Expanding Your Brand

Emily Thompson 0:02
Don't waste any more time waiting in line to send mail and packages. And let's please avoid any confusion around finding the best postal rates for your business. With sin pro online from Pitney Bowes, you can send packages and mail without leaving your office right from your desk for as low as 499 per month. And for being a bean boss listener, you'll receive a free 30 day trial to get started. As an added bonus, you'll also receive a free 10 pound scale shipped right to your door to help you accurately weigh your packages. save time and money. No matter what you send from packages to overnights and letters. Just click Send and save with his new offer for send pro online starting at only 499 per month that you can print shipping labels and stamps from your own printer easily compare rates using their online software, gain access to special USPS savings for letters and Priority Mail shipping. Plus track all of your packages and get email notifications when they have arrived. Go to pb.com slash being boss to access this special offer and get a free 30 day trial plus a free 10 pound scale to get started. That's pb.com slash being boss experience the better way to ship with a free trial of sin pro online from Pitney Bowes.

Shannon Whaley 1:19
Hi, ladies. My name is Shannon Whaley and I own traveling wild woman. And I started my blog in 2013 when I moved to the Cayman Islands from the US, and I've lived here for four years. And in that time, I've gone through coach training, I become a coach and I am now a Women's Business and Marketing coach and I coach coaches, part of my brand or the pillars of my brand is business marketing, mindset and storytelling. So I share a lot of myself with my audience and what I've gone through in my life. And I help women do the same thing. I help them market their businesses in a way that feels really good. So it feels like they're talking to an old friend. So that's what I do on the coaching side. My vision for my company, which I've started thinking of it as my company, and what what is bigger than me, I want traveling wild woman to be a thing like a brand, a recognized brand. Not just like I'm part of it, but I don't want to be necessarily it I want it to I want there to be meetups I want I really admire what the being boss brand has become where there's retreats, and there's meetups, and there's different ways to access you. And so I recently launched my first group coaching program. And I also just launched a week long retreat and Lucca, Italy this summer, in June. And so that is like the biggest leap that I've taken, besides starting my business to take my brand to the next level. So my question revolves around how do I shift this company, from Shannon Whaley to traveling wild woman, and I'm doing it and and I see what I'm doing. And it's not strategic. So I don't know if I'm doing it correctly. Or if I could, I'm doing it correctly, because it's working. But could I be doing it better. So I'm curious to know the steps if there were any steps that you ladies took to transition out of you individually and into you to as a brand. So that any tips that you have or or like what the next step would be for my business because the retreat is where where I want to be heading. And I just have a vision of talks and retreats and getting women connected without me there but in real life, like having events and meetups and just having like a traveling wild woman movement of getting women out of their comfort zone. So any help would be wonderful. Thank you.

Kathleen Shannon 4:22
Alright, Shannon, thank you so much for your question. So just to kind of wrap that up in a bow. I think what I'm hearing you ask is How can I strategically grow my company and my brand beyond just myself and best tips for doing that? Right off the bat. It sounds like you're doing all the right things and truly whenever it comes to growing a brand beyond yourself, I don't think that there is any one right way but hopefully Emily and I can share a couple of tips to get you started. So Emily, what do you think what are your best tips and maybe even looking in hindsight 2020 best tips for growing your brand beyond yourself?

Emily Thompson 4:59
I think the thing that came For me most in Shannon's question is around thinking about how you want to deliver your content and how you want people to consume your content. Right now, Shannon, and I know that you are very like one on one or one to many, but you are the one who has to be involved in the interacting, and in some cases, live or semi live. I think that the thing that you need to think about is how can you share your content in a way that's not coming from your mouth in that moment. So I think about for existence being balls, Kathleen, I can spend a month recording up all the podcasts imaginable, and then take a break for six months if we wanted to, that would be very hellish one month, for sure. But we could totally do it. And by giving ourselves this avenue for, for creating content in a way that we can deliver it without actually being present for it to be delivered has been very huge for us, taking ourselves a little bit out of the brand, and also doing some systemising, around the follow up that comes from from publishing the content. So we have a really hardcore system in place for what sort of marketing goes down, when the email goes out who writes the email, when does it get loaded, get loaded up, and by whom, which is my next thing, and that's delegating. So really getting very clear on the things that you don't have to be doing yourself and get someone else to do them for you. So I think getting getting somewhat strategic with your, with your content, and think about how you can deliver it in ways that doesn't require you to personally be touching it in that moment. And also systemising, and delegating so that once you do your part, it simply goes out into the world, so that you're not the one touching it. In that moment, I think those two things together can really set you up for building a brand that's larger than yourself.

