Ep 41 Transcript: Crafting Brand Messages That Convert With Deb Mitchell

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today I have a very special guest joining me. Listen up, listeners. You are absolutely going to love this one. This is going to get you really pumped up for the new year, getting your brand messaging on track, because I've got joining me today Deb Mitchell of Deb Mitchell Writing, she is a she creates brand messaging. She creates message copies she's worked with.

clients that have been featured in major publications like House Beautiful, Dwell, Traditional Home, Better Homes and Gardens. And she works specifically really with interior designers. So I know there's a lot of creatives that are listening to this podcast, but don't worry if you're not a creative, I can promise you the messages that you're going to hear today are absolutely going to be very relatable, very easy to implement. And I can't wait for you to hear everything that she's got to say because this woman knows her stuff. So Deb, welcome.

Shauna Lynn, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk to you. I know we've had this conversation that a lot of our sort of philosophies around messaging are very similar and aligned. And so I'm super excited to chat with you about all of this and share some good valuable stuff with your audience. oh absolutely. And I know anytime I talk to you, I always learn something new as well. So despite the fact that, I'm you you're preaching to the choir here when it comes to me. At the same time, I know there's so much goodness in all that you're going to be sharing today.

And I want to start by just giving people a little bit of a background as to your journey. So what got you into and do you consider yourself a copywriter? Cause I know you're more about brand messaging, brand strategy. What exactly would you say is sort of your rule? Well, I mean, that is the million dollar question for me. you know, do it great for my clients, but to describe myself is a struggle. So, and I'm in the

throws of that struggle right now trying to really find exactly how to describe it because I really am so much more than a copywriter, even though that is at the core of what I do. And the implementation of the writing deliverables is what my clients ultimately need from me. What I really, really do the problem that I mainly solve for my clients is I help get them in the room with the right

clients for them, the clients who are going to value them, the clients who are going to pay them what they're worth, the clients who are going to not micromanage them and make them cry on a daily basis, right? The clients who are going to feel like family. And that's different for all of us, right? As we work so closely with our clientele, whether, whatever we do in our creative professional fields,

we typically do have that heart and soul kind of work that we do with our clients. So all this to say the heart of everything, I'm a copywriter, but brand strategy and even elements of coaching and mindset get wrapped into what I do with my clients to make that copy deliverable, actually work hard for them to put out the welcome mat for those perfect fit clients for them.

Right. And I'm going to dig into that a little bit more in just a moment, but I kind of want to just like, just stay on the topic of the fact that you are struggling with your own identity and how to present yourself to others. And I mean, I think that a lot of, you're an interior designer listening to this, you're probably looking around your own home and being like, yep, I can do this for other clients, but I have zero desire to do it for myself, or I don't have the energy to do it for myself. but aside from that, sometimes you're just too close to it.

And what I think is really interesting about this too is that I think that sometimes clients think that it's just wave a magic wand and decide on like, here, I am X. And then you get started in your business and you start realizing what that actually looks like. What, to your point of like, what is the problem you are actually solving? We can call ourselves interior designers all that we want and we are, absolutely. But what is the problem that we're solving? It doesn't mean that your title on your business card has to change for being interior designer.

but how you present what you do to your client might change. So, and sometimes it takes, you know, a little bit of playing around with things until you find like this one thing that like, that's what's got people really, you know, perking up, listening, understanding, clicking, you're watching the light bulbs go off when you're telling them. And so if you haven't found that yet, then you're just still figuring out what it is. And this is where you come in. And again, you can do it for your clients.

Absolutely. And yeah, I mean, what you're talking about is the differentiators, those key things that are, yes, again, overarchingly, you're an interior designer or you're a muralist or you're a stage or whatever that big thing is. But underneath that, what makes you different from other interior designers and other stages and other muralists. And those are kind of those nuggets that I work with my clients to really

dig up and uncover. And oftentimes, Shauna Lynn, what's funny, and you probably know this with your clients too, is there are things that that person, that our clients would just skip over and not think they have value. It's something that comes to them intuitively, and they just don't even think that it's something that needs to be highlighted because they're like, well, but that's just how I am. Well, that's exactly though what your ideal client is looking for.

So it's the exact thing you need to highlight in your messaging and spotlight and splash it all over your website and your social media so that they know you are the interior designer who whatever. Yeah, like it's something that comes naturally. It's that skill set. That's just like, it's easy for them essentially. But also though, further to that, the way you're saying, well, they need to splash that over the place, but in a way that's going to identify like why it matters to the person. I mean, like, so for example, as an interior designer,

One thing that my team and I are known for is we're very systems and processes driven, which means that the project is going to run smoothly. So instead of saying we're systems and processes driven, because no one's looking for the interior designer that's got other systems in place. So we could advertise the fact that we're going to make your project go smoothly. But if you've never done an interior design project or renovation project and had it go wrong, you don't even know what that looks like.

