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Whether you are employed or a business owner, you have a brand, whether it is in analog or digital form, you have a personal brand. It is essential that your messaging is consistent with your core values, and that you are sensitive to what your clients and customers need and meet them where they’re at. When you nurture your relationships with them, they will always come back to you, whether it is for their current needs or future needs.
Branding is walking the talk. For example, when your business is in body and mental health, you must ensure that you bring the same message in how you carry yourself through the challenges. You cannot be advocating mental health, but here you are driving your team crazy with heavy workloads and even asking them to work overtime for free. There is such a thing as Emotional Intelligence, and when used correctly can give so much potential for your business. Emotional triggers as a tool for marketing campaigns are okay as long as they are ethical.
An extremely interesting conversation between Gert and his guest, Christina Aldan, a brand strategy consultant, keynote speaker, trainer, and mentor. She offers businesses brand consulting and creative content for everyday media.
Listen to the very end of this podcast episode and learn how to build connections and carry on with your brand. Enjoy!
Podcast Highlights:
00:01 Prologue
02:48 Christina Aldan's background and journey to what she is doing now. (...How has she evolve from chemical engineering to ecology to tech and now building websites and creating brand strategies for people?)
09:02 Why is it important for people in business to focus on their values and be consistent with their messaging?
10:10 What does branding really mean? (...How does that translate to you as an individual or as part of the company?)
12:19 Is branding going to be visual, or will this go beyond just visuals? (...Where do you actually start when creating a brand strategy?)
17:03 Why does Christina not do blueprint programs and the like, focusing more on clients' uniqueness?
18:47 How does Gert's team do their work in alignment with their core value of connection and communication?
20:36 What should Emotional Intelligence be focused on? (... When are emotional triggers okay as a brand strategy?)
23:55 Why is it essential to recharge? (...How do introverts and extroverts recharge before interacting with people?)
27:40 In what ways can we use emotional intelligence to connect better with our team and clients?
29:19 How can we communicate across multiple channels, across different cultures but still maintain the same messaging?
32:58 Clients and customers appreciate it more when businesses across all industries live it up to their core values of being authentic and integrity.
35:41 What is the most significant difference between the mental health challenges people face today?
37:24 What are the four buckets for emotional intelligence? (...How important are self-awareness and self-management?)
39:36 A recap of Gert's conversation with Christina.
42:20 Where to Connect with Christina Aldan?
42:51 End
Branding and Emotional Intelligence with Christina Aldan
When you think of "branding," what comes to mind?
People often associate branding with logos and taglines, but, in reality, branding is much more. Effective branding creates an emotional connection between a company and its customers.
Drawing on her own experience, Christina Aldan offers insights that will help you create a powerful brand identity. This will resonate with your customers emotionally.
Table of Contents
Why It’s Important to Focus On Values and Consistent Messaging
Every business has values, whether they realize it or not. These values are the foundation of how the business is operated and what it stands for.
Christina believes that businesses are living their values and consistent messaging through branding. As a result, they’ll be able to connect with ideal clients to actually sell them the products.
When platforms are aligned with the same values your customers want, it becomes easier to make decisions. This, in turn, helps to build trust and loyalty among customers and businesses.
What Is Branding?
In simple terms, your brand is defined as consistent messaging about how you appear across all your platforms.
When it comes to branding, you need to remember these two things:
- Personal brand. Make sure you're showing up consistently. You might not be aware of it, but your personal brand is already out there.
- Small business or company brand. Conversations should happen both ways. That brand message must be consistently the same on digital and analog platforms.
Once you understand these things, you can start to build a brand that resonates with them on a deeper level. Building a strong brand isn't easy, but it's worth the effort.
Visuals and How They Play Into Branding
A brand is more than just a name or a logo - it's an identity and your goal as a whole. And one of the best ways to do that is through visuals.
For example, this means different things to people in the SEO world. If Christina thinks of getting money from customers, you need to achieve their goal. And what they always do is explore new methods and different things, like using content creation, blogging, and more.
Creating a Brand Strategy
It's not as complicated as it sounds. A brand strategy is a long-term plan for how you want your brand to be perceived by your target audience.
Start with your core values.
Think of these:
- What are your core values at your company?
- How are those core values shown through your logo, management style, social media posts, Google ads, and blog?
- Do all of these things create a picture of your brand?
- Where to start rolling those things out?
You're saying your core values are one thing, but there's no consistency in the brand and how you're presenting. It’s like defining what the goal is to what you want to achieve.
People don't trust you if they don't see a consistent message. Your potential clients or customers will move on to someone they perceive as more trustworthy.
Why Focus More on the Uniqueness of Clients Than Blueprint Programs?
At first glance, it may seem that a cookie-cutter approach is the best way to provide client services. However, this one-size-fits-all approach can often be ineffective.
