004: How to Tell Your Story
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Hello, lovely. Welcome back to ARRIVED Daily. I'm your host, Bethany Wrede Peterson. I'm real excited to chat with you on this episode all about your message. Because you might have come into this, you might be thinking, well, I just wanted to. Podcast to promote my business, right? Like everyone's got it as a marketing tool.
[00:00:26] Now you're telling me I gotta tell my story in this and I gotta, I gotta dig deep. I gotta go deep on this. Like, I don't know, Peterson . And if you're there thinking that, I hear you. Okay. It takes a long time or it can take a long time to get this figured out. And I think that when we think about marketing our business, marketing our personal brand, we don't necessarily think about paradoxically.
[00:00:54] We don't necessarily think about how. Your story actually [00:01:00] factors in to your brand. But let's be honest, you started your business for a reason. So today's episode is all about getting to brass tack a bit more on helping you hone your message. One of the reasons that I think that.
[00:01:20] People struggle and feel a little bit like deer in headlights when it comes to their messaging is well one is, potentially if you are a solopreneur and you're doing all this work, Alone. It's really hard to see the forest through the trees and take that step back and think about what is my message.
[00:01:46] I'm so busy with the day-to-day. I'm so busy, trying to just get my reels up on social media. I'm trying to Figure out my business and my email list went down, or there's some tech issue that'shappening, right?
[00:02:00] So often, especially as solar entrepreneurs or very small teams, it can be very difficult to actually take that step back and get really clear on your messaging.
[00:02:16] So, I understand entirely. And I think also too, we don't wanna necessarily feel like we are talking about ourselves, right? So of course we're in a business to help other people. We're not in our business and we're not running our podcasts to simply use it as a personal diary.
[00:02:36] But I think. Not telling your story and not allowing your message to be woven into your marketing and into your why of running your business is only making things harder because let's be honest, people don't buy things. They don't buy services. They buy [00:03:00] people. And this is why I love podcasting so much.
[00:03:04] If you have followed along with me at all in any of my social media or in Arrived or even in these last few episodes, you know how much and how strongly I believe in the power of podcasting to develop relationships, solid, genuine relationships with your audience, so that then they are more informed and more empowered to make that decision to invest.
[00:03:30] Their hard-earned money in you because you have taken that time to say, Hey, this is what I'm about. This is what I stand for, this is what my company stands for. Here's how I can help you. So getting that message correct is really, really important. But I think it's a struggle for so many of us because it's tough doing these things alone.
[00:03:52] Or, you're just trying to wear all the hats in your business.
[00:03:55] So today I wanna talk a little bit about how we can [00:04:00] find our message. And I've got, a few straight talk actionables that are gonna help you out on this.
[00:04:05] One thing that I had written here in my outline, that I haven't actually said yet is I totally forgotten about this point.
[00:04:11] I think we actually worry as well, too much, especially in the early stages about differentiation, right?
[00:04:16] How is your business different? You have to know how your business is different, and I completely agree. Yes, we need to have a niche. We need to draw our line in the sand. We need to differentiate our business and ourselves and our message from everyone else.
[00:04:29] But I think sometimes we worry too much about differentiation in the marketplace.
[00:04:34] So I think that if you, if one of the, one of the stumbling blocks that you're running across right now generally speaking uh, In whatever content creation you, you have out there right now, whatever content it is that you're creating I wouldn't worry so much just yet about the differentiation. I think this goes back to basics.
[00:04:53] So I wanna give you three things today, three straight talk, actionable exercises for you to consider [00:05:00] when it comes to crafting your own message. Now that you know. by now in episode four, how important getting that foundation is when you're not only launching a podcast, or when you have a podcast, but in any type of content that you're gonna create across all of your channels, your social media, your email list, any content that you're putting out there has to be rooted in that message.
[00:05:24] The first thing you might wanna consider in figuring out what is my message is why did you start? Your business in the first place. What was it that was that impetus for you to start your business? Really briefly, my impetus to transition over from interior design into podcast coaching was I had a friend who reached out to me and said, Hey, I feel really stuck.
[00:05:51] I really wanna start a podcast. Can you help me out? And I just thought, I think I wanna do that. I think I really wanna help empower this person to get [00:06:00] his voice out there.
[00:06:01] Of course my mission and my message is all about helping you find your voice, to hone your message, make an impact on your audience, build your business through this amazing, impactful medium we call podcasting.
[00:06:12] So, think about what is it that. Made me wanna start my business in the first place. Why do I get up and do what I do every day? Now, of course, we all know they're gonna be those bad days or you're like, ah, I dunno why I'm doing this today. , believe me, I have 'em too. Um, But what is it that made you wanna start your business?
[00:06:35] What was that pain point? What was that spark that made you go, Hey, you know what, it's what I'm doing. I'm gonna have this business. I'm gonna help these people. I'm gonna solve this problem. Because that, just knowing and remembering I should say, revisiting why you started your business in the first place can really be powerful to help you devise that messaging system.