So instead we have to kind of identify what the pain could be and what we're taking away. And I'll admit, we're still working on our messaging for our interior design site. You might be getting a call from me in the future. But when we talk about like, we'll take stress away. We're going to make it easy and kind of figure out like, are the words that are really hitting with people? I mean, I think most people will find like, if you start saying that you're budget friendly, all of a sudden that phone's ringing. But are you bringing in the people that you actually want to work with? And I love that you talked about that as well.

just being able to ensure that you're connecting your clients with their ideal clients. The people who, to your point, are not going to cause the headaches or who are going to make things easy for them. And everyone's idea of an ideal client varies, though I will say there's a lot of similarities when it comes to interior design. We all want the person who's just like, just do it all. person who's trusting. And tell me when I need to pay something and I'll write you a check, I'll cash it, whatever it is, nice and easily.

But that said, though, like you have to really understand who your ideal client is and what that all looks like in order to identify that. So what is the process that you go through with your clients to kind of, or let me back this up. Is that step one when you were with the client? Is it the ideal client at step one or where do you start? The ideal client is we're exploring that all throughout the process. But really step one is, as you mentioned, the problem,

speed bump that these people would be hitting is, I'm too close to this. Like, I can't even see what's important and what's not important. And it's like they're inside the jar trying to read the label to get to their messaging, right? It's just not going to happen. So step one is really, we got to get all of that out of their head. So step one is a phase that I call message level up. And it's just a conversation with me and

that client and we're, you know, I'm asking them questions about things about where they've been, where they're trying to go, what's working, what's not working, what's, you know, what kind of clients make them sad? What kind of clients make them happy and light them up? What, you know, what they're trying to create, even stage of life kind of questions, because that, you know, a season of life for us really matters in terms of what we need to create in our businesses. If, you know,

you're in a season of life where you have small kids that you you have certain hours when you can work and they're different hours than normal sort of office hours. We need to think about that and how are we going to message that in, you know, your website copy to where it's not a turnoff like, I'm so super busy and I'll fit you in around everything, but more like, you know, oh hey, you know, I can relate to my busy family clientele.

and hit all the pain points in your home and design a home that works for you. And I'm gonna do that in a way that's smooth and seamless and that kind of thing. Right. So that's really, step one is really understanding what your goals are for your business, for your life. And a huge part of that, yes, is the ideal client, but it's also you. We're really trying to find this

matrix, this sort of intersection of where who you are, and you being authentic to yourself, where does that meet with those idle clients and what they're looking for and what they want and need. And then also, even looking at the market in your area, and okay, you know, so those people, do they exist within, for example, the, you know, renovation projects that you really want to do? If they don't, that's another issue. And we'll talk about that.

We'll figure something out. We figure something out. But we really have to dig deep. And there is a lot of business strategy around what I do as well. Because it's useless if I give you messaging that just sounds really great and that's kind of pie in the sky and that's not going to help you meet your goals. I want your messaging to do the work for you of helping actually attract clients that actually exist in your actual service area to get you paid.

Yes. Yeah. And I mean, there's a few things that you said there, you know, that really resonated with me. And, and one of them is even just the fact that you're talking about having a conversation with your clients about this, because I'll admit, you know, in my program, I've got worksheets to help my clients to, you know, do, I call it the messaging brainstorming or the brain dump and kind of, you know, it's asking a lot of probing type questions and similar to probably the questions that you're asking, but it's different when you're having a conversation. I'll admit even my clients that have

a team that works with them that gets their entire team involved in completing these worksheets tends to come out a bit stronger in their messaging because they've got sort of multifaceted ideas. And I think some of that also comes from just having a conversation rather than just typing down your ideas because you can think faster when you're speaking than you can if you're trying to write or type something. And they'll get caught up when they're writing or typing of trying to like get that catch phrase or that tagline in there.

and get the wording just perfect. It's like, no, no, I just need the ideas. just like, just, just dump it. Just dump all the thoughts of like exactly, like you said, where is the business going? What are the clients that you're looking to work with? What is their biggest problem? What are the clients that you love? What are the clients that you hated? And like, let's get real with all of this. But it's, you know, I love that you're having an actual conversation with them because I'm sure there's just so much that gets pulled out.

