109: Updating Your Digital Strategy for Interior Designers
Michele 00:00
Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to profit is the choice. With me today on the podcast is Brandi Bernoskie of Alchemy and Aim. She is a digital strategist, web developer, and tech expert. Our conversation is going to be focused on updating your digital strategy. Many of us already have a plan on how to show up online, maybe we already have a website and Instagram and all those things. But how often do we go in and refine what they say and what is prompting us to do that? These are the questions we're going to be digging into. I hope you enjoyed the podcast. Every day empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company financial health, and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design, industry, educator, and Speaker, I coach women in the interior design industry to increase their profit, regain ownership of their bottom line and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit is a Choice.
Michele 01:07
Hey, Brandi, welcome to the podcast.
Brandi Bernoskie 01:09
Thanks so much for having me on. Michele, I'm really excited to get to speak with you today.
Michele 01:13
I'm excited too! We've got lots of fun stuff to talk about and to get into. But before we do, I would love to hear just a little bit about your journey to get to where you are today, and then what does your business look like today?
Brandi Bernoskie 01:30
It was a bit of a circuitous route. I actually started out when I went to college, I was a theater major and actually graduated with a BFA in theater from New York University, went on to study other things like physics and philosophy and do some grad school work. I ran a tutoring center for a while and I was doing Earth Science Education for NASA for a bit. And right around the time that I was in grad school, actually, just prior to starting grad school, I started my own blog. And this was like in like, I would say, the golden age of blogging where you could unexpectedly kind of blow-up really quickly. So I was going to grad school in San Diego living out there, named one of the best blogs in San Diego, one of the years I was out there. While I was doing that, I was just doodling around on my website and teaching myself to code. I had a bit of a coding background from my time in physics and was kind of applying that knowledge. Very quickly, I realized that I was getting enough work where I could potentially quit my job. So my idea was that I was going to be a freelance website developer and that I had these long two hour lunches during the day, and what I actually discovered in the process was that you really just simply being a freelancer wasn't really fulfilling, and I kind of stepped into this role of like entrepreneur, and started hiring people. I went from company of one by myself to now having a team of 12 people working with me, and we pull in collaborators for different projects. We work with a wide variety of clients, everything from people who are authors and have been producing best selling books, to interior designers, to bloggers to food bloggers. I just love people who have something to say, and I love helping them say it.
Michele 03:23
And when you started your business, initially, would you say that you were profitable from day one? You have to build profitability into your business.
Brandi Bernoskie 03:32
I will tell you honestly, I didn't even have that concept of profitability at that point, in the early times. I think it was about three months into my business. I didn't even make enough money to cover my rent that month. So I had money in the bank, was able to pay my apartment rent, and whatnot, but that's not profitable. You can't afford your apartment. So I did make some changes, and I will say, there have been overwhelmingly, in the past five years since I started hiring people, all profitable years, but there have been months that it wasn't profitable. And those months are there to teach me something about my team, or about the processes, we're using or about our approach to a project. Sometimes, when we have occasionally had months where the payments didn't fall in because we do like bigger website projects. That's also something to be very aware of. So I've really developed a shift with money and actually utilizing Profit First in my business. It's one of my things I do every Saturday morning as I sit down and go through the profit first method to get in touch with my finances and can very confidently say now that it's profitable in the way that I want it to be. But I don't even think I had that concept really early on. I was just like, "did I did I make enough money to cover my expenses or not?"
Michele 05:02
My business was very much the same way as I was actually just sharing earlier today. That same kind of thought process, I was more in touch with honing my craft, if you will. I was excited about what I was doing and not so much about the supportive processes that allow me to continue doing it as a sustainable business. It took me a bit and then I had to, I love how you said, kind of get in touch with the processes that are working and some that aren't. I would say in many businesses, especially the creative ones, like yours, mine, and our listeners, there's a timing issue between when we're working and how money's coming in all those things. It's not just a one to one deadline so that you can count on the exact same thing every single month, it does move around a little bit. And like you, I use the profit first method and absolutely love it. It has made all the difference and especially with all the changes that we've seen in business with the pandemic, it's just the way that money's been flowing in and out , it's so important to have the money earmarked to know where it goes, what the expenses are, and how to cover it. Because there are shifts and business all the time that can catch us off guard. If we're not watching for them, not seeing trends, and not planning for the rainy day, or now we're going to be calling it "planning for the next pandemic." Sometimes we don't plan for it because we think it's not going to happen and then now everything that we never thought would have, happened and more has happened.