[00:06:58] And I, wanna say strategy, but I, there's a, I feel kind of like bug bear with the word strategy because I think that sometimes the word strategy can sound a bit disingenuous and. When we think about messaging, we don't wanna think about that as being like, it's a, it's a strategy or it's manipulative.
[00:07:14] It's very organic, it's very authentic. So, think about why it is that you. started your business and you can use that as a vehicle by which to start crafting your message. And so you, what you might wanna do here for this exercise is you might just wanna literally list all the different reasons. Or for example, like I had mentioned, my friend reached out to me and was like, Hey, I wanna start my pod.
[00:07:36] What? You helped me. I don't know how to do it. I don't know the first clue. I don't know where to.
[00:07:40] You might consider, who was that first client? What were their struggles and how did you help them? And that can be a really powerful exercise unto itself to help you start to get really rock solid on your messaging framework.
[00:07:56] Exercise two I would say is oh, I love this one. [00:08:00] So imagine you're driving down the road and there's billboards down the freeway and stuff. If you had a billboard, someone was taking out a billboard and, paying for the advertising or whatever, and, and you could only list your message, what would that message be?
[00:08:17] So on the face of it, it sounds like, oh God, no pressure here, Peterson. But you don't have to distill it down into something like really quippy immediately.
[00:08:26] For me, my billboard would be, your voice has the power to make far-reaching impact and you deserve to be heard.
[00:08:34] So, think about what would that message be If it was gonna go up on a billboard, what would you want people to know?
[00:08:44] And let's pretend that everyone who's driving down this freeway is your potential customer or your ideal client, right? So, let's say you're a fitness coach, maybe your message is something along the line of, everyone deserves to feel [00:09:00] healthy and integrated into working out at the gym or whatever, right?
[00:09:04] Because we all know a lot of us don't wanna go to a gym cuz we're like, I don't know, don't feel so comfortable. So, I don't know. I'm not a fitness coach. I'm just literally coming up with these things on the top of my head, but, , think about that. What would be what would be something that you could tell your ideal customer if you had to put it on a billboard?
[00:09:18] That can be a really powerful exercise just to help you distill down hopefully very quickly what your core message is. And of course, then we use that core message to build all of our content and our podcast episodes from.
[00:09:31] But I'm getting ahead of myself there, . And the third exercise I have for you is, if you knew of someone out there struggling right now who had this pain point about we'll use the example of the fitness coach, right?
[00:09:45] If you knew of someone out there who was like, I really wanna go to the gym, but I feel really uncomfortable at the gym. It doesn't really feel like my thing, but I wanna be healthy, what would you say to that person? So what might you. That person who has that pain point [00:10:00] and just start journaling that out.
[00:10:02] Again, I think when we think about our clients and our customers point of need and we combine that with. Our own story. That's when the magic really happens. And I think that's when we start to really develop our voice and our framework for our whole messaging so that we can show up to the mic and.
[00:10:30] Get our content out there in a way that we feel confident in, in ourselves delivering, but confident also in knowing that our audience is going to take massive benefit from, it's gonna bring a ton of value. too..
[00:10:45] So, just a really quick recap on these three exercises. The first one was to sit down with your journal and ask yourself, why did I start my business?
[00:10:54] What was it that got me into this business in the first place? Who did I wanna help? Or what was that pain point that I was [00:11:00] feeling or that I saw other people experiencing that made me say, Hey, you know what, I think I wanna take the time to set up this business and help people out.
[00:11:08] The second exercise is if you could tell your audience, your clients, your customers who are all driving down your magical freeway, , one core message on that billboard, what would that message be?
[00:11:23] And the third exercise for you today for your Straight Talk actionables today are, if you knew of someone out there struggling with something who had that pain point that you solve for them.
[00:11:35] Think of a client, maybe think of a customer. What would you tell them? Okay, so you can get as granular on this as you, like, you can be as, sort of top line on this.
[00:11:46] They could, these could just be bullet points, but the point of, of this really, I think is. To say that no matter which exercise you choose, if you do all of them great, but really take the time. Again, when you're running your own business, [00:12:00] it is so hard sometimes because you're so busy in the day-to-day to really consider this messaging strategy or this messaging framework, so to speak.
[00:12:09] Part of the battle is literally just taking the time out and really focusing on your core message now that you know how important it is, and now that you know that people absolutely need to hear it and it's okay to feel like you're uncomfortable talking about that message.
[00:12:27] That's it for me. In episode four.
[00:12:31] If you have enjoyed listening to this podcast so far, I would love nothing more than if you could please leave a review and a star rating. On Apple Podcasts, I appreciate so much you taking the time to leave a review.
[00:12:47] At the end of the day, reviews do matter because they help other people find this podcast. They help other people hear my message. So if these episodes have been helpful for you at all, it would mean the world to me and other listeners out [00:13:00] there who haven't yet found the show, if you could please. leave a review
[00:13:03] so thank you so much. I'll speak to you again in episode five. Take care.