I know in my conversation with my clients, like it's amazing the things that we can pull out just by conversation. I mean, this is why therapy end of having these revelations, right? Like it works. Yes. And they, mean, it's funny, a couple of things about that. They, most of my clients end up saying, my gosh, this felt like therapy. Like, whew, my shoulders went down. Like, I feel like I'm not alone in this anymore. Right. but this was, it was sort of the result that you're talking about and getting all this goodness out in this conversation and them feeling better.

was sort of an accidental occurrence. I last January shifted my services into a model that's more of an intensive model. I wanted to be able to deliver their writing, you know, products more quickly and not have all the unnecessary back and forth where I give them the homework of here, look at what I wrote and give me the feedback. So I changed the way I do things. And one of the things I changed is I took out my big long questionnaire.

and my big long questionnaire got replaced with this conversation. And I didn't even realize how it was going to change the answers that I got. Interesting. And it has been fascinating to see. I am getting such better answers out of them. Like, I didn't even realize, you know, I knew writing, they would often say, it's hard, you know, well, that's okay. We'll have a discussion about that later if you can't answer the question in the questionnaire. So we would have a conversation anyway.

But I'm just eliminating all of that heavy lifting for them and making it a free flow. And not to mention the follow-up questions that I can ask in a conversation. Right. Right. get us to what we really need to get to. So. Yeah. And I mean, and I also love the fact that you're just touching just a smidge on a process there. Like sometimes changing your process, it's amazing the different results that you can get. But the other thing that you were mentioning earlier though in talking about, you know, creating that sort of their identity as well.

and what is that they want to look like and looking around like what's around their area and what other people doing and you know, even just like getting inspiration from others is fantastic, but I see it happen all too often where you were talking about the authenticity of it and I will have clients say like, well, I see this person doing this and that looks really good. Well, is that the kind of thing you want to do? Well, I don't know if I can do that and I don't really like doing like maybe they're doing kitchen the best. I don't really like doing bathrooms, but I like the look that they're creating overall. Like it's nice and airy, but.

You know, my clients tend to be in more farmhouses. So it's a little bit more rustic looking like, okay, well then you can't take that as inspiration for your brand. If that's not what you're doing. Listening to conversations with my clients. We have the same conversations. Yes. All the time. Yeah. All the time. No. So, I mean, I think, like all of this though comes back to where we started this conversation is your brand message. if you're not getting enough business or enough of the right business.

It's your brand message. It does not matter how pretty the photos are that you put on a social media. It doesn't matter even like how good the navigation on your website is or what's in your portfolio. It's you need to have the right brand message. It's what what people are going to be thinking of when they discover you when they remember you. That is all incorporated into that brand messaging and it's all about who you are. Thank you for saying it. It's so true. It's so true. And LuAnn Nigara says it too like yeah.

Yeah, if you're getting the wrong people, you're either confusing them and giving mixed brand messages, which that happens very often. Of course, yeah. you're kind of giving what I would consider kind of a generic vanilla brand message. Like, you replaced your name with any other designer. Right. I create beautiful livable designs. Yeah, so does everybody else. Everybody else. And I also know that LuAnn also says this.

You know, especially in interior design and I love all of you interior designers out there. Trust me again. I am an interior designer myself, so I get all of this. But when someone asks you how your process works or what it looks like to work with you, do not answer. Well, it depends because I gotta tell you. LuAnn's always about this. She's like, listen.

I don't care, you're not special. it's, it doesn't, like at the end of the day, there is a process that you're following. There are commonalities to everything that you're doing. And it doesn't matter if they're doing a kitchen renovation, a basement renovation, add an addition on the house or do an exterior work. At the end of the day, the service you're providing is going to be executed in the same manner. And that is a big part of who you are. So this comes back to your brand messaging. You know, when, when you're saying like, well,

For this client, did this, but then this was completely different over here. So let's say your portfolio has 16 different looks to it. That means that you are very versatile in being able to incorporate your client's design style. You don't have to narrow that down to your own design style, but now how do we, how are we communicating that? And if you do have the same look all across the board, then don't try to market yourself as doing rustic and industrial when you're actually more eclectic than anything else. Like, I mean, come on.