Brandi Bernoskie 06:31
I think a lot of a lot of those of us who are very creative, we almost don't want to worry about the money. We want to just trust in our creative process and in our gifts and know that the money will come. There's something to be said for that, but I will say, being in relationship to your money and just being intentional with it in that way, helps you go so far. It's been interesting because at different times, I've had business managers in my business who offer to take over and run payroll for me, and that's actually something that I've kept really close. I realized that the more in relationship that I can be with my finances, the better decisions I can make as a business owner, and the better pivots I can make to when things change. I have a different sort of awareness of what's working, what's not, watching what kind of increase come in, what are people interested in? What are they asking for? I think it's really kind of important to stay in tune in relationship with your business as a whole, not just the creative process in your business.
Michele 07:27
100%. That was the impetus really, for this particular podcast about profit is a choice because I see our finance. Some people think that I'm all about just making money, and that's not the case. But I do believe that we're expanding the amount of energy and using our gifts, talents, and abilities that we should be able to make a living doing that if we do it well. If it's needed, people are investing, and they're buying, then we should be able to do it in a way that makes money. So realizing that our profitability is based on all the choices that we make, all along. It's not usually one choice. It's a multitude of choices, who to hire, when to hire, how to hire, how to manage that hire, how efficient are we do our processes work, all of those things feed into the numbers that we look at to gauge profitability when we're looking at financial profitability in and of itself. I love that I did have a great relationship with money, and we spend a lot of time in my private coaching, in conversations, seminars, and everything else by really trying to understand what is that relationship? How did it get created? Or do we have belief systems around it that are supportive or that are not supportive, that maybe we've never even recognized before? It's a great conversation to have because it doesn't matter how great we are at design or at website building or anything else, if we can't sustain the company to continue doing it. It's almost like we have wasted the passion and the energy because it's not going to provide service and so we want to be able to support the business so that it can provide service.
Brandi Bernoskie 09:03
Yeah, for me, the drive to grow has very much been tied to the drive to serve. To serve my team, to make sure that they have jobs that were profitable, so I can give them cost of living raises and we can have great benefits, all of those pieces, but then also, I think about, if I'm not around, what are the options that my clients have? And unfortunately, there's a lot of people out there who want to call themselves web designers or developers who really don't have the knowledge or the strategic know how to get the results that people need. Everything I do is having the drive to profitability as a drive to service too. Whether it's money coming into your life or into the business, it's what keeps our world and our economy going and helps people live the lives that they need to live. It's to lead and take care of their families and to take care of their loved ones. So I always think of it from that bigger perspective, too. I think it's everything.
Michele 10:05
I would totally agree with that. Let's jump into some of what you do as you serve your clients. So I want to focus some of our time today on a couple of things. Let's talk about this online digital experience, whether it is with our website, or in some other way. Why it's important? How to stay up to date on the new needs for that digital variants, because it's all changing all the time. And how to create a strategy to know when to update our websites or when to update that digital experience. What are the metrics the KPIs that we can check to see if it even working versus just trying and hoping that it's working? Then I also know that you are certified in the Story Brand Method. I would love to chat with you a little bit about that. And maybe how that even influences some of the other. So why don't we start with talking about what is a digital experience and why should we have one?
Brandi Bernoskie 11:09
When I first started out doing websites, I think we still had the mentality that websites were brochures or portfolios simply to showcase what we do. People would hit the contact page to contact us and done. But we're living in such an online world now that we really have to think about the consistency of the whole experience we created digitally for people. This will be going to the website and actually guiding people through the website. Then helping them get to the right pages to get the right information so they can make a decision. But it's also about thinking through the extensions of that, too. So social media is an obvious extension. If you have a gorgeous portfolio on your website, but your social media is a little rough looking and doesn't reflect the same quality, that can confuse people. Let's say, you use a scheduler for people to make appointments or pay for appointments too, have the logo at the top, change the colors, so that even if it's not on your website, and it can't be perfectly branded, there's still that thread of consistency that builds trust and dependability in the relationship. That's what we're doing in this online world these days is that we're not just trying to get one-off transactions. We were trying to build relationships with people. Maybe they could come in through our social media, then they find their way to our website, and then they reach out to us. That's where the conversation that happens via zoom or another video browser, but what does the whole consistency of digital experience really look like? So often what I'm encouraging my clients to do is not just think about the website itself, but how to extend the brand. When I say brand, I'm not just talking about logo, but also about the language that we use and the message that we have for people. How do we extend that so that it feels like us, even if it's a different platform, whether it's Instagram or the website or your scheduler. Even the one to one conversation. It all feels like part of a bigger picture.