There are a lot of great reasons to focus more on the uniqueness of clients rather than blueprint programs.
- Every client is different and has different needs. By taking the time to get to know each client and what they're looking for, you can create a truly customized program for them. Take note that planning in podcasting is different from other fields.
- Allows you to build more relationships with each client. As long as you have a strong call to action and see good results, you can convert and get a lot of good clients out of that.
- Not everyone trusts promises. Not everyone indeed believes in getting results instantly. Or if someone says help you make seven figures in 30-days.
Understanding the Core Value of Connection and Communication
Whether you're communicating with others or simply trying to achieve your goal, you're constantly looking for ways to connect the dots. That's why so many companies, like SEOLeverage™️, place a high value on communication.
If people are asked about branding, they simply discuss the styling, theme, fonts, and colors in social media ads. However, Gert sees that branding ultimately has a very big internal component.
Everybody knows communication is key. That’s why Gert makes this communication, and even connection transmitted successfully in company and customers.
What Should Emotional Intelligence Be Focused On?
As the marketing world evolves, emotional intelligence is becoming an important factor.
In the context of branding, emotional intelligence can be used to understand the customer's needs better. Plus, connect with people, and create campaigns that resonate on an emotional level. Not just that, but it barely affects your team and your company.
That's going to affect your brand strategy as well, those analog offline non-digital interactions. And all those touch points are representations of your branding and your brand.
How Do Introverts and Extroverts Recharge Before Interacting With People?
Both introverts and extroverts have valid ways of recharging before interacting with people. Simply, extraversion means when you're around other people, you recharge.
If you find that you are an extrovert, chances are good that you get your energy from being around others. For someone to get charged up and energized, he'll go around before he has lunch with people and talk to all the vendors. Then, he’s ready to go for his talk.
Alternatively, if you find that you are an introvert like Christina, you might need some time to yourself before you get on stage. Maybe you have breakfast at the hotel, sit in the back of the room, or put the headphones in.
How to Use Emotional Intelligence to Connect Better With Other People
Here are tips for using emotional intelligence to connect better with your team and your customers:
Understand the customer journey.
Understanding the customer journey is essential for any business that wants to provide a great experience. Through buying cycle, businesses can ensure that they're providing support at each stage.
- The customer journey typically starts with awareness.
- From there, they move into the consideration stage, where they start researching. Don’t try to be pushy just to convert them.
- Once they have decided, they enter the purchase stage, where they make their final decision and purchase a product or service. If not, you can always add a follow-up.
- Finally, they enter the post-purchase stage. If you can nurture that relationship, they will return when they have other products.
How to Communicate Across Multiple Channels and Cultures While Maintaining the Same Messaging?
In this increasingly connected world, it's more important than ever to communicate effectively across multiple channels and cultures. However, Christina thinks that the concepts of communication have not changed.
There's a nuance to communication and culturally competent communication, but it should not be a barrier. But in reality, each one has its challenges and etiquette rules.
The key to successful cross-channel communication is understanding the difference between each channel. And if you're reaching out to customers or colleagues, you must ensure that your message is clear and consistent.
Understanding the Characteristics of Being Authentic and Have Integrity
Clients are always looking for businesses and people that they can trust. After all, there are a lot of businesses out there vying for their attention. So, how can you set your business apart from the rest?
One way is by being authentic and having integrity. This means being honest about who you are, what you do, and what you stand for.
For example, people appreciate it when you honestly give feedback about their website. Then, the output is better, and the performance is better.
Mental Health Challenges People Are Facing Today
Relative to discussing emotional intelligence, one of the challenges people have is impostor syndrome. Perhaps you feel like you're an impostor at your work. Maybe you think you’re not as good as you feel. But everybody else thinks you are.
Many people feel that way at some point in their lives. The key is not letting impostor syndrome get in the way of your success.
The Four Buckets for Emotional Intelligence
The buckets represent four aspects of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
The good news about emotional intelligence is that there are 26 different facets of that. But the anger, frustration, and physical need an outlet; if you don't do that, it will turn inward. That's called depression, or it's going to go outward.
- Self-awareness is about understanding your own emotions and triggers.
- Self-management is about controlling your emotions and choosing how to respond to them.
- Social awareness is about understanding the emotions of others.
- Relationship management is about handling relationships in a positive way.
In Summary
Christina’s talk with Gert about emotional intelligence was a reminder to understand your customers and team deeper. By considering their emotions, you can create branding that resonates with them.
Applying these concepts to your business will need effort, but the results could be worth it. Also, don’t forget your space to unwind.
Connect with Christina:
Website - https://www.luckygirliegirl.com/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/luckygirliegirl/
Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1luckygirliegirl/id1544906363
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/luckygirliegirl/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyt5DAgDTQ6I58bY1BHTLWeNwPMFKGJle
Connect with Gert Mellak:
Email: [email protected]