Yeah, I mean, it can be challenging though. I will give the caveat that I understand sometimes a designer is kind of stuck in the middle of like, I'm not quite getting the projects yet that I want to get. And so my portfolio doesn't yet match what I'm trying to attract. Then what do they do? So then we try to do a couple things to kind of, you know, we might gudge the portfolio or some of the decorative images with

you know, like create some flat lays that are a little more aligned with the aesthetic you're trying to create, right? Still your images, still your images. I don't recommend stock photos. Of course. You know, somehow mix that kind of thing in there. But also, you know, bridging the words and we may even need to remove some of the past projects, right? Yeah. If they're really not aligned, right? Most of you should.

be removing some sort of projects from your portfolio. But then, you know, then we play with the messaging and truly that's another reason why, you know, hire a pro because it's a complicated question. There's no easy way to do that. And there is a way, but there's no easy way. Like I can't even give you an example off the top of my head because it's a thinker. And it would take some copywriting magic, you know, still to do that.

And I mean, I think that we're also in such a time of, there's so much opportunity out there for hiring freelancers and subs for the odd thing here and there. But what ends up happening is you end up with this mismatch of things where like I have, I do have a freelancer. I've got a couple of freelancers on Fiverr that I use for producing some collateral occasionally, but I am so clear on my messaging. They get my brand document that has the guidelines of how to use my colors, the verbiage.

everything, the fonts, the works, but it's not just about like, did they get the colors and the fonts right? Did they get the messaging right? So there are certain things that I can have them produce, but I'm, I'm spoon feeding them a whole lot of it. But what ends up, see a lot of people happening. Well, I had this person do my postcard and this other person did my website. And then this person over here did a brochure for me, but my business cards were done by this local guy. And like all of it just doesn't connect. It doesn't align. And so if you're trying to, and

you know, part of me for saying this, but if you're trying to cheap out essentially and you know, kind of mishmash all this stuff together, or maybe you've been trying to do it yourself. If you're not getting it right, it's because you're not a marketer. Most entrepreneurs are not marketers. And this is where you got to bring in a professional. The money that you invest in getting your brand strategy nailed down is going to pay for itself tenfold in the work that you're going to get.

You're going to spend less time spinning your wheels. You're going to spend less time questioning whether or not you're doing the right thing. And you're work with a pro who actually knows what they're doing. I'm so glad you said all that, Shauna Lynn, because my experience with interior designers is that they are very hard on themselves about not being able to nail their messaging. And they're like, I don't understand. And even, I have a lot of like, okay, this is my second career and I was a marketer.

And I don't understand why I can't do it. Well, again, inside the jar trying to read the label. All kinds of different reasons why that is difficult, if not impossible to do yourself. let me just let you all off the hook. If you're finding that it's not hitting, what you're doing isn't working, it's not hitting, it's not you. It's not that you're deficient somehow. Again, I've been doing this for almost 10 years and I've

trained extensively and I have a ton of experience and like what you do is your thing. This is my thing and it's my craft and I've honed it. You're not supposed to hone the craft of your messaging. That's just not what you got into this to do. So it's okay. And I also just want to say, speaking to the brand messaging, brand messaging is not one or two little pieces.

of messaging. It is a whole depth of talking points about your brand. And when you talked about the document that you use, you know, so there's can be some cohesion. I, when I create brand messaging, which is actually step two for my clients, we create a document of brand messaging. That's usually a 15 to 20 page document and it's handling all different areas of their business. So it's talking points about

who your ideal clients are, what your differentiators are, what your brand describing vocabulary is for both your aesthetic and the service experience that you provide. So what kind of words do you use? What kinds of words don't you use? What kinds of brand values represent you? But also all of this is not like,

theoretical or inside voice or just for your team, it all has to be spun. And you said this earlier to, to make sense to your ideal clients. So it has that marketing spin to it. So that is, you know, a document that, just has, has legs for my clients that they say is so valuable. it used, again, changing my process. It used to be something I would create for myself, like, okay, I need these pieces.

these building blocks before I write their website copy or before I create their whatever. And one day I just went, oh my gosh, they need this. What am I doing? yeah. I mean, that tool, that resource, like I am so glad that you just shared all of that because that's exactly it. I love what you said about brand messaging is not like one or two pieces. It's the entire, it's encompassing your entire brand, the entire strategy, the everything that from the look to the messaging.

All of that is incorporated within that. And if you're not getting it nailed down and if you're not clear on it or if you're changing it, you are going to confuse your clients and you're not going to be attracting the right clients. I also like what you said earlier though about, because I think this is a really important point to go back to just about the fact that if you, if you're not getting the right clients right now, it can be a challenge for you to make that shift to get the right clients. But I don't want people to get discouraged by that.