Michele 13:19
That that's a good reminder. It's almost like I remember back in the day when we used to have something called picture trail. That was before we had these full long websites, and this is when the websites weren't able to hold portfolios because they just didn't have that power. There is this picture trail, and what you do was pretty much just scrolling to see the pictures. It's to show what you could do. It was a visual portfolio, nothing more. Then I remember when websites became the rage. It was almost like your place in the Yellow Pages. It's a replacement of having your name in the Yellow Pages. It was not much more than a landing page with a contact page, maybe some pictures and now you're right, I believe we're moving even more online. Of course, with some of the changes that are happening right now with the pandemic, health, and things. We're moving online with education and conferences. The website is no longer just the ad in the Yellow Pages. I almost see it as the storefront. When you go in a store, like going into a physical store, the storefront is representing itself one way. So when I walk into that store, no matter where I go, who I talk to, and how I engage, I want to feel the brand of the store. Whether it's the person who greets me or the person who makes the sale. If we think about it, the way they have the bag for our purchase, and if they wrap it with a ribbon and put pretty tissue, all of those things happens in a physical world. What we're trying to do is replicate those in a digital world so that you don't feel like you left the website to follow the trail that you've been led on, but then you're lost, and it doesn't even feel like everything outside fits the brand
Brandi Bernoskie 15:05
That's exactly it. It's the whole translation of your business because I'm seeing a lot of people, even those who used to not work online, shift their business to be able to serve people in that way. So it does require a new level of thinking beause you can't hand over a physical invoice anymore. So what can you do? Maybe you can't show a swatch in person anymore. So what can you do differently? How can you get people the content and what's the follow up? Is there anything that physically arrived? Does it still feel like the brand?
Michele 15:41
And that brings us back to the whole conversation that I've had on this podcast multiple times. That is to acknowledge what your brand is, defining it, and then being very clear on it. Because if not, we're going to send mixed messages simply because we're ourselves got mixed up, in who we are, what we're doing, and what our brand really is. So understanding all those brand values and brand messaging, then being certain that it is consistent, as you mentioned, across every interaction, every time the client touch that we have,
Brandi Bernoskie 16:13
What I've discovered over and over again, is that the brands as a whole needs to be aligned, that also means has to align with you. You shouldn't choose values for your brand that you don't embody yourself and that you don't consider to be your values, because you're going to start to create a misalignment that will grow in time. There just has to be this overall alignment in your branding and in you as an extension of that brand too.
Michele 16:41
That's a good point. When I was first going through branding exercises over the years, I started back in 2003. That's when I did my first and it was before the the Simon Sinek's, Find Your Why. I'll tell you right now based on the resources and the clarity that we have even more so around these smaller personal brands, we didn't have all that 20 years ago when I started. Back then, you started a business, you stuck your name out, put it in the yellow pages, and therefore you're a business. There was no website, there was none of this. This is kind of a newer landscape within the last 10 years that we have really starting to understand. Brand was only with regards to large corporations. even if we hadn't dial it all the way down. Now what's so interesting is that we're able to take those same principles and dial them down to even our micro businesses, so that they can have a brand. Then to define that and letting the website and all the other digital offerings that we have being an extension of that. Because even if we haven't clearly defined it for ourselves, our customers will define it for us, but their definition might not be what we want so much.
Brandi Bernoskie 17:59
Yes, and that's why it's so important to do the work and do it repeatedly. It's not something that you do once and you're like, "boom, I'm done." You can revisit it because you and your business are evolving. The world is changing. It feels like to me 2020 is a very accelerated world change. You have to step back and revisit it on a regular basis to make sure that, "Hey, does this still make sense? Am I still doing the right things? Is this offering stolen in the ways that I wanted to?"
Michele 18:27
Let's talk about business evolution because that was one of the areas that I really wanted us to touch on. I know that in the busyness of our day to day operating and owning your business, we get this checklist of all the things that we need to be doing, and we do them. Then we pick it up, stick it on the bookshelf, and we go, "okay, we did it." But sometimes when we're so busy, we think, "I don't have time to go back to that it's done. It's good enough". I've been guilty of that, and I understand that. But I do know that even when my values haven't changed, I've gotten more clarity around my brand and values as things have changed. I've gotten better at articulating and owning it to some degree and making it a part of who I am and making me really a part of who it is. So give us some ideas Brandi of some hallmarks or what is it that we should be looking for that tells us it might be time to revisit. How do we know when now was the right time to revisit versus just having it on the checklist, go back and look at it every six months, but you don't really know what and why you should be looking at? What is it that should propel us to say, "now is the time to go back and look at that."
