Understanding Your Brand Voice
Build, Nurture, and Strengthen Meaningful Relationships
Relationship-building is a fundamental component of an effective sales strategy. If you aren’t intentional about cultivating relationships, your bottom line will reveal the consequences. Buyers want to know what a brand stands for and business owners must demonstrate their ability to foster positive relationships within their market. In this session, Aleya will speak to the direct connection between building relationships and increasing sales and share her tried-and-true strategies for a people-first approach to marketing.
Takeaways include:
The role your marketing funnel plays in building trust and nurturing relationships
The key components of a healthy prospect relationship and how to screen the health of your own connections
How to use emails and social media to build lucrative relationships
This episode is part of the "Stage to Stream Series" where Aleya covers content excerpts from her popular speaking topics so you can learn and experience growth wherever you are. Why should live audiences get to have all the fun?
To book Aleya to edutain your audience at your next event, please visit www.aleyaharris.com/speaking to check out her speaking topics, reels, and why. Click "Schedule a Call" to secure the speaker with "that something new" you've been looking for.
If you are a Corporate Event Planner, Head of Marketing, Learning & Development Professional, Executive Assistant, Destination Management Company, or Destination Management Organization who is looking for a top-quality, energetic speaker, you should definitely hop on a call with Aleya.
About Aleya Harris
Aleya Harris, CPCE is the spark for your spark (TM). She is a powerhouse StoryBrand Certified Guide, BioEnergetic Business Consultant, empire-building CEO of The Evolution Collective Inc., host of the Radical Rebirth Retreat, LLC, host of the award-winning Flourishing Entrepreneur Podcast, and international award-winning speaker. She’s committed to helping entrepreneurs, executives, leadership teams, and thought leaders differentiate themselves through radically authentic strategy, coaching, and training.
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Connect with Aleya Harris
Speaking & Media: www.aleyaharris.com
The Evolution Collective Inc.: www.evolutioncollective.com
Radical Rebirth Retreat, LLC: www.radicalrebirthretreat.com
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleyaharris/
Links Mentioned on this Podcast
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Aleya Harris [00:00:00]:
You. I'm not trying to throw shade here, but do you really know what marketing is? I know I've transitioned into talking about marketing and strategy and culture, but in this episode, I think it's probably a good idea for us to take it on back to the basics and answer the question, what is marketing? Not only are we going to answer that question, but I'm going to teach you how to use this revolutionary, I think, definition of marketing to help you get and keep a consistent stream of clients. It's maybe a little easier than you think, maybe a little less elbow grease, but you won't know unless you listen. So let's do just that right now. All right, let's go.
Yuliya Patsay [00:00:54]:
Welcome to the flourishing Entrepreneur podcast with Aleya Harris. If you're looking for actionable ways to stand out from the crowd, by standing in your power, you've come to the right place. Each week, we help you and your fellow empire building entrepreneurs become radically authentic and tap into your unique story to attract your ideal clients. Listen in and learn how to use energy alignment techniques and tried and true marketing strategies to transform from a leader to a legend. And now, your host, powerhouse story brand certified guide, award winning marketer, bioenergetic business coach, and Japanese whiskey lover, aleya Harris.