Does it mean there's some work involved? Yes, but again, this is also where we're going to with a professional is going to certainly assist you. But I do want to make sure, of course, that we're giving you some tips for getting started on these things. So I love that you were talking about doing the flat lays that are in their aesthetic. You can also create concept boards, mood boards. You can, you know, if you're not maybe doing a lot of space planning and find you're doing more decorated, but you really want to get into like removing some walls and full renovations, then start creating the CAD documents and sharing those as well. Like there's

so much that you can be doing to show who you want to be versus where you actually are. And so I love that you touched on that because I think that so many people get stuck with letting other people dictate what their brand's going to be simply because those are the jobs that they're getting. And I'm such a big advocate of like, don't let everybody else dictate who you're going to be. You get to dictate what kind of business you want to run, what kind of aesthetic you want to have, what kind of brand you want to have, and what people will think of when they think of you.

you get to determine all of that. You do. And I understand though, that feeling of like, I'm stuck because that is what it feels like when you start your business and you're taking whatever comes your way. And then there's your portfolio of these things that you don't necessarily want to, you know, keep attracting. Right. And one of my big mantras is lead with what you want to attract. So yeah, there's that question of how do do that? Well, your messaging in your copy is a big way.

that you do that and bridge that gap and talk about the types of projects and the types of aesthetic that you are looking to attract. Another thing just in a practical sense that I do want to throw out there because visually is not my, the visuals are not my real house exactly, but I have worked with so many designers and we've done so many projects where we're either sort of

refreshing an existing website with new copy and they're doing some stuff to the visuals as well or we're working with a brand new website and they tend to want me to weigh in like it's very much like a designer who you know is also weighing in on the architect's plans and that you know yeah and the builder and the blah blah blah like you know i kind of know I know more than I should know about building websites because i know you know this involvement but just to say that one thing is you do not have to have

a five page website and fill it all up with all this photography. You can skinny that site down you guys and use less photography, better photographs that are more aligned with what you're trying to attract. And add in pages later as you go. You can have a smaller portfolio that's just one page of like a grid of all your images. Don't try to fill in

you know, some big site that you're not quite ready for. So that's just another visual tip. Okay. So on that note though, if I can pick your brain just a little bit here, so let's say that someone says, okay, I'm not loving the photos that I've got on my website. I'm going to make a concerted effort to get those photos going forward. What does that look like? Are you sending them on like a personal brand lifestyle shoot to get photos of themselves? Are you, you know, sending them to get photos of their own house?

Like, what is it, what is sort of the next step for them? Or is it a matter of just waiting for that next project and just taking some good photos of that? But like, how do you get them started on that path towards getting the photos that they want to build? It depends. Yeah. No, you know, I, I am always also mindful of the fact that we're talking about big money when we're talking about any kind of photography, right? So I try to think, okay, what's the cheapest, easiest way?

that they can do this. So if they don't have any, you know, shoots coming up for client projects, then I might say, hey, what can you do in your own home with like flat lays, iPhone, make it look as good as you can. It's not pro, but you know, what can you do? And like you said, you know, CAD drawings or whatever. I know that that is hours and extra work. I understand that, but we are trying to bait the hook for the right clients, right? So it takes effort.

It's gonna take your effort or it's gonna take your money, so you pick. If they have a client project coming up and it's maybe not an ideal project, I would recommend that they would try to create a little corner going on or a couple little corners, some sort of vignettes, just a couple of them that they can take a few different shots of, zoomed out, detailed in.

That kind of thing for more decorative shots to use on their site. So, and when I say that, I mean, not portfolio shots, but you know, just scattered in. The power of the vignette. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So, know, just leveraging, okay, I've got this photographer here for four hours. Let me just set this up really quickly and, you know, have them shoot it while they're here.

And then if you can also get them shooting you setting it up even better. Correct. Yes. Thank you. People love photos of you and especially on social media, not just on your website, but on social media, those photos perform very, very well. So much better if there's a person in it, even if it's just your hand, if it's the back of your head shooting in. Yeah. They always perform better. Correct. Add a little motion to that and get a little snippet video as well. And yep, you're golden.

The other thing though, and what you were talking about was you mentioned about using their phone for taking some of these photos. Just so everyone knows, in case you are not familiar with this, your phone has different settings like a camera would and you like take a few minutes just to even Google it. Like just do a quick couple of YouTube tutorials on this. But there are some features that I guarantee no matter what phone you have. I'm an iPhone personally.