Brandi Bernoskie 19:45
There are a couple of things. I do think it's good to do it kind of on a regular basis, i.e. end of year as I'm planning for the next year. I'm always kind of looking at those that is out there in my business that doesn't feel aligned anymore. But on a regular basis, if you just feel a little dragged down by the day to day of your business, it may be time to like step back and say, "Am I offering these things I want to be offering? Am I doing what I want to be doing? Am I doing them in the ways that I want to do them?" And then, "is that being reflected on my website?" You may feel a shift energetically because something's just off. If you find yourself looking forward more towards the weekend than you are being in the business or working with clients, it's probably time to say, "where am I feeling of misalignment? Why is that dragging my energy down?" There's certainly that moment. The other moment, I think is when we see these kind of bigger world pivots, these bigger changes happening in the world, and then we have to shift because of them. During quarantine, I've been paying a lot of attention to some of the marketing reports that have come out and how customers and clients are investing, especially because their values and the reasons behind it are changing. This helps me get a better insight into my people as a whole. I think it's important to talk to past clients on a regular basis and to get a sense of if something is going on that I need to be aware of. It's best to be listening and aware of it now, then find yourself on the other side of it, in some degree, similar to not being relevant in the right ways anymore. You probably want to be out there to serve and create with people, but you have to listen to what they want. These are the times of change in the world, so stop and be like, "am I offering something that just doesn't make sense today?" You may be offering in-person workshops, which doesn't really work well during a pandemic, and you may need to stop, change that and think about online. "Is this something that people would be interested in online? Or is there something different that I can offer?" But if you're not going to do it on a schedule, I always say end of year is great, but pay attention to your energy and to what's happening around you.
Michele 22:04
I love that. At the end of every year, I do some of that and even go back to say, "who are my ideal clients? What is my ideal service and package offering? Do they still excite me? Yes, not just do they excite the client, but do they excite me? Am I looking forward to offering that? Do I feel energized and excited? And do I gain energy or am I totally expending energy and then feel drained?" There's a difference, because I'm always expending energy, but do I feel drained or do I feel excited at the end of that? Do I look forward to selling another one or do I hope I never sell another of that? All of those things, even with my offerings of courses, when I used to do a lot of online webinars and training, I go back and look at my whole training list and ask myself, if I never taught that again, would I be okay? Or do I still have this kind of burning desire that saying, I still want to do that. I started listening to myself, because as we're building our businesses, our products, our offerings, our ideal client, all those things start shifting and changing. The more we know, the more we do. We find out what we love what we don't love so much. I had not, at the beginning, given myself permission to take some things off of my plate and offering list while I was putting new things on. I ended up having this like, long wide list of 5000 things that I did to serve people, which meant that like every 10 minutes I was shifting to a new way to engage with a client, and it was exhausting. I made a big shift back in January of this year to say this is I'm going to engage one way I might meet with clients, more one on one and more group, but I'm going down one path. And that one path is the only way that I'm going and it has energized and excited me, because I'm having some of the same conversations with multiple people and I'm moving people forward faster in one direction. But it really took giving myself permission to shift and change some things. Brandi, we're talking about it as if it may lend itself to some people thinking, "oh, well, that's just so easy." It's not always an easy shift, is it?
Brandi Bernoskie 24:17
No, it isn't. Especially when you love helping people, taking things off your plate and saying, "I don't do that", is really, really difficult. Because I know how to do that and I could help someone and do that, but at the same time, it's not what energizes me and frankly, it's not where my genius work is. It's where someone else's genius work is, though. Maybe it's better to do a referral in that scenario. It just is it's I feel like it's kind of like a really deep rumbling inside of you, "do I do it? Do I not do it? What's the best path forward?" And you have to give yourself this profound level of permission, to say no to what doesn't serve you.
Michele 25:00
I now recognize it in myself. The first couple of times it happened, I didn't recognize it. I think there was this guilt over I'm doing something, as you mentioned, that somebody else really wants and I'm being paid for it, but goodness, I just am not loving it. I love the person. I love our interaction, but I'm not loving this. I don't want to keep selling this and then there's a guilt effect that comes in for me. So that personal permission to sit back and say, "it could have been my genius, then. And it could still be my genius, but it's not the genius that I want to put out into the world right now." It's not the billboard that I want to put out right now. It's not what I want to be known for right now. Instead to be known for more of what I want to be known for, I'm going to have to remove the distractions.
Brandi Bernoskie 25:54
Yeah, that's exactly it. It's a very conscious decision to make to step into that and it's scary sometimes, because in some ways you sometimes feel like what I'm leaving this past success behind. But that's part of the growth and the evolution of being a business owner, is being able to step into those places where you can really be in your fullness and bigness, and leave some things off.