Aleya Harris [00:01:50]:
I'm not going to make you wait for the answer to the question of what is marketing? I know I could sit here and do this whole episode and then at the very last bit be like, bada bing, bomb, bam, boom, boom. This is marketing. But I'm not going to do that because that's just rude. So marketing is the action of building lucrative relationships. Marketing is the action of building lucrative relationships. Lucrative, meaning we make some money and relationships in that we should hang out and be buddies and be cool. But it's so hard to make money sometimes and it's so hard to build relationships. At least that's what most people do when they think about those two words. So marketing becomes a very daunting concept. But all a relationship is is the combination of your story plus my story, where you and I can find a moment of intersection and we can build on that moment. And lucrative is just a value exchange. You have something I want, I have something you want. Let's exchange. Let's exchange value. So if you're intersecting a story, your story, with my story, and in that process, we are also exchanging value, then, my friend, you are marketing. Let me give you an example. If I have an ice cream cone and it's like a really good ice cream cone, and the story of this ice cream cone is that the flavors are developed back in my home country of origin. Pick a really cool country of your choice. And I have a client, a customer, who wants to come into my ice cream shop that is from that country of origin and can't get this flavor anywhere else. Well, what do you have? You have my story of building an ice cream shop with flavors from this specific country and their story of them really wanting to experience that country. But they can't go there right now. The intersection means that they are the perfect client to build a relationship with me and my ice cream place. And then in order to give them ice cream, I take money in return. That is a value exchange. But what I'm also exchanging as far as the value is they get to experience part of home. They get to pay me money to infuse their day with a little bit more nostalgia, a little bit more love, a little bit more comfort, a little bit more sense of security, the feeling that everything will be okay, even though they're in a different country, in a different place, they will remember what it is that got them there. They will remember their why. They will continue to move forward with just a little bit of home inside of them. That is the true value exchange. Not just ice cream for money, but really the memories and the feelings in exchange for money. And then also what you're getting as the ice cream owner in exchange for that money is the thought that you are building connections. You are connecting people to their home of origin and building a community around ice cream. See how big it can be. And all you thought we were doing is selling ice cream here. Hawking ice, flavored ice, creamy flavored ice. You know what I mean? So in that value exchange, you can make a lot of money. And in that value exchange, you can also build a lot of relationships. And that is what marketing is. If you're able to have money be exchanged for a solution to a problem, then you are winning. The problem might be I don't have enough time. The problem might be I need more peace of mind. The problem is I lack a connection. The problem is I want to up level my status. But if you can position yourself as the solution to the problem, more people will pay you money. That is what it is to market. So then your question is, how do I increase my exchange rate and build more lucrative relationships? Well, my friend, you need to do three things. You need to become radically authentic. You need to build clarity and you need to have consistency. Radical authenticity, clarity and consistency. You need to show up as your highest truest self. You need to know who that is. First of all, you need to be clear on the value that you provide and you need to be consistent in providing that value. And those are the things that we're going to talk about today. And we're going to talk about them in three stages. The three stages that I'm going to talk about are the three stages of the flourishing Empire framework. You're first going to get real, then you're going to get clear, and then you're going to get connected. And in each of those stages, I'm going to talk about how building a lucrative relationship is actually probably easier than you think. You already have the building blocks. You just need to put them together, maybe in a different order. I would be remiss if I did not mention that this episode is one of the episodes in our Stage to stream series. That's right. This is one of my speaking topics. Hi there. Nice to meet you. My name is, in fact, Aleya Harris, and I am an award winning international speaker. I'm bringing you the same topics that I give live and in person so that you can experience some of the knowledge and also so you get a little bit of a preview and can book me to speak at your live event. If that is you, if you are a corporate meeting professional learning and develop professional, a meeting planner, a marketing lead, then, my friend, I could very well be that next speaker you're looking for. Go ahead and go to Alayaharris.com speaking. Aleyaharris.com speaking to book me as your next speaker, I would love to. Edutaine, at your next event, you could book this very topic, understanding Your Brand Voice or one of my other topics which you can find@alayaharris.com speaking. Now that we have that clear, let's get into it. First. We talked about getting real. Being authentic creates genuine relationships, and that's really the only way you're going to stand out from the crowd. If you've heard any other episode on this podcast, you know that that's my jam. That's