Even just like for me, one of the big things is I change the exposure pretty much every time I'm taking a photo with my own phone and I can get some really professional looking photos. Now, mind you, I spend a lot of money on photography, but there are times where maybe I've only got like one room to shoot and I'm not bringing in a photographer for that full room or maybe it was just a smaller project of some sort. or maybe it's just a matter of like, I'm out at a store and I want to take a really cool vignette type of photo, but I want to make sure that the photo still looks.

good in quality and can work for my, whether it's my social media feed or my website. So I think that people often underestimate the like, I've got a really cool phone and it's got really good camera on it. Great. But it's only as good as the user. So check into the settings that are on there too. Who knew come for the brand messaging stay for the photography tips. Believe me, I am not a pro photographer. Do not send people to me for photography tips, it's such a small little thing though that I feel like people don't, people often underestimate.

And I've got two cats standing up in front of my screen. For anyone who only listens to the audio version of this, you are missing out. Check me out on YouTube at Shauna Lynn coaching. Or Shauna Lynn coaching. Was it Shauna Lynn Simon coaching? You would think I would know my own YouTube channel. In any case, yeah, check it out because honestly, the what you get for the podcast with the video is phenomenal with the cats coming in. OK, so.

I'm so loving this conversation. I know. You go on. that you're talking about some budget-friendly tips as well. I mean, here's the thing. We're not looking to promote you as the budget-friendly marketer by any means. And at the same time, there are going to be people who are listening to this who are like, I'm not quite there yet. As much as I have said, listen, whatever you invest in your brand messaging, you will get that back. It is one of the most worthwhile investments.

because do you want to spend two years not getting jobs or would you like to start getting jobs next week with the right messaging? So it is an investment. But if you're still listening to this and saying, I don't even know where I'm going to find the funds. I just need to get something started on my own. What are some of those quick and easy things that someone can do then to get their messaging where they want it to be? Such a great question. And I always think of it like kitchen table exercises, right?

sitting down with yourself and like a piece of paper or a document open, right? So one of, well, it is a piece of the brand messaging that I create for my clients, but one good starting point, I think to even just get these juices flowing of like, how am I different? Start thinking about your unique point of view. And again, you we're speaking, I'm speaking mainly to designers because that's my clientele.

But you can translate this for whatever your work actually is. So, you know, at the top of your document or your paper, do a little like, I believe statement or we believe if you want to do, know, whatever, however you want to address that. And things like for my clients, I do it around what they believe about design, about the home, about serving their clients.

More like that. The things that you kind of die on that hill. You know, so to start a few prompts in terms of the design, you know, I believe the best designs, what? Right. You know, I believe home is what? I believe my clients deserve what?

These are great prompts. If you are not taking notes, rewind this and start writing this down. This is amazing. Yeah. And you can do, doesn't have to be one thing. And don't, by the way, don't get caught up as we were talking about the writing thing, right? Don't get caught up in saying it perfectly. Yeah. Just get the words out. This is a brain dump. You can perfect later.

for something to go on your website. What you are typing or writing right in that moment is not something that needs to be perfect to go on your website and to be client facing or potential client facing. This is for you. This is just to get you thinking about who you are because you're so locked into serving your clients every day. You're not thinking, you're always thinking, my gosh, how do I represent myself? But you're not thinking on that deeper level. This is to get you past

that daily stuff and the stress of like, oh my gosh, what is my message? What is my message? Yeah. And what are the things like, what are the things that get you excited? What are the things that when they happen, whether it's your clients doing something or you're doing something like what gets you really excited? What is that? Like personally, I love demo day, for example. So I don't really know that I want to tell my clients that I want to like tear their house apart. But if I dig a little bit deeper, what is it that I love about demo day? I love the transformation.

I love starting over. I love just taking a look at something and saying, I don't have to accept the way that it is and I can change it. So do I see where I'm going with this? Right? as you riff on it, you just got to a good message. Like that would, could even be like top line website. You know, you don't have to accept your home the way it is.

That is on my website. my gosh. That's goosebump moment stuff. I just gave myself chills. Yup, that is going on my website like today. That's amazing. And then see how we also spun it back around to put them in the spotlight. Right. Right. So this is not, by the way, while this exercise we're talking about is about you and what you believe, your messaging is not. Your messaging is not.