Michele 26:20
Great point there. I went through this just recently in January. Not all of the clients are going to be happy, when you take an offering off the table. I understand that would be like me going to my favorite restaurant to have my favorite meal and they take it off the menu. But if you're willing to try some of the other things on the menu, you may see that you're getting even more than what you thought you wanted or needed to serve you in a much deeper and a much better way. Really knowing your brand and being able to message, the shift and the change in a way that's positive and in a way that continues to move you forward but also released That idea that we have to be all things to all people and that we have to solve everybody else's issues, because we can do it for the short term. But I would suggest that long term, it becomes so draining, that it's difficult to continue moving forward with excitement and are at some point, our clients are going to recognize that we're not as jazzed about the conversation.
Brandi Bernoskie 27:27
Yeah, they can absolutely tell when you're in your genius work to and when your energy is fully present and in creating with them.
Michele 27:35
You and I are both certified in the Fix This Next approach. It's one thing for us to help other people determine what to fix next and their business, but when we have to sit down and kind of go through the assessment, to go through those questions that we have with Fix This Next, and I've had Mike on where we've talked about that recently, it really does help bring clarity to what do I need to fix in my own business right now. Sometimes we have to go all the way back to the bottom of the hierarchy to sales and go, "I'm not even selling the thing I want to be selling."
Brandi Bernoskie 28:09
Oh, this is so true. The Fix This Next model is so fantastic. Just because of the way it breaks down things. And one of the things I regularly do on a day to day basis is keeping a note of where something may have felt off, or something that didn't work, or a miscommunication because they really help inform me to go back into the into the model and saying, "okay, hey, I'm seeing a lot of this. Let me go back to the foundation. Let me see what I can clean up here or address here." Then move on to the systems because this is not static. You don't put perfect systems into place and everyone excellent because they keep them perfectly and all of your clients do exactly what they're supposed to do, as part of the process. This is something that you have to refine over time and part of the refinement comes from the awareness of, "I'm not selling what I need to be selling," or there's an opportunity to try something new. Then I'm going to run an experiment a little bit to see if offering this service is good and kind of building from there. I find myself going back to all different levels at different points, or I just recently went back into my sales process to tweak it a little bit because I feel like I've got the beginning part down and the proposal part, but the follow up that it's just never felt 100% grounded to me. So I am finding out what can I do and I played with that a little bit.
Michele 29:32
That is such a great idea. I know that in my coaching practice, I'm constantly asking my clients notes of when something doesn't work with a vendor or make notes when something's broken in your process. But I love the idea of making notes when your gut or just that energy, even just that thought and feeling of something's not quite right. Kind of capturing that thought and recognizing it, then giving it enough voice by writing it down. Here's what I was doing when this happened, or here's something I want to go look at so that later you can make a conscious decision. Was I just off that day? Or is there something really about that process or that item or whatever that task is that you were doing. To give that feeling for lack of a better word, some voice because it is there. It's providing a warning or some insight that we most likely need to step back and look at when we have time to really think about it or investigate it, even if it's just to think about it and let it go.
Brandi Bernoskie 30:40
Yeah, and this recently came up, I was actually in a sales process with the client and something kept feeling off. And I was questioning myself, that's where I kind of went first. As we went through the process, I realized that there was actually something off in the client's business. They needed to address that before I could work with them. It was not a good fit right now, because there was some foundational things that they needed to work within their own business in order for us to build the level of success that they saw for themselves.
Michele 31:22
For the designers and the window treatment specialist and everybody else who's listening, all business owners have this, we sometimes can call it your gut. You might think of it as that inner voice. However we define what that feeling is when something just feels off. We may call it red flags. I got a couple of red flags. Pink flags is what we laugh about, because sometimes they're kind of red, but not quite sure. We want to trust ourselves, but we don't. It's harder Brandi for sure when we can't identify exactly what it is in that moment. When I start feeling those, if I cannot really define what it is, then I have started telling myself to slow down because it gives my brain whether I'm forcing it or is doing it in the background processing automatically. It starts to kind of work it out kind of like what you were saying why I started to realize this isn't a problem with me but it is something with their business foundation. But when we go too fast, we push through those thoughts and those feelings as if they don't matter, or we're trying to almost talk ourselves out of them for some reason, we break our own processes and we step over because we, "ignore the red flags". Then usually we find ourselves in some type of a situation that's less than positive. With me, I've started to realize, even if I can't find it in the moment, whatever process you're in, slow down enough to give yourself a chance. Ask a few extra questions. Dig a little bit deeper. Don't try to get to the finish line so quickly, so that you can start to kind of tease out what's really causing you that aches in the moment. Have you found other strategies outside of writing them down, which I love. I'm going to start doing it and slowing down to give yourself time to breathe through it and think through it. Have you found anything else?