like what you do. That's what you need to do. You need to be authentic to stand out from the crowd. Being a copycat of someone else will only lead you to poor results. Kind of like not making as much money. They already own that space. So don't take up their space. Take up your space. When you're inauthentic copy, marketing copy doesn't sound great. It doesn't make you feel anything. It could be true, it could be clear, but it's also going to be found on a lot of other people's websites and in their social media. But Authentic Copy captures attention and builds relationships. Before you write Authentic Copy, you need to ask yourself questions like, well, who am I? Who is this client, and what do they care about in relation to what I do? Authentic Copy, yes, is clear, but it makes readers pay attention because it's specific to who you are and the problem that you solve. If you don't get real and you continue to sound like everyone else, you won't be able to build relationships. Okay? I'm not knocking LinkedIn, right. I love LinkedIn, actually, as a platform. Many of the people who listen to my melodic voice are from LinkedIn because I hang out there, right. And if you haven't hung out with me on LinkedIn, come and hang out with me. But do not do what I'm about to tell you, which is reach out with the LinkedIn recommended me, so I thought I'd come over and talk to you and let's be friends. Like, give me a break. LinkedIn did not recommend you. And even if they did, you don't know me from Adam. Try harder. Or I see at insert company name here, right? It's always like it's totally like a form I see at the Evolution Collective. You're doing great things. I want to be connected with you. Like, do you really see that I'm doing great things? What great things are you talking about? It's so generic. It is not authentic. I ignore, ignore, ignore, ignore, ignore that every day. But if someone comes up to me and says, hey, I just listened to your podcast episode understanding Your Brand Voice and I really liked it. Especially this part where you were talking about how LinkedIn people are so fake. And I'm reaching out to you as a real person to tell you I'm not fake. And I want to connect with you because of ABC that you can get my accept all day long. Because you're real. You are real. I know that it was not someone that you paid or a bot that is coming to connect with me. The same thing happens with relationships. You need to be able to get real. But the problem is, getting real is kind of rough. Digging deep sometimes is not what we are prepared to do on a random Wednesday when all we need to do is write some marketing copy. I get it. But not digging deep is giving you lackluster results. So let's try something different. So when you want to dig deep, you have to do two things. You have to excavate and replenish. You have to excavate, meaning you have to get rid of what is no longer serving your highest self and replace it, replenish it with supportive inspiration and paradigms. I want you to ask yourself right now, be real, be honest. Now is your moment of truth. What do you need to excavate to reach your most authentic self? What are the shoulds that you're dealing with? What are the oh, no, but I can't do that. That's probably the thing that you should be doing. I mean, I'm not trying to lead anybody astray because I don't know you like that, but usually it's that, well, I can't do that. Well, I should be doing this. Should you? Well, I've always done it this way. Well, this is what is expected of me. All of those things tend to be the thing that you need to get rid of. And when you do, what are you afraid of finding? Because that also is what keeps people from excavating things. Because they're afraid that their recently excavated self is too something, too loud, too dumb, too fat, too short, too whatever to something. It's right there in that tender spot that you need to say. I don't give a damn what anybody else has said about this wonderful part of me, this core of who I am. I will love it regardless. I will love it ruthlessly and I will protect it with love and light because this is the part of me that was meant to come embody in this body and do some really amazing things. But all of the opinions and the clicks and the social pressures and whatever else has come into your life has taken you away from that core of who you are, the core of the message that you are meant to bring, the thing that you are meant to bring out into this earth. And to top it off, just for poops and giggles, you've been made to feel bad about that part of you. Well, that part of you is the part that I want to get to know. That part of you is the one that can reach out to me on LinkedIn. That part of you is what I want to see in your marketing copy. That part of you is what I want to hear from the stage. That part of you is what I want to hear on the podcast episode, the stories that you don't want to tell because you don't think anybody cares when we really, really do. We really care. We want to see you and I'm speaking about me and the collective we, because I know I'm not alone. Because you were put on this planet, my dear friend, because of the story that you need to tell to benefit my life, to benefit the persons next to you life. You need to tell that story. But you won't be able to tell that story unless you excavate it. One of my favorite tools for excavation is free form writing. It gives your subconscious a voice and clears those exhausting burdens that are keeping you from letting your genius loose. It's different from journaling it's. After you finish, you rip it up and you burn it. It's about letting go, not immortalizing your shackles. You write. Write. Doesn't matter what it looks like. It doesn't matter what it sounds like. You're not going to read it. You just write it out. You write. You not even going