I'm passionate about design. I love fabrics. They don't care about that. I almost cussed, They don't care. That's okay, yeah. They don't Yeah, no, honestly, like you're just, again, speaking to the choir here, but I can't say it loud enough. They don't care. It's not about you. They don't care. It's not. Stop making all of your posts about you. Stop making your website about you. Even your bio, yes, it should be about you.

but only the way that who you are benefits them. Yes. I don't care. And actually I'm going to give some a shout out here to Shell Brodnax She is the CEO of the Real Estate Stage and Association and she's big on messaging as well. And one of the big things that she talks about, she's like, if your bio tells me when I was a little girl, I used to like rearranging my doll houses. No one cares. If you want to say that you have been

in this creative mode for most of your life, there are other ways that you can say it without having to talk about rearranging your dollhouse or I was always rearranging furniture in my own room and therefore I figured I should do it for other people. That doesn't say to me this person knows what they're doing and I want to bring them into my house. So how do you change that messaging instead to make it about your clients? And this is so key. And I think, you know, what we keep hitting on here though is that it's not meant to happen.

in one sit down, it's not meant to happen in five minutes and give yourself the grace when it takes some time. There are actually studies that show walking away from something like this allows your brain to continue to process it when you're not actually thinking about it. I actually almost never do television references because I watch very little TV, but I did get into The Big Bang Theory.

And there's an episode where Sheldon, for anyone who doesn't know, he's a physicist and he gets stuck on trying to solve a problem and kind of figure something out. And so he decides to take a job unpaid as a busboy because he figures he needs to do something completely mundane to let his brain shut off. And sure enough, while he's doing that job,

it all comes to him. Unfortunately, he broke a whole lot of dishes doing it, but that's a side for the point. But the point is so that this is actually scientifically backed that you need to walk away from something. Let your brain stop thinking about it. It will continue to ponder it in the back of your mind somewhere and allows those thoughts to come forward when they're ready. I can assure you that's part of my process. Not not that this.

Well, and probably every interior designer has a moment where they need to walk away and come back to you, right? So why would this be any different? And if you are an interior designer who can just sit down and pump out designs for eight hours in a day, mean, kudos to you. That is not my style as a designer. I know that I definitely need my breaks, but I can spend a good solid few hours and then I've got to step away and come back to it. Yeah. Can I give one more exercise? Absolutely. Please. So going back to the ideal clients. So, you know,

doing this, I believe, we believe kind of stuff is great. But again, we have to check it against who your ideal clients are. So three categories for who your ideal are. Or, you know, categories of information about them. And this is not, I am not about create the avatar, give her a name, figure out her coffee order. No, that doesn't help in your messaging. Maybe that helps in other things, I don't know.

Right. You need to know who they are in terms of their home and how they use their home and what frustrates them about their home and what they care about, about their home. You need to know who they are in terms of what they're looking for in a designer, what they're scared of.

I love that one. Yeah. a designer? Because they also might not even know what they're looking for if they've never worked with a designer. But they know what they don't want. They know what they don't want. And this is bit of a different twist on it, but who is the perfect designer? What are the characteristics of the perfect designer for them? Right. Of course, it's you if you're thinking about your ideal clients, but you need to connect the dots back. What is it about you that makes you the perfect designer?

Yeah, I mean, and that makes sense. When it comes to dating, they say figure out who you need to be to attract the person that you want to attract in your life. Right. So it's very similar to that. Who do you need to be as a designer? That doesn't mean that you need to change. Right. But what is it? Yeah. But just again, kind of looking from like, let's get outside the jar a little bit and kind of take a more objective look. And what is it that they need from you? Yeah.

Exactly, and getting you thinking about yourself a little bit differently. Because you're thinking usually again at that surface level of like I do X, Y, Z. Okay, but now look back at what you just said they want and they need and they're scared of. And if you don't know, walk away, think more deeply, talk to someone. You you probably have like a design bestie kind of thing. Yeah. If you have a past client that you can ask.

these questions of by all means leverage that. Absolutely. Especially if they were a past client that actually does fit into your ideal. Even if they don't though, it's amazing what you can get from someone who doesn't fit in. They give an answer, do the opposite. Right. And you'll know, right? They're looking for somebody, you know, I want somebody who can, you know, jump through every hoop for cheap and who's available 24/7. Would you know?

That's not what you want to be, right? So there you go. So hopefully that's helpful. And really, you know, when you've done those two exercises, you can kind of put them together and see what other kind of messaging you can come up with out of that. Not to mention those things, having those in place will help when you're looking at other people's websites, like, I love that sentence or that turn of phrase. OK, but is it true for you?

and who your clients are what you need. Well, not so much. Okay, pick it out. I like that check. Is it true for you? Yeah, very good. Well, listen, I mean, we can talk about this all day, but I think if anybody's been taking notes, especially they're ready to go get working on this right now, but you've got a really special offer for our listeners here. Can you tell us about that? Yes, except I can't remember exactly what that offer was. Fair enough. So yes, absolutely.