Brandi Bernoskie 33:26
I love slowing down. I think that's been a big one for me and my team as a whole, just in all of our processes, we've been moving, just a little more slowly. The other kind of part of my routine, that's always great is I do Sunday reflection. Every Sunday, I have this document, which is based on something that a previous business coach gave me. And one of the questions on this document is what challenge am I experiencing? What is it calling me into, because every challenge we have is calling us into something is teaching you something. And I find that the reflection and perspective shift is not just a reflection on what are the challenges I'm experiencing right now. I list them all out and tackle them, but also, what is it it asking of you? It has been a really useful tool. I do it in a whole week chunk as opposed to just a day or moment.
Michele 34:36
It takes it out of the task. And you can look at it in a larger view, like a step up.
Brandi Bernoskie 34:42
Yeah. And also what were the little things that just kind of bugged me but then I can let that one go. Versus, "ooh, no, this is this is something that that really does need to shift in a more significant way." It helps me see it from a different perspective.
Michele 35:01
That's a great question. Back in January, when I finally made recognized what I needed to do and how I needed to shift, it had been months coming. In hindsight, there had been months where I kept thinking, "I don't want to keep doing this the same way I'm doing it. Yes, it is successful, but I'm not. I'm not energized. I am looking to the weekend. I am looking for something out there." I felt this drive in me to do more than what I was kind of allowing myself to do in my business, and I kind of felt I was being held back, as if I was being restrained. Then I sat down and thought about, I love the question, "what challenge am I experiencing?" Then when recognizing what the challenge was, I knew what it was asking me to be honest, and I was scared to do it. But pushing through that fear is what gets you to the next place, the next challenge then the next fear and by then you think you're living. When I made the decision in my head, then move the decision to my heart and created the messaging around the decision, everything became clear. Everything fell in place. Was it easy? No, it wasn't necessary. Yes, and I'm so much happier. This year, I feel like my joy has been restored. My passion is better, restored, and all of that is to pull us back to the place where we started. That was me having to go in and make changes on my website, I've made changes in some of my marketing materials and in the blogs. I've made changes in my podcast. I've made changes in everything. I'm in the process of making more changes on my website, because I've gotten even more clarity over the last couple of months. So then, all of that kind of that deep work of just going through "What is the challenge? What is it asking me, what am I going to do? How am I going to do it?" has led me back into as you mentioned at the at the start of our call, going back in and looking at things again. I couldn't leave my website, because even though I had just changed it last year and I have to change it again, there was a shift and if I didn't, then I'm not inviting them into my business. I would be giving them a different product from when they get the door. Nobody wants to walk into the Chinese restaurant to eat pizza, because that feels weird. That would happen when we don't keep it all aligned all the way through from who we are to what we do, to who we serve, how we serve, and then how we show up in the world.
Brandi Bernoskie 37:44
Yeah, I think it really is kind of a repeated realignment and not all shifts require more extensive realignment work, but some of them do. It's important to take that time so that you are setting the expectations and you are rethinking the experience to make sure that you don't walk into a Chinese restaurant and end up with a pizza box there.
Michele 38:08
When I've been sitting in my desk because I have a very sedentary sit on zoom calls, have conversations and I can tell when my physical alignment gets out. I can tell when my hip is out. I can tell when I've got a rib that's pushing the wrong way, then I need to go to the chiropractor. I know that he needs to put my body back into alignment. When I start to feel it, it's just a little bit of an irritant, but I also know that sometimes when I'm not paying attention to my body, I start getting a headache, and that's usually because my neck is out. But I don't always realize it because I'm so focused on so many other things. Then then I wonder why have I had a headache for three days. So when I go to the chiropractor, it is a much more intensive amount of work that needs to be done. It's usually has to be massage or it can even be so much more. Whereas if I had been aware and had gone immediately, I only need a lot less, and it could have been a lot quicker also, I would have saved myself three days of a headache. Maybe I would have had a one-day headache, and it would have been over. I think the same thing happens in our business. The longer for us to learn to recognize when it starts to get out of alignment, which is nice to have those metrics, that questioning which is the Sunday reflection. It is something that prompts you to think and acknowledge it, so that you have to bring it into your awareness. Then you can do a pre-decision of how you're going to handle it. Also so that you don't have to stop and argue with yourself. "What should I do? Should I not?" You'll say, "no, I've promised myself when I'm out of alignment, I am going to the chiropractor. Well, in my business, I promised myself that I'm going to give it voice which is to acknowledge it and make other steps of talking to somebody or working it out or whatever. Not to just stuffing it down and ignoring it then having a three-day business headache afterwards.
