Seven Strategies For Highly Effective Branding - With Natasha E. Davis
Jan 31, 2022Tom Bailey, founder of Succeed Through Speaking, interviews Natasha E. Davis.
Natasha E. Davis, is a Branding Strategist and Corporate Trainer. As a certified expert in email & social media marketing, branding, speaker, author and trainer, she thrives on fixing problems and eliminating frustrations for companies and their executives. Over the past 13 years, Natasha has worked with several companies, executives and business owners to assist them in enhancing their leadership potential, brand equity, brand loyalty, customer satisfaction and marketing strategy through the power of impactful branding. Having authored and published three books on personal and company branding strategy, she's earned awards and recognition for her abilities, talents and skills. Her clients affectionately refer to her as "The Chief Visionary" because of her ability to quickly identify issues, find solutions, get results and improve outcomes. Through the application of her Brand First Principle™ and Proactive Pivot Strategy™ her clients experience a 30% reduction in waste and 28% increase in cash flow and profit margins.
Resources / Links
https://impactbrandingconsulting.org/
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Transcript
Tom Bailey 00:07
Hello and welcome to succeed through speaking the place for experts and entrepreneurs who want high value ideas to boost business results. Hello, I'm Tom Bailey. And in today's episode, I'll be getting to know Natasha Davis, who is a branding strategist and corporate trainer. She's also certified as an expert in email and social media marketing and branding, and is a speaker and author. So Natasha, hello, and a very warm welcome to today's episode.
Natasha Davis 00:44
Hello, hello, thank you so much, Tom. Definitely looking forward to dropping some golden nuggets.
Tom Bailey 00:50
Absolutely. That's what we like on this podcast and just out of interest for everyone listening whereabouts in the world are you right now?
Natasha Davis 00:57
Well, I am in Georgia in the area of Atlanta, and we refer to it as Hotlanta. So
Tom Bailey 01:07
I'll have to go one day. And incredible. Thank you so much. I'll try to just share a little bit more about you before we get started. So Natasha has authored and published three books on personal and company branding strategy, and her clients affectionately referred to her as the Chief Visionary. Because of her ability to quickly identify issues, find solutions and get results and improve outcome. The title for today's episode is seven strategies for highly effective branding. And attach is going to show us how to do these in just seven minutes. So question, one for you today is who are your ideal
Natasha Davis 01:44
clients. So our ideal clients are business owners who are really working to grow their business, but they constantly realize that they're not hitting their targets, not hitting their margins, they feel like a human hamster on a wheel, they're striving to be efficient, they're striving to be effective, and they're striving to be profitable, giving it everything they have, however, they keep showing up in the same place. And so that may look like consultants that may look like other service providers, IT companies, H back companies, things of that nature. That's generally where our clients look like we've worked with medical, in the medical space as well. And so that's where our sweet spot is, we hang out with a lot of service based companies. Why? Because it is the hardest thing to present a service to make it look like a tangible consumable product. And that's what we specialize in is helping those people to position your service to look and feel like a product Easy, easy to consume.
Tom Bailey 02:50
Amazing. Love that. And you may well have just answered the next question. But what would you say is typically the biggest challenge for these businesses right now.
Natasha Davis 02:59
Right now today as we stand, the biggest challenge is one is time and speed. The second issue is efficiency. So a company that needs to get their product out, there's a time issue and there's a speed issue. Right? And then of course, we have this efficiency issue. And so therefore, a lot of challenges that companies are faced with small, medium and large. Those are the big issues. Am I putting my brand and my message and my product and my service out at the right time? You know, am I doing it with the right speed and the right frequency? And then also, am I also hitting those points? Like, am I even performing? Like what are we doing? Right? And so a lot of times we find that businesses struggle with just clearly understand the sequence, clearly understanding what they're doing, and most importantly, what what they should not be doing what they should not be doing. It's really important.
Tom Bailey 03:55
Yeah, cuz sometimes you can be tempted to get involved in the latest marketing campaign or the latest initiative. But yeah, stay focused, keep productive, keep efficient. Absolutely.
Natasha Davis 04:04
Exactly. Exactly. And
Tom Bailey 04:07
I guess this time issue, this speed issue, this productivity issue, if, if they don't get this right, and they don't nail this, what impact can they have on their business?
Natasha Davis 04:18
Wow, that's going to affect their customer acquisition, it's going to affect also the brand equity that they possibly can garner in the industry. And of course, it's going to affect their bottom line is we are in business, we make money, which is right the business off of revenue. And so when a company doesn't put an eye on all of these important things, time, speed, performance, all that we're losing the possibility of achieving the profit margin, and is the profits that we need in order to grow and to scale and to achieve those market marks and those milestones. If we sell pencils, selling the one pencil I made revenue. But did I actually make a profit? And that is where a lot of businesses get stuck. I sold I sold, I sold money's in the bank, but it's not enough for me to even grow, let alone for me to even step outside the line. Right? Yeah.
Tom Bailey 05:15
Or sometimes pay myself as a business owner?
Natasha Davis 05:17
Oh my gosh, that is a big thing. I'm not paying yourself. I'm like, oh, no, that needs to stop.
Tom Bailey 05:25
Okay, so any business owner listening right now that starts to think this sounds like me? What's that one piece of advice that you might give them to really help them solve this problem?
Natasha Davis 05:35
You know, the one piece of advice I would give, making sure there's a clear understanding between strategy and tactics to different things. Strategy is what you do when you work in on the business tactics is when you're working in the business. Often, all too often, business owners, small business owners, startups, you know, solopreneurs, they're so focused on working in the business, they never get to be in on the business, hence, they never hit the revenue goals that they're striving for. So the first thing is to be clear about what's the difference between strategy and tactics? Are you working on it? Or are you working in it, and knowing the percentage of time that you're spending most often, they don't spend any time on the business, they just work, work, work, do do do chase the next client chase the next contract, Chase, Chase Chase, but they never put systems in place to grow. The business growth comes from strategically thinking about how am I going to move this company forward?
Tom Bailey 06:33
One really quick question on the back of that is strategic thinking something you do annually, monthly or just something you should be doing all the time.
Natasha Davis 06:42
So most people hear that you only do strategic planning once a year, once every two or three years. In actuality, you develop the plan for two years ahead. And you're looking at the strategy, you're looking at what you're doing every month, and you're measuring the outcomes, not only every quarter, but also every year. And so looking at the strategy has to be something you do, every decision that a business owner is making each day should be