to. And I went back to the drawing board of why I wanted to start with. Why did I want to do that? And the goal was to actually go, okay. And it's actually to give you complete honesty, it's really hard to do your own stuff. Sometimes you need someone from the outside to look in and go, this is where you are not going well. And I did that. So I asked some of my best clients, I asked some of my business buds that, you know, in the same space, but not doing the same thing. And I said. Don't hold back, rip it apart. Thankfully most of it was pretty good, but like it was just, most of it that came through, you're funny, it's the culture, it's your passion, we trust you, it's your balls. And I was like, okay. Most of that had fallen off. Me showing up, being really ballsy, me being really creative, like all of that stuff had dropped off. And I'm like, okay, I need to bring that back. And doing that also, there was a rebellious tone to that. So I got Shani from Wildspark jumped on. She helped me rewrite a lot of my key messages. And we. She pegged the tagline, revolutionize your brand. I'm like, that's it. And so everything that I do, I show up ballsy, blunt, honest, very much in person. If anyone meets me, they're like, Oh my God, you're exactly like you are online. I'm we shouldn't be like, this is, yep. So yeah, I am exactly how you think I would be in person. I say what's on my mind empathetically. And yeah, I, it's like my visual identity doesn't align to this, the teal and white. wasn't working for a rebellious brand and so I stripped it back to black, white, and red. Red was always an accent color but I pushed it to a primary and swapped out the teal to be a secondary until eventually just recently I phased it right out. So you might see it pop in every now and then but it's like just not really there anymore. And then went hard with that. So now you'll see the feed and I looked at our images and I half toned them. So I like, this is where the visual identity then aligns to the rebellious look. Nothing is straight. We've now got big, bold capitalized call outs. Everything's off center. It's like jagged, it's off center. The images are roughly cut, they're halftone, they've got like this black and white, like in your face and so that means that the accent of the red pops out. And so now, like you said, it's all coming together because it's taken. It's now very consistent and it's obvious that we are, and even as I wear this jacket, it's very much on brand unintentionally, but it's just, this is how we show up. And how I show up as a person is also how my brand would show up. And that's I'm not going to go to a city event and wear heels and a dress suit. I rock up in ripped jeans with an oversized t shirt and Reebok sneakers. That's just. Who I am as a person. And that gives the intention to the people that want to use me as a brand, because I don't stand to the conformities of what people think a business owner looks like. And everyone goes, Oh, and so then they go, Oh, she's doing things differently or she's not doing it. Like she should be. And I will rock up and swear. It's also a vetting process. I find that if someone gets a little bit like, eh, I'm like, Oh, I know this ain't going to work. And so I find that's actually a bad thing, but at the same time, it's actually attracted. a whole bunch of people because they go, Oh, thank God we feel seen. So I'm attracting people that this is a likeability to go and Google the likeability effect. It is a cognitive bias that people are more likely to work with people that are like themselves. They're more likely to hire people that are like themselves. And so you will find they like, to be with, that's why your friends are all the same. It's just a thing you like attracts and so the more you big, this is why people say be yourself. The more you be yourself, the more you attract people that are like you. And therefore you attract people that value you. And so what I've seen the last few months has been a real progress in not just visual identity, but the way I show up, the way I talk, the content I'm putting out I went through a whole big thing, after you have a kid and you're like, Oh, I'm a little bit impostery. This wasn't happening before. I'm not really sure where this bullshit's come from, but yeah, I had to really validate myself again. So I went back to study, got HDS, knocked it out of the park. I'm like, I'm fine. So good. So I went back to doing everything and. Yeah, that's where it begun. And I just started conversations again, just tuned out the noise. I think it's really important to say you will find that if there's something stopping you from posting or something that's stopping you from doing something, there'll be a person in your head. Who is it? Put a face to the name. If they're on your followers, get rid of them, block them, mute them, whatever it is, just get, they're not there. They're stopping you from moving. And I think once you move on from that, then you'll step into what it is that you are and who you need to be and how you need to show up. And then you, we've had five people apply for a job in the last four weeks. And I'm like, we aren't hiring. We have no money, but it's it's good that you get that vibe. Thank you so much. But that's helping us to build a connection of people that just love what we do. What we do and who we are. And it's very, we're very different to those in our area. So local wise, if they're going to go through the list of people, we are not the same as any of them out there. So that's how we stand out. It's got nothing to do with visual identity that aligns, but it's more about the attitude. And so Back into what I was saying to