Kathleen Shannon 6:53
The one thing that I really want to chime in with is that we did not strategically grow a brand beyond a man, there was no strategy behind being boss becoming what it has become today. So the kind of point I want to make is to let your business grow into what it went to what it wants to become. And that's not to say after a year or two, we didn't come at it with strategy, like we love the organic growth that we had. And we wanted to think about strategically growing our business without kind of killing the vibes that had organically bubbled up that we loved so much with our in person vacations and online interactions. So I kind of what I really want to tell you is to just keep trying a bunch of different things and see what sticks. Everything that we tried, we didn't think, Okay, now we're gonna have vacations and they're going to be amazing and turn into a whole branch of our business model. That was not the case at all, it was literally Emily and I saying, hey, would it be fun to go to New Orleans on vacation? And what if we invited a few listeners, what would happen then. So we're kind of just following our own curiosity. I'm letting it grow into what it has now become. And that's not to say that it's I mean, it's definitely a good idea to bring strategy to the mix. Like that's what's really going to take your business to the next level. And that's something that Emily and I have really focused on doing in a really smart way with being boss. And I'm totally with you, Emily, where you talked about delegating, that's the thing that kept coming up. For me, I think that starting with your team internally, and really building something bigger than yourself internally, first is imperative. And then that vision will bleed to the outward facing brand, and what you're creating there, then you have to kind of feel the delegate, building a community to your community itself. And that takes a lot of trust, it does take a very strong brand and vision in the first place so that the people who start following your brand, know what is expected of them, and they know how to engage with each other. So what I'm thinking of specifically, here is our Facebook group, our Facebook group for being boss started, just a couple 100 people listening to the podcast. Soon, sooner than later, we ended up having to recruit some of the members of that community to become moderators of the group. And I think now we have a good handful of people moderating that group and Emily and I aren't even in there, like even on a weekly basis at times. So really just handing over the keys and trusting and you guys, it takes a lot of work. Like it's not something that comes super easy. It's something that we're constantly questioning is our way we could be doing this better. Which brings me to my last point, you're always going to be questioning Is there a way that I could be doing this better or more strategically, there's just not Not that I'm aware of at least

Emily Thompson 9:47
right or there is actually there always is a way that you could be doing exactly know what it is. And I think I have a last point I really want to make too and it's for this is for anyone who wants to build a brand. That's large than themselves is, whenever you are building a brand, like there's sort of two sides of this coin a little bit like we talk a lot about building a business doing what you want to do, and what you want to be doing all day and all of those things. And that's very important and totally the message we will continue to spread. But there is something to be said about building a brand that focuses less on what you want to be doing all day. And more on who it is that you want to be serving. I think about even naming this podcast Kathleen and I almost named this the inland Kathleen show where we were totally just thinking about ourselves and the brand that was going to be us. But we instead decided to go with being boss, we turned it on our listener on who our dream recipient of this information would be, we looked more at the people that we would be serving than at ourselves. And in doing that we were able to create a brand and a message that is so much larger than ourselves. And I think that was that was a an unintentional turning point in the creation of this podcast as well, where we decided to think a lot less about ourselves and more about who the end user or end customer was. And that's allowed us to create something that thankfully is much larger than just Kathleen and I,

Kathleen Shannon 11:13
who I love that and even thinking about Shannon's brand traveling wild woman. I mean, that's there's so much potential just in that name alone. Yes, the fact that you're traveling to Italy is the first step I think doing a lot more travel, sharing a lot more wildness, whatever that looks like for you

Emily Thompson 11:31
is we're whatever it looks like for your customer.

Kathleen Shannon 11:36
And creating a community around that. The final thing I just want to say is starting small. I think starting small is the best way to build something bigger than yourself. Because if you build something way bigger than yourself way too soon, you're going to stretch beyond your own capacity and get overwhelmed and freak out. Right. So I would say start really small so that you can sustainably build something bigger than yourself. And you can really stretch into it over time, rather than bursting a bubble too quick,

Emily Thompson 12:07
for sure. So keep going at it. Shannon. You got it. Yeah, I

Kathleen Shannon 12:11
mean, you're already halfway there. You're asking the right questions. Just keep following that curiosity, and you're going to build exactly what needs to be built.

Kathleen Shannon 12:22
Alright, you guys might already know that I love working out I carve out time for it every day. And I basically consider it My only hobby. And I've tried everything from rock climbing to yoga, to boxing to body building programs and CrossFit style workouts, and nothing and you guys, I mean nothing has changed my body composition, like taking a walk every single day. Not only does it tighten everything up, it makes me feel really good. And it puts me in the mindset to do the work. So when our new sponsor aptiv approached us about partnering up with them, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they have an entire library of guided workouts and playlist dedicated to walking from aerobic walks that really push your cardio and heart rate to meditative walks that get you feeling good and centered. They've got it all. So right now I want you to go check out aptiv.com that's aptiv.com and enter being boss at checkout to get your first 30 days for free. Then put on your shoes, grab your headphones and go for a walk. And just to fill you in aptiv is an app that is like your own personal trainer on demand anytime it's a curated playlist plus guidance from a fitness professional that will make getting your workout on so easy. Whether you like working out at the gym at home or outside. aptiv has a workout for you from elliptical and treadmill to outdoor running to yoga and strength conditioning, walking, stretching, even meditating. Plus, they have a ton of different trainers so you can find your favorite and get a variety of styles. Again, that's aaptiv.com and enter being boss at checkout to get your first 30 days for free.

Emily Thompson 14:01
Did you like this minisode Be sure to check us out on our website at beingboss.club. There you can find more from being boss including our full episodes minisodes and blog posts. And while you're there, be sure to sign up for our mailing list so that you can get access to behind the scenes and exclusive content from Kathleen and myself to help you be more boss in your work and life. Do the work be boss