to finish sentences. You write. Write to let the things that are unsaid come out of you. That's one way to excavate. There are many ways to excavate, and I also love replenishing with pumping yourself up. By the way, I don't know if you know this, but I'm totally an Insight Timer teacher now. I know. So dope I'm. Not going to lie. It really makes me feel like tickled that I am an Insight Timer teacher. So if you go to insighttimer.com alayaharis, one of my favorite meditations that I've come out with it's super quick. It's five minutes. It's self worth meditation for entrepreneurs and executives. You're going to go to harris.com I'm sorry, wrong website. You're going to go to insighttimer.com Harris, and you're going to click on Tracks and scroll down to Self Worth Meditation for Entrepreneurs and Executives. That one is a really good one to help replenish. So you've excavated all this stuff. You're going to feel a little raw, but that rawness. All that is, is receptivity. You are now a fertile ground to put back into yourself what you want to be there, not what was there before, which you might not really have wanted there in the first place. You're going to sit and then you're going to play. That self worth meditation. You can do the self worth meditation or even the identity meditation or both. They're only five minutes each@insighttimer.com slash Harris. And when you do, you will be pumped up and replay it as much as possible. It's all about I am wonderful, I am great, I am valuable, I am worthy. And hearing that over and over, when you're in a place then of being receptive, where your blocks are down, get you to believe it at a deep level. It gets then into your subconscious, your unconscious, and then you begin manifesting things that are now in greater alignment with who you are. You begin to tell a story of your own creation instead of the story that you've been told, that you need to tell based on all of your circumstances and that crap you've been lugging around that is not yours. So let it go. Like Elsa said, you know a song's coming, don't you? You can feel it. You want to sing it with me? Are you in your car? No one's there? We're gonna sing it together let it go, let it go that's all we're gonna do it's all we're gonna do it's all we're gonna do but you know the rest. You're gonna let it go like Elsa. Then you're going to go and you're going to replenish yourself with something that makes you feel amazing, so that you can then match the vibe, the energy, the moment of your next opportunity if you need some help again and always, we have available to you our Recalibration Guide. It's 25 ish pages that details by chakra all seven chakras exactly what you need to do to excavate and replenish, how you're out of alignment, how you're in of alignment, in alignment. It has links and books and exercises and all kinds of journal prompts, mantras, all kinds of stuff. Go ahead and download it@alayaharris.com. Recalibrate aleyaharris.com recalibrate. It will help you be able to excavate and then replenish because you need to get real with who you are, what you want, what you offer. Make the bold decisions of reducing service, adding service, changing service, whatever you need to do to be fully in alignment and not be afraid of what no feels like and what yes feels like. So that you can get clear, which is our next step. It's time to turn that authenticity into a clear story that is uniquely yours. This is how you differentiate. This is how the person knows that they want to build a relationship with you as opposed to relationship with somebody else who sounds just like you. This is you in your glory. So you're going to get strategic about your messaging to control your narrative. Clarity helps remove the fog of working with you. It isn't the best service provider business. It isn't the best one that gets the client. It's the clearest. The one that requires the least amount of brain cells to be expended to understand what you do. So you are going to put together a messaging strategy that's based on what you want to do and who you want to be as your most radically authentic self. This messaging strategy could and should probably include a couple of things like a SWOT analysis SWAT strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It is not what you do to a fly or to someone when they tell a really funny joke. I have a really bad habit of doing that, BTWS. Like when someone's funny, I do that little playful tap thing, but I'm kind of heavy handed so I basically slap the crap out of them and it's not cute. I'm working on it. If I've slapped you in the past, just know I am not a violent person and I'm sorry. But a SWOT analysis is something different. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Strengths are what you should focus on. Weaknesses are things that are somehow out of your control that no matter what you are going to do, they will not be an opportunity for growth. And threats are threats that will come from external things or also internal things. What are the things that from your competition or from your limiting beliefs that will threaten your success? Your messaging strategy should also include your ideal client and what their goals are and what your goals are and how those overlap. It should also include your brand narrative. If you haven't read Building a Story brand. Read Building a Story Brand. If you need some help developing that narrative, you should totally do that. Like your brand narrative is what would be on your about page is what snippets of it on your home page. It defines your content strategy. You should also have a one liner. A one liner has three parts problem, solution, result. It's the answer to the question of what do you do? I solve this thing in this way, which gets this result problem, solution, result. It's a problem for your ideal