Archives for January 2015

The other day I was watching America’s Test Kitchen where they were making the most delicious pasta dish with pork and mushrooms. My mouth was watering. What made the dish look so delectable was the steps they took to finish the sauce.

First, they ground the pork and made it into a patty. Then they cooked the patty like a hamburger to crisp up the outside, but left the middle very pink and soft. To finish cooking the meat they chopped up the patty and added cream to the pan which soaked up the drippings from the frying process. Yummm!!

You could tell it was going to taste amazing, nothing like my Wednesday night pasta of ground turkey and a jar of Ragu. No, their sauce was rich and interesting. The textures varied and the flavor deep. I’m sure if you tried it, you wouldn’t want the experience to end. 

Strangely enough, the sauce got me thinking about branding….

In order to create a clear, strong brand it is very important to narrow your focus. If you try to be too many things to too many people you can’t carve out a unique niche and therefore, waste a lot of time, money and energy on marketing and projects that don’t resonate with a loyal audience. Fortunately, entrepreneurs are starting to wake up to the importance of good branding and I see them making real strides in leveraging their strengths.

However, I’ve also noticed a very disturbing and counterproductive trend…

Entrepreneurs feel a lot pressure to brand themselves “correctly.” They want to make decisions that will help them stand out and be most profitable, but they get confused about how to bring everything together in a way that feels good. What they end up doing is choosing what they think makes the most sense and then they leap. Does this sound familiar to you?

Unfortunately, what usually happens under these circumstances is you end up cutting off very valuable pieces of yourself. What’s left is a bland, one-note brand. You cut off those crispy bits that add all the flavor!

Strong brands are narrow, but extraordinary brands are narrow and deep. They have layers. They are interesting and succulent.–HP (tweet this)

I saw a very cool masterclass recently with the great American soprano, Renee Fleming. She was coaching a young mezzo with an absolutely gorgeous voice. The critique Ms. Fleming gave was although her voice was beautiful, the young mezzo’s sound lacked interest because it was all aligned the same way. She needed to play with different kinds of resonances to add color and spice things up. Such great advice for branding!

We work so hard to figure things out, to find our lane, to zip it all up. However, once we get the main genre, life coach, money coach, event planner etc. we tend to park it. If you are an expert, and I’m sure you are, you are not a newbie. You have that first piece figured out. Now you need to go deeper, have more fun. You can and should explore all the colors of your voice. You don’t have to cross the double yellow lines, but you can certainly hug the edge once in a while.

When you do, suddenly your brand will take on more shimmer. It will carry to the back of the hall. The guy in the third row will break into tears. The usher will tweet all her friends about how they have to come and see the next show!

It takes a little courage to own all of who you are, but the results can be magnificent. With each new day and each new inch of authenticity you feel more energized and more richly YOU. You start to separate from the herd and gather a band of merry followers. You become their benevolent pied piper, leading them to higher ground, showing them the way to their own biggest transformation.

So ask yourself, do you want to be a one-note-wonder or a wonderfully, complex and integrated power-house?

If you need help releasing the full beauty of your voice, I invite you to apply for a Complimentary Consultation with me by clicking this link: Complimentary Consultation Application

Until next time, here’s to hitting all your high notes!

xo