$100 off of your message level up service for the first five listeners who reach out. So if you can explain a little bit about what they're going to get and how to get it. Yeah. So the message level up is what I described earlier in the podcast about just the first step in my process. And that is, it's really a two hour conversation with me where I'm asking, you know, very targeted questions to figure out, you know, again, shedding light on like

who your ideal clients really are and what your differentiators are. And you walk out of that conversation with like, I didn't even realize that came out of my mouth and I didn't even know it, right? It's not a coaching call, but after the conversation, I take all that information that you've given me as well as I'll be looking at your existing side and any documentation you wanna send me to look at that. And I write up...

a roadmap report. I call it a roadmap because it is recommendations and reflections on, okay, here's your challenges, here's your goals, here's your opportunities. You're trying to get here in terms of your clientele or things are going great and you want to continue that and grow it or whatever it is that your goal is or your goals, plural. And this is the path with your messaging.

Here's your, you know, I see opportunity for you to spread this differentiator all over the place. I see this as your big like magic making message, or I see, you know, these, these layers, you know, there's maybe multiple differentiators and messages that need to go out into the world to attract the people that you're looking to attract and achieve the goals that you're looking to achieve. That report also has typically one goal is, hey,

my website, the messaging on my website needs work. That's typically a goal. So that report I'm usually breaking down, hey, on your homepage, you know, you're currently doing X, I think you need to do Y. I think you need to, you know, add more about this, less about that, make it do this, make your messaging that way, you know, do, you know, do this kind of a tagline, those kinds of high level, but specific recommendations. And I do that for every page of your site.

And there's so much power to the objectivity that you're providing. I mean, I can think of, know, numerous times over the years where say a client would say to me, you know I really loved was this, like, and in my head, I'm like, if only I could communicate that in some way. And you get these little nuggets from someone who's not a marketer, but just happened to hit on something. Well, now imagine you actually have someone who's trained in this to have that objectivity, to pull those things out of you and to put it all together in this beautiful document that you can then essentially execute.

Doesn't mean that, you know, like it doesn't mean they couldn't use you further, of course, but it is a complete resource at the end of the day that they can put to use, even if it's a matter of just to like, if you've got someone creating social media posts for you, hand on that document, you know? Yeah. I love that. It is, you know, the laying that initial foundation for your messaging and a plan of like, okay, what do you do with that messaging? Where does it need to go? And how does that need to be executed?

So really what I do with that message level up roadmap is I'm saying, hey, here you go. Here are the recommendations, my expert recommendations. Here's the path. You can either take that and implement it your own way. And that's wonderful. Or if you want me to be involved in implementing that for you, this is what that would look like in a service. And if you do want to work with me, we go ahead and apply what you've paid. In this case, it would be $850 with the $100 off.

Okay. We would apply that $850 to the larger service and happily be working together. either way, you a ton of clarity, a ton of, you good expert recommendations out of the thing and moving forward, moving the needle on your messaging. right. That's super generous of you to be able to offer that. How do they get that? Where's the website that they're going to get that? So just go to debmitchellwriting.com/ Okay.

go ahead and fill out my contact form, my regular contact form, and just note in there that you're coming to me from Shauna Lynn's podcast. Perfect. The Real Women Real Business Podcast or just mention my name Shauna Lynn Simon and you will get that. That's amazing. So, okay, I'm to put you on the spot here for one moment, Deb, before we wrap up here, because we did talk about a lot of things today and you gave two fantastic kind of quick tips to help get people started on thinking about their messaging. If there is one thing

one message that our audience can take away from today's episode, what would that be? What's that big takeaway? I know. I think the biggest takeaway is stop ignoring your brand messaging and well, okay, two messages I have to say. Don't beat yourself up if you're struggling with it because it is hard. It is hard. It's deep, but it is possible. It is possible.

It's possible to do it yourself to a degree and it's certainly possible to hire somebody, but it is an investment. But brand messaging is one of the most important things you can do for your business, period, full stop. Yeah. I couldn't have said it better. You don't have a business without a brand, essentially. Yeah. Amazing.

Deb, this has been absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean, we can talk for hours, I feel like. We really could. It's a whole other episode, everyone. Well, listen, thank you to everyone who's tuned in today. If what we're saying here today resonates with you, you know how to support us. The best way to support us, of course, is to like us on your favorite podcast platform. Leave us review.

and take it one step further. If you have a fellow female entrepreneur that you know can benefit from today's episode, please share it with them. That is the best way to share the love of our episode and help your fellow female entrepreneurs. Thank you, everyone. Until next time, keep thriving.