client. Like in our ice cream example from earlier. The problem I solve is people from this beautiful country are homesick for flavors that they can't seem to quite get here in the States. So we offer ice cream in native based native fruits from this wonderful place that helps cure homesickness and build community with people from this lovely place. Right. One liner. As opposed to, we sell ice cream. It comes in these three flavors, right? Like, that's not exciting. That doesn't invite me to his story. I don't want to hang out with you. I don't want to build a relationship with you unless I really have a hankering for some ice cream. Right? You could also be, if you are not from this country, you want to experience this country and the joy that it brings you. There's a whole narrative around that, around traveling through food and experiencing something different, especially around in the pandemic time, you could have totally milked that travel through food without leaving the comfort of your house. We deliver. I mean, there's a lot that gets built off of a basic brand narrative and a one liner. That's kind of the point. In your messaging strategy, you're including all of those elements. You also need to include voice and tone and your hero's journey. What does it look like for you? What part of the hero's journey are you on? What are the pitfalls of each? What is the hero's journey of your ideal client? What are the pitfalls for each of those? And based off of the problem, your solution, who you are as your most radically authentic self. Where on the hero's journey you're planning on meeting your ideal client. Then you develop content, themes. What are you going to talk about? And only talk about those things. Those content themes are your boundaries to keep your content consistent in type, but also so that people can put you in a box, because you're always talking about the same thing. And being put in a box is a very good thing. Very good thing, because it means that people can understand how to work with you and when they should work with you. And then you have a marketing funnel plan. We're going to talk a little bit more about the marketing funnel because like I said, this is like a brass tax. Like, what is marketing? Marketing is building lucrative relationships, but marketing happens at the speed of relationships. So a marketing funnel helps you address people at each stage of the relationship. So to recap, because I know you weren't writing it down, but if you want to start writing it down now, I'm going to give you those marketing strategy elements again. You can pause me. I'll hold pen and paper. We're waiting. We're waiting. We're holding. Okay, we're back. The messaging strategy elements are SWOT analysis, ideal client goal alignment, a brand narrative, a one liner, a brand script, voice and tone direction. Hero's journey, yours and theirs and how they intersect. And the misalignment and pitfalls at each stages of the journey. Content, themes and a marketing funnel plan that is a full and robust detailing of messaging strategy. Does everybody do it that way? No. Do I do it that way? Absolutely. That's how I do messaging strategy. My messaging strategy is bioenergetic messaging strategy. So I actually start with clients at the step before at the Getting Real step and we unearth together what that really means for them to get real, who they want to be, what they don't want to do and most likely why I keep talking about, like, you're going to end services and start services, because that's usually what happens with the clients that come to me. They're like, I never wanted to do this. I had a client recently go, oh my God, I actually hate being an agency. And the whole time she knew that she was going to come in there and have us talk about how she could build a better agency and scale it. And I'm like, we can totally do that. We're going to hate every moment of it. And she goes, yeah, oh my gosh, I hate an agency. So what do you really want to do? I just want to do this one service. I really don't want to do it. Well. I was like, well, let's do that. Then we can write a messaging strategy about that. You see why the real part has to come first. Because if the real part doesn't come first, then when you do the messaging strategy, I mean, it's going to be going to be fine, but you're not actually going to do it. You're not going to want to walk it out. You're not going to want to publicize this because you're going to be in conflict between what you really want to do, who you really are, what you really want to bring to the planet, and this messaging strategy that you just spent thousands of dollars on, right? So let's start a little earlier. Start with Getting Real, then we get clear in messaging strategy, and that messaging strategy is key. A lot of people don't have it. They just start flinging words on the Internet. And it's terrifying to watch. Actually, it is more like, why are we doing why are we doing it this way? If you were just clear, I probably would have bought from you. But you were talking about one thing on Tuesday, a totally separate thing on Wednesday. I didn't hear from you for five months. And then we're back talking about something totally different. It's exhausting watching people do this because I know behind the scenes they're stressed out about how am I going to make payroll and how am I going to grow this business and who do I want to be? And oh, then this crisis just happened. And that's what's happening behind the scenes. Off social media, off email, off website. And I know they're struggling. And if that is you, I know it can be very, very difficult to come up with a messaging strategy with all the things going on in life instead of working contrary to the things going on in life, work with them realize that they are all part of your story. I was at Outlier, which