you before about the Lily Allen with the kick of Reese Witherspoon. And then you see it all start to come together, the colors, the vibe, the style, the way you show up, and then you see it work as a whole circle as opposed to just bits and pieces that are working well. It's working as a whole unit and people go, ah, cool. Going to buy into that. Yep. And they know exactly what to expect of all of that. yeah, as I was saying before, I really love how your feed's looking now, like on Thanks. It's bold. It's punchy. The copy on your website, chef's kiss. I love that Good. I'm glad. yeah, it is so good. And oh my gosh, I love, yeah, Wildspark What's her name? Shani. Yeah. Yeah. No, Shani to Shani. Shannie. Okay. Yeah. It's funny. Cause I only know her handle, with people, actually the other day I was on threads I dropped a message saying, is it weird that I really enjoy watching your conversations with Amy from damn right. And I just get on their threads and just watch the conversations. And that's my entertainment because I just, yeah, again, love their kind of cheeky ballsy. A way of writing. And I actually worked with Amy way back when I was still running Instagram cool. Yeah, and again, I picked her because she was like me. She used the words I did. She's small. She was a bit cheeky and, and it's a hundred percent. It's that attracts so yeah, it's, and I think that people always go out with, Oh, I need to drop my prices. Don't do that. Don't do that. It's actually been shown that if you do drop your prices, that people don't value you. We were working with another supplier who was developing websites and I had a client come back to me. Is they, are they good? They're only charging me 500 bucks. And I had to message him and say, you need to put your price up by. Double and a half like it's because if you're going to get the clients that we're attracting, you need to step up your game. And that was a big learning curve. It's, it, she was like, wait, what? And then all of a sudden you get the client. So when we hear people say people just don't want to spend, it's a messaging problem. It's a brain problem. Who need you and you're talking to the level of the people that, that obviously think that you're for them. It means that you need to change. And this, it's, like I said, it's the same as visual identity. So we get the big neurodivergent, big thinkers now that go, fuck this, I'm sick of this shit. Let's, and so we're getting people in that are like, it's actually really challenging because they're actually changing their categories. So there's nothing that's been there before. And I'm like, Oh, this is so much fun. Like I'm so here for this, but it's it's challenging at the same time. Cause you're like, who can I use as a reference? Nobody. Okay. This is fun. So you've got to try and yeah. So it's, yeah. So that's what's, that's what we really love about it. It's the challenge of trying to create something new. And I think a lot of people want to see something new. They don't want to see the same shit. who do you think has incredible branding? Can you give us maybe two examples of brands that are just nailing it and why you like what they're doing? Mentioned Who Gives a Crap. I think they just knock it out of the park. Not just with what they believe in and what they do, but What they say. So they've actually got a segment that they put out on their socials where there's like clickbaity headlines that are just worded really incorrectly. And then they cross them out and it says what you should have said. So they they cross it out and then they give you like a proper way of like socially it's politically correct and crossing it out and doing it. And I think that's really great. So I love that because they're diving into what they stand for as a social enterprise and calling out. Harmful societal narrative. So I think that, that's awesome. Right next one, hands down have never even had their product. And it's my favorite brand is liquid death. And they are water in a can created a branch created by a creative director, in States and he was sick of brands coming to them and not taking their ideas. So he's like, how hard could this be? And he literally created a brand. It's got a really good story to it. It's not like it's crap. So like he creates sustainable water in a can. It's like he donates money to like that, but that's not even what that's the good feel good story to the side, but he changed the categories. He's designed the liquids. This is very much design centric. He's created a water in a can that looks like an energy drink. So he's changed behaviors in pubs and bars and places where people usually drink alcohol and the whole, drinking culture to look normal. If they're walking around with a liquid death can, and they're just drinking water, so they feel like they socially fit in rather than everyone going, Oh, why aren't you drinking? Or so it's, yeah, it's. It's actual, their marketing's just great. They will always pull out haters comments and actually tear them to shreds. Or my favorite is the, it's called the taser test or the blind taser test. And what they did is they were like, this is the worst water I've ever had. Also a perception, by the way. People think of it in a can and they think it tastes gross, but actually it doesn't. So they did a taste test. Hit all the water bottles. Water brands under the thing and told them if they won, they'd get money. And if they didn't, they'd get tasered. And so they both lost. It was hilarious. So it's yeah, so they tasered the haters and it was just, it's just it's just stuff like that. That's really like disruptive. And so even I've gone around and told my friends about my