Brandi Bernoskie 40:16
Yeah, that's a really great analogy. What I think about metrics is it also prompts you to think, "maybe what else is even out there?" If the website's not working, I always tell my clients, "if you like going to your website, that's probably a problem." Especially when you don't want to go there because you need a lot to change, so it's probably time to make some updates, because you're not getting the right sorts of increase, purchase,s or connections happening through your website, then it's time to take a look. It could be just something's that is hidden for the user. You really need to think about how the layout is a little bit. There's a there's a couple of different kind gauges that you can use without getting in too deep into this, i.e. opening a Google Analytics board and crunch all the numbers,
Michele 41:12
I've had clients before, their business was slowing down, and they were having some issues. Turned out it came all the way back to the fact that they hated their logo. Believe it or not, that they've never been been thrilled and proud to put their logo out there. That little kind of hitch internalized and became a lack of confidence in putting themselves out there because when they put themselves out there, they had to put out their hated logo and they didn't want to put it on the door. They didn't want to advertise. They didn't want to wear a shirt with their logo on it. I mean, we just beginning to understand, but they had never thought that their broken confidence and lack of ability to sell was rooted at the core of how they represented their company visually. So once we changed the logo to the one they loved, the business exploded, but they had never stopped and really asked themselves do I love the way that I'm visually represented and did it impact the business.This happened when we used to use business cards and it impacted their website and everything. I don't even think they realized how much that one thing of dislike had a trickle effect into everything else that they did.
Brandi Bernoskie 42:35
Yeah, that's a really fantastic example I think of just how one little element can be so influential. I remember when I first started doing some speaking on stage and just getting the right outfit and shoes, particularly because you feel it transforms how you stand and how you show up. So having those pieces in place and knowing that you've got what you need to show up, be fully yourself, be proud of what you have to offer, share it, and show it to the world really makes a big difference. No doubt.
Michele 43:19
So Brandi, in our last few minutes together, I would really love to hear a little bit more about how you came to join up with story brand and how you use that to solve all of these issues and problems. How did you talk about with your clients so tell us because I love Story Brand. I love Donald Miller. I get all of his newsletters and he's done some things with Mike Michalowicz and I've enjoyed that. I love the methodology behind that. So share a little bit about what drew you to it and then how you use it.
Brandi Bernoskie 43:57
I became Story Brand, certified about three years ago. I remember as I was reading the book, it was January and it was the first book on my reading list for January. Then I had that moment of, "oh my gosh. This is exactly why I've felt off with some of the sites I've built recently." So my team and I, we primarily build stuff, we designed some too but we have some design partners. Yet I kind of started feeling like something's off here in the website world and I couldn't put my finger on it exactly. The story brand framework really is all about shifting you from role of hero to the role of guide. So it takes your clients and customers and makes them the hero. So it's not like, "Hi, my name is Brandi. I develop websites and I'm going to save you from all the bad stuff out there." As a whole, we're not looking for saviors really, we're looking to become the hero. The story brand framework positions you as the business owner and as the guide where you are helping in the transformation of your client. Think about it, when we invest, when we buy things, whether it's a gym membership or really great bit of cheese for cheese party or something like that.
Michele 45:30
or that outfit that you talked about to walk on.
Brandi Bernoskie 45:33
Yes, what we're doing is we're really investing in future vision of success for ourselves. We've created the best cheese party ever and everyone loves it. Ot you've been toned up and stronger than you were before. Or more confident because we're in a really comfortable outfit on stage. We buy things because we have this idea for ourselves. It's like, "oh, if I have this mug, then I can hold it in this particular way." When I'm on calls, people will see me and say, "oh, that's a great mug and we'll have this conversation." We create these great little storylines of connection, of success for ourselves. That's really what the story brand framework helps you do is as a business owner. You getting into what's happening for your clients and customers? What do they want? "I can say, yes, people want a website, but you want more than a website really, you want clarity, you want confidence." So it's really diving deep into like, their psyche, what they want, what their internal struggles are, what their external struggles may be as well. How you are going to guide them. Why you are a great guide for them and helping anchor them to a future vision of success for themselves. I will say, every client I do this work with starts to see a transformation in their business because now when people land on their site, it's not like, "hi, my name is so and so. And this is what I do." Instead, the person who's visiting will be, "okay, well what's in this for me." You're automatically connecting with them and telling them what's in it for them. You can express the message of, "you're going to have more time with your family. You're going to make more money. You're going to be happier. When you get up every day, you get up knowing what you have to do." That keeps people engaged because they want that for themselves as well. So I think it shifts us out of the old framework of websites as calling cards that are all about you with your degrees or specialties or certifications. Instead more into what's in it for the person who's coming to you. That's really what it's about. It's helping them see what's in it for themselves, because that's what's going to help them make the decision to work with you. I love the framework. I really I encourage people to buy the book and work through it or take the workshops. The workshops are fantastic, and they've been doing a lot online now since they can't do them in person. It just it gets you into your business and into the minds of the people that you're working with in a different way.
Michele 48:24
It is so good. I loved he uses the analogy of Arowana. Like in Star Wars and Yoda being the guy who is not trying to take over and be the hero. Luke was the hero. He was helping Luke learn to be the hero. He was guiding and he was supporting him. No matter who we are, especially in the service industry, I remember thinking a long time ago, similar to my business coach, Mike, "I won't be on the front cover of a magazine unless it's a coaching magazine." So for me, I'm not going to be on the front cover of an interior design magazine. I am the one who's behind these designers who are on the front cover of the magazine. My job is to help them get that position not for me to take that position. Maybe on the coaching side, I might get it right because that's us showing our own stuff. That's not who I am. The goal is not for me to have a client that has to stay with me forever, for me to be the one in front of them to their client. It's to empower them to take that role and to feel more confident in their role. For example, they're the really cute dress that makes them feel great. My clients, the designers and the workplace, they're helping their clients feel great in their space. So the designer is not the hero, the space and the client are, or their client is the hero. It was just a good mind shift. Especially when we think about as we started the conversation, our websites kind of began as a yellow page ad and now there is the psychology behind it. It has shifted and we need to shift with it. I did think that the framework was very easy to follow. The way he kind of stepped you through it in the book and being able to, like you said, get into the mind of our clients and what they need and what transformation they're looking for. Also back to where you said earlier, we're not just trying to sell someone else, we don't want to be transactional, we want to be transformational. That ties back into the hierarchy of needs, where we start talking about the top two levels of impact and legacy. We're trying to build a transformation, not just a one-off transaction.
Brandi Bernoskie 50:45
Yeah. It's so rewarding to be part of that too. When you start to see your clients transform by working with you regardless of what that is. I also think right now, because so much has happened in the world and because our world feels so different for the moment, this is a great time for people to either have a brand script to revisit their brand script using story brand and said, hey, are the things that most people still want the same? Are there new things that maybe they never thought that they needed before because things have changed. Parents who now have kids at home for school doing schoolwork at the table, does your space need to be changed because of the way that life has changed. Soit's just a wonderful framework and just by revisiting it on a regular basis is great to reconnect. To say, "hey, well, what my people will be thinking about? What or where they might be struggling with or on? Maybe there are new external problems that they face because they can't get to the store like they used to. You can really be at the forefront of providing them those solutions and helping them through these times.
Michele 52:05
The timing is great to do that. I did a prior podcast and I'll connect it in shownotes called Pivot to Prosper. The thought behind that is, this is the perfect time if you need to pivot. Everybody's expecting it in some ways, businesses have to make some changes to do business in better ways. We don't want to let the time pass us just because we didn't look at it. People kind of expecting us to maybe be a bit more innovative or to try different things right now. Embrace that, and go ahead. Let it work to your advantage instead of ignoring it then changing later when it doesn't kind of feel as natural to those that are looking to engage with us. Where's a good place to tell everybody where we can find you? Where do you hang out, and how we can get in touch?
Brandi Bernoskie 52:53
So the best and easiest way to get in touch with me is through my website, alchemyandaim.com. Go to the contact form that comes straight to me. I'm still looking at those and responding to everyone to make sure that people get whatever they need. I'm also on Instagram @Brandibernowski. Very simple.
Michele 53:20
Yep, that's awesome, and I'll have all of that in the show notes so everybody can get to you, Bandi. I really enjoyed talking to you today. I love that we think about things so similarly in a lot of ways, and I love everything that you're doing. I just really appreciate you taking the time to share your expertise and your knowledge with my listeners.
Brandi Bernoskie 53:40
Absolutely. It's just been such a pleasure to have these conversations with you today.
Michele 53:45
Thank you, Brandi for sharing with us today. I'm excited to start a Sunday reflection time to lean into the challenges a bit more with intention. I thought that was a great suggestion for all of us. My Aim with Intent program offers the same type of reflective opportunity to identify what's working and not working for your company. It's my goal to assist you in scaling your business by looking at your team, your processes, your money management, and helping set a clear strategy for your business. You can find out more or take my free masterclass by going to www.ScarletThreadConsulting.com/landing-page-aim-masterclass. Be intentional with every decision because profit doesn't happen by accident.