is a podcast conference, and dude, it was one of the best conferences I've ever been to. I wasn't even really planning on going shout out to Alex and Filippo who gave me a ticket and I went and there was a woman there who said something that you probably have already heard, I hadn't heard it before, that said Never waste a crisis. And she totally had me go home and write down all the crises I've ever experienced and if I've really been sharing those stories and how I've overcome them and how they've factored into my business and how it means I can help you. And then I started sharing the stories. And you know what? As opposed to me being like, oh, nobody cares, people started booking me, they started hiring me, they started responding to emails, they started to really want to connect with me because I started sharing stories about my postpartum journey. I started sharing stories about the fact that I have an autoimmune disease and I pump through that and how I navigate that. I started sharing these stories and presenting myself as my most authentic self. And people wanted to be in relationship with me. Fancy that. It's amazing when you actually do the thing that you tell people on podcasts to do. So I started doing that and it started working. And it will work for you too. But you need to first get real so that you can develop a messaging strategy based on some of the things that you are going through or what you have learned, or the origin story of your company, why you are in it, to win it and move forward. And I know what you're saying, oh, Leah, that's fine with you. You have a very personal brand. I'm a thought leader. That's my jam. But dude, I was in Dallas a couple of weeks ago. Or last week. Was it last week? I don't know. Whenever I was there, and this is true for a company called Von Lane, I was there. We're helping them with their messaging. And I was like, hey, CEO. You were your client. Your story of how you were fed up with the way that people had to travel throughout Texas and there needed to be a better, more luxury option. That is what people need to hear. Tell me that story. And when he told me that story, I was like, well, you sold me all day, every day, and I don't even live in Texas. Right? It's stories that connect us. Which again, brings me to our third part. We got real, we got clear, and now we are going to get connected. And you get connected by consistently combining your story with that of your ideal client to build lucrative relationships. So, as I was talking to you about before, relationships are not fast, right? So marketing needs to. Move at the speed of relationship. Just because I tell you a story doesn't mean you're going to buy from me 2 seconds later. Although sometimes it does. But often I need to hear a couple more stories from you. I need to really see how we intersect. I need to really understand how you solve my problem better than anybody else before I buy from you. That is where the marketing funnel comes in. The marketing funnel is a tool to consistently cultivate relationships and generate connections. The goal is to take a bunch of your ideal customers and turn them into dollar signs. Turn them into money, turn them into connections, turn them into community. You can go Google a marketing funnel. You're going to get lots of things that come up and all of them will be correct. I like to take the most simple version of it and I break my marketing funnel out into three stages attract, convert, and close. You attract at the top, you convert in the middle, and you close at bottom. The marketing funnel tactics at the top are things that are attractive, that make people want to be in a relationship with you. So you have your story already, you have your messaging. It's more about where are you putting your messaging. So you're putting them at the top of the funnel in lead generating PDFs and quizzes and social media and Google Ads, expos and trade shows using SEO, PR speaking engagements, guest podcast episodes. Those are all at the top. Those are the things that help people get to know you or become aware of you in the beginning. And then you start deepening the relationship. Now that they know you and they want to see you a little more, they want to learn from you. Then you get blogs, which could also be great for SEO, but also great to get to know you. Social media, organic social media, landing pages from those lead generating PDFs and quizzes your own podcast like this one. How is it getting to know me? I mean, really, have you been enjoying the experience? I mean, I've been enjoying talking to you. Do you enjoy the experience? I know you do. By the way, if you do, since we're here talking about it, I would love, love, love if you could like my podcast. Like give it a five star, write me a cute little note. It would really be helpful to help me spread the word about this podcast and all this great content. Because I don't know if you noticed, but I put some thought into this content. I put some love into these guests. So if you're here and you're loving the experience of getting to know me on the Flourishing Entrepreneur podcast, please do like subscribe and leave me a little note on Apple podcasts. Okay, shameless plug over. But your podcast, yes, is a great way for people to get to know you as well as weekly emails, which I send out every week. If you're not on my email list, you should be. It's pretty dope. People are loving my most recent weekly emails when I go and I know that they are because they respond, which is dope. And then when I go to speaking engagements, they talk about my weekly emails and like, oh, I remember when you said so they're reading them, which is dope. I don't know if you send a weekly newsletter out, but most of the time it's cricket. So it's pretty cool when I've been able to hit the sweet spot with my content and my audience doing the things that I've just been talking to you about and we're having a great conversation. And if that's you, I love you. You don't even get it. You totally brighten my day every time you respond to an email, every time you say when I see you in person, oh, I loved this email, or I love this podcast episode. And this is why it brightens up my day. Because creating content, not that I don't love it, it's a crap ton of work right there's. A lot of thought. I do research and I leverage my husband, who oh my God. Okay, totally non sequitur. I'm all over the place today, I promise. We're still in the middle of this marketing funnel. My husband got a new job, y'all. I'm so proud of him. He is now officially the Director of Research and Assessment for Loyola Marymount University in the office of the Vice President of Student Affairs. Dude, like I'm big proud, big proud, big proud. Anyways, I digress. See, listen to my podcast, you get to know stuff like that about me. In the middle, again, because I've taken like five non sequiturs. In the middle of this marketing funnel, you have blogs, social media, landing pages, your own podcasts, weekly emails and websites. So all of that happens in the middle of your funnel for people to get to know you. Because why? I know it's old and it's trite, but it's true. People buy from who they know, like, and trust. You know me more now than you did when you press play, right? Like you've heard my voice longer than you did. You know more things about me. You hear my content, you know that I'm legit, hopefully, because this information is legit, I promise. You know me more now. So now you're more likely to buy from me or to refer me, which, by the way, another shameless plug. If you'd like to refer me as your next speaker, please head over to Alayaharis.com speaking, check me out, refer me to your friend. That's what happens in the middle. Then at the end, you need to close that is sales sequence emails. You're selling like every fourth email or so depending on your particular marketing strategy. Not every single email. That's also case studies. Testimonials. Testimonials are big. Like big. While we've been on this call. Not that I'm multitasking or anything. I kind of am. I mean, I can't deny it now, but I just got an email from Conversion Conference, which I spoke at a couple of months ago in Vegas, and they just sent me back a bunch of testimonials that I'm totally going to be using. She was very bioenergetic and engaging throughout the presentation. It was really enjoyable, had great insight. Aleya is so engaging. Her presentation energized me for the rest of the day, which I loved. And just one more very engaging presenter. Very good content, best presentation of the conference, right? It's things like that, I can tell you. I do all those things, which I probably have if you've listened to me long enough, but the fact that I now have, I think, what's on this email. Ten or so ten comments from people giving me five star ratings at a conference I spoke at, and I can put that on the website. That in and of itself is more powerful than me telling you how great I am, right? It's social proof. That's just the way the human brain works. So testimonials are huge. Also, you have promotions, proposals, strong calls to action. All of those are at the end of the marketing funnel. So you have a track convert and close. The top is where they're seeing you for the first time. The middle is where they're getting to know you. They might be in that middle piece for a minute, and at the end is where you close them and you convert them into paying customers. The main thing here is to be patient. This doesn't happen overnight. I booked speaking gigs for people that have listened to my podcast for several years, and then they booked me without saying anything. I haven't heard from them in that entire time they've been on my email list, and all of a sudden they had a need and bada boom, here we go. So you have to be patient. Your job is to keep actively building the relationship. Keep talking, keep being consistent, as we spoke about in the beginning, so that you can show up and be top of mind exactly when they need you. So remember, you're building your empire, you're building your career, you're building your brand on a foundation of lucrative relationships. You will, my friend, create raving fans of your ideal clients by presenting yourself as your authentic self. You're going to get real, you're going to get clear, you're going to get connected so that you can market effectively. Again. If you need help with getting real, make sure you go to Alayaharris.com Recalibrate to download the recalibration guide. And then just one more shameless plug, because why not? If you'd like to book me as a speaker, make sure to go to Alayaharris.com speaking. Check out my speaker reels, check out my topics. This is one of them that we can include. We get to do it live and in person. And I would love that for us I would love that for us in our journey together. All right, if you have any questions about the topic that we covered or you want to hear more about some of the crises that I've overcome and we want to build relationships, you can always send me email. My direct email is aleya. Aleya@alayaharris.com. Aleya. H-A-R-R-I s.com. I would love to hear from you again, like subscribe, five star reviews, and until next time, my name is Aleya harris. This is the flourishing entrepreneur podcast, and I am sending you lots of love, lots of light, lots of abundance. Until next time. Bye for now.
Yuliya Patsay [00:38:29]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Flourishing entrepreneur podcast with Aleya Harris. Vibing with what you hear. Leave a five star review to spread the love, and be sure to click subscribe. We wish you love, light, and abundance. See you next time.