friends that I had dinner with on the weekend actually was like, Oh, we were in Canberra and we saw liquid death and I went and bought it. Cause you told me to get it. And I was like, Oh, what did it taste like? So it's this whole, so that's just a conversation that I'm having. So I think, yeah, there, if you want to see how it's done, they've, Like what the right people and talking about brand alignment, they've got Steve O from Jackass and Travis Barker from Blink 182. And, we've got all these like people that associate Burton snowboards, like it's very much that punk Rocky kind of vibe. So it's got a really cool association. It's not I think that they outdid all social presence of every other water brand, I think within three months of starting and they didn't even have a product out, it was just a prototype that they had a 5, 000 budget for. So it's it just shows you that brand and mess and correct marketing can, Change the game. Total nerdy side note as well, I love how that's, they are a sustainable brand. Company with their product and stuff. You see these other water brands and Oh, and a pretty plastic bottle, recycled plastic, blah, blah, blah. But aluminum is 100 percent recyclable and reusable. 100%. Whereas plastic isn't Correct. Yep. And they always show it's nature things. It's just, it's crazy, isn't it? It's whitewashing greenwashing we should say. I thought liquid death wasn't energy drink, so Haha. Yep. it now. You've convinced There's a whole, they've done a whole reel on that too. I think it was like a girl at her work or a worker like had to put up a sign to say, this is water. Cause they put a sign up to tell everyone that they couldn't have energy drinks on the work site. Like it's not it's water. So it's they take the piss out of things that they get in as well. I think it's really great that you have that connection with their audience. So good. All right. I think we should wrap things up now before we get into just a couple of random quick fire questions. Where can people connect with you online? Instagram, is that your fave or you hanging out at the places these days? Definitely on Instagram. So you can catch me there at you're one and only underscore a U is where I hang out. And if you want to take a bit more personal, it's on my personal pages. I am Tara lad. And you also have a which is do. the Brandon butter podcast, which is the cutest name. I love that. That's so fun. yeah, so we'll link to all of Tara's contact information and the podcast show notes so you can go and find them really easily. cut more Tara, get more of her in your life and enjoy. Now. As you are a busy parent, I'm going to ask you the question that we ask everybody and that is what is your number one tip for busy parents and business? And it doesn't have to be related to marketing or branding, or even having the business, what would you recommend? Oh, it's always to drop your expectation, not your standards. I think the biggest thing that people think is that they can, do the same things that they did pre children. And it's just not, no, it's just not possible. And even if you have the same time, like I was saying before, mentally, you don't have the same time. So that was a really big learning curve that I had to have was to actually extend my timelines out a lot more. So what normally would have been a six week, To eight week project. This is not what a brand takes, by the way, it's usually anywhere between six months and onwards. But if you're doing like a visual identity, let's just say six to eight weeks, I would then make it 12 weeks. If you finished early, great. If you didn't, you don't. And to track the time, because sometimes, you might wake up in the morning and your kids are feral. And it takes you like two hours to get into work and you then have a deadline to abide. And then all of a sudden you're stressed. I think it's. It's not that you're doing the work less. It's just that don't think that you can do the work in oh, a six week period when you know that it should take you 12 and it doesn't make you any less shit, it just means that you've got other things on. Think that's a, that's what I tell everyone to do, just to drop your expectations on yourself. The emotional impact of parenting as well. So at the moment, my eldest son is going through school refusal. And Oh, good fun. is a huge struggle and I'm doing two drop offs because we have have big school and sometimes by the time I get back I'm like sweating and just I feel like I've worked an entire day already. I'm just completely drained need that recovery time before I can even think about work. I can't do the quick switch. But yeah, Because maybe somebody's been yelling at me or kicking me or what have you. And so you need that recovery time to then go, okay, I'm ready now to be an adult and focus on these things. Yeah, I And then it still manifests, right? It still sits there, and then you've got to deal with that later. I don't start work until 10 o'clock now. So the kids go, they're usually gone by about 8. 30. Ari's in prep now, so he's 9. So won't, don't do anything to, won't book meetings until 10. 30. Most of the time I just come home and sit on the bed for half an hour and just scroll. There's my scrolling. Don't judge me. Just to get my, just to get my brain into a, okay, we're calm now. Yeah, just, let's just, yeah, quick fixes. Yeah. Just see what's going on. Save some trending audio with the tactics and then, let's just Get the day, like just start on a ready to go, instead of, do you know what I mean? I think that's, yeah, that's something that you just don't, you can't prepare for that. Like the people that without kids, I remember thinking I will totally have this. And then you're like, I totally don't have this. I know pre child children, me was such a jerk. She was a judge middle bitch. Yeah. And you know what? Actually, I speak about being a parent on my feet a lot. Not too much, just drop it in every now and then. I think I did a little post yesterday with stick from Dougie was the song that I used for the promotion. I was like, yes, I'm a parent, but I deliberately say that because you attract parents and guess who is like you, other parents. So when you say, I'm so sorry, I'm late, or I'm so sorry. My kid's sick. There's no judgment on the other end. They're like, we get it, so I think that it's important to not feel like you have to hide who you are because that will also put a lot more stress and pressure on you to show up as someone that you're not. And that's exhausting. She just is. Yeah. What's your biggest marketing ick? Oh, income signaling. Don't tell me what you can do for yourself. Tell me what you can do for somebody else. I think I made X amount of dollars. Like I am making money. I am, cool. But I also find it really slimy when. You're talking to your audience who pay that money to you. It's thank you for helping make me a millionaire. Like it's all, whatever it is, but yeah, I hate that so much. Perception. This guy, there's no way he could have been older than 21, 25. And he's I've made 67, 000 in the course of 24 hours. And he's my, my marketing stuff paid for the pool in the back of the mansion. It paid for the bright green Lamborghini. And I'm looking at it and he's just he just, he, what did he say? He said something about I wish it was, something along the lines of like, why doesn't this happen to us, like to me or that kind of thing, and I just went, honey, I'm like, first of all, there's a study that's come out that said 2 percent of all creators make a hundred grand or more. I'm like, think about it. I'm like, there's billions of people that are on social. I'm like, secondly, there's a hot business of renting locations for people to do exactly what this guy has done, renting out a private jet or a hotel room that looks like a private jet. I'm like that Lamborghini, I'm like, have you seen anybody driving a bright green Lamborghini anywhere? Chapel street, Melbourne. maybe in Melbourne. I have not seen one around in Sydney. But, I said to him you have to take this with a grain of salt. I'm like, he's telling you that he's made this much money. I'm like, I guarantee you he has not. I'm like, this is perception. I'm like, I have fallen for the same thing over the years and stuff. I'm like, and the stuff that he was saying, it was that MMR stuff. I'm like, he's not actually selling anything. He's going, look at what I've got. And people are going, I want that. But it's the perception of being rich and successful by saying, I've made this much money. And he shows a screen. I'm like, Dan, that could be a photo that he's taken and modified it. You can not say that's real. And we also have to take into consideration, I say this a lot. And I also say this from the perspective of a parent is that privilege plays a big role in a Yeah. And I said to him, I'm like, this could highly likely be his parents house. It could be. Yeah. And it also, we need to think about who people know opportunities come from different places. And now that's not saying that people that have gotten to where they are, don't deserve it. What I like to say is that I don't like it when people that have. I don't, I, how do I phrase this without pissing people off? I don't like it when people are in high positions. And they look down on people that haven't got there yet. I'm all about, when I get to the high position, here's a ladder. Let's get there together. I think that whole, I've got here and this is what you're not doing to get here, or I did this to get here. Do we need to have that game? Cause I was running a two day bloody event during COVID sitting next to the hospital bed with my kid who just had a transplant. Do I need to get online and tell people that's what I did? No, I don't think that it needs to, It's none of their business. It's none of their business. And so there's elements of hustle that people are doing. I think the whole leave your best life kind of business yes, of course, everyone wants that. But okay, how did, how are you doing that? Where have you got financial stability, because when you have financial stability, you can take risks and risks can pay off when you've got financial stability. So if you've got, I said this on my friend's podcast the other day, I was like, If you have 50 in the bank and you're in a good position, you could go and gamble that away on whatever the hell you want to do. However, if that's your last 50 and you don't know when the next 50 is coming in, what you spend that 50 on. Matters a lot. And if your kids are hungry, that's where it's going to go. So you have to there's different circumstances. There's different, time requirements. I guess now it's very different to where I was two years ago, where we were in hospital 37 times over a two year period, that's 48 hours minimum each stay that was between my husband and I, and then you come home and you're like, okay, that's it. Do I clean? Do I make food? Do I do work? Do I go to the gym and your time is taken, right? So when you're a parent or you come from a different circumstance, time is different, right? So I have a cleaner that comes to my house every fortnight that cleans my house. That's four hours of my time that I don't, that I get back. You think about people in different, This is why people get. More money in the bank is because they have the ability to then outsource. Who I was when I had five people in my business was so much easier than right now. I feel like I've gone back to a startup because you're able to outsource the shit so that the time that you're spending is spent on the things that are money generating. And when you're at that stage where you're in a position when you need to really stretch yourself out, I think, yeah, it is it's very different. So I think we can't be, you Sold by smoke and mirrors. And I'm trying, I'm really trying to counteract that messaging. I keep trying to, don't worry about what they're saying. Don't care if people are spending 800 on a Taylor Swift ticket. Good for them. Great. Great. But let's look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs for a hot minute. And where do you sit on that? Because at the bottom is like food security, safety. And if you're not in the social area where you can hang around your friends and you're sitting at the bottom, that's just where you are right now. Don't worry about what they're saying. And don't let anyone. change your mind about where you are right now. We'll get out of it. It's, it's going to dip and it's going to ebb and flow, but don't let other people and what their life circumstances are dictate where you are. And you can still, everyone talks about victimhood, but it's important to know where you're sitting is different to other people as well. But what you do and where you spend your time is where you'll get out of it. Yeah. And people lie, let's be honest. Yes. Everybody lies. there's there was once who, how do I do this? once upon a time, there was an online business person who had the wall of post it notes of all the Yeah. had opted into her program. I had previously worked with that person. On something different for a different course, cause I'm a serial course purchaser, I've really pulled back my course purchasing. You'll be proud of me. I'm in recovery, but previously worked with her like a year or so. Before this, she put up a story and had all the people who had enrolled in a current program and I spotted my name cause my name's unusual, right? written on a post it note and I'm like, but I'm not doing your current program. are they, all these post it notes, perhaps everyone you've ever worked with, not necessarily the people that are working with you now we just don't know these things. So I think not blatant lie, maybe exaggeration, but I think it's for our own mental health. It's really good just to go. Good for you. I'm going to focus on what I can control and what I'm going to do. And yeah, get rid of and who makes you feel a little bit ick as well. Yes get rid of the ick, I highly recommend, or anyone that sprouts a narrative that doesn't align with what you're trying to do. Look at people that inspire you, that don't make you feel bad about yourself. I've had to mute a few accounts. Not because they were doing anything bad, but just because it was like, it was just giving me a bit of imposter y syndrome. I'm like, oh. And then I found out some, same thing I found out behind the scenes. I was like, Oh, they're not doing as good as I thought that they were, it's the perception. It's just to, to change your mindset about where people are at and just to understand you are where you are and everyone has their own journey. And how you could blow up tomorrow from an introduction to someone that you didn't even know that you were going to meet. So just always keep working on the things That can, drive growth and start conversation. Do you know where one of the biggest places is that you can generate engagement is by having conversations on other people's like comment threads. Like I just find just a randomly comment. That's how my business, I don't do anything with my personal brand at the moment, I'm just giving my opinion on other people's shit and they just come up. I like what she has to say and they come on over and I'm very much opinionated on my personal brand. So they're just like, I just. That's where it comes from. It's just invoicing and adding your contribution and just, it's just, it's what people agree with. So yeah, don't yeah, fuck that. Just, yeah. I think that's the perfect way to sum up this episode. Fuck that. Yep. Oh, Tara, it has been an absolute pleasure having you here. That was really good. Thank you for having me. the explicit warning Yeah, I know. I was like, yeah, but no, it's that's, that's what we're about as well. That's why we feel that sense of connection with you because you are like us. yep. you're not afraid to tell it like it is to drop the old F bomb on a pot on a business podcast cause that's who you are and that's who All the minor explicit. I don't even, are. Otherwise they're going to yeah, they're going to be like, Oh, good. Sorry! all good. All good. Oh, no we've dropped a few ourselves. yes, we have. Clem's unsavory saying about skinning cats. Yeah. Oh, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Yes, she does it Kryshla hates it when I say it. So I'll give her this look like, I'm about to say it. You can see Kryshla, she just starts to cringe a little bit. I'm like, oh, more than one way to skin a cat. Nasty. Nasty. All right. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to this very meaty episode. I hope you took a lot away from it. Go connect with Tara, find out more about your one and only and go and check out her incredible website copy. Yeah, it's really fun. You're going to enjoy it a lot until next time. Take care and stay Stay mad. Okay. Woo!

People on this episode

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Clementine Holman

Co-host
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Kryshla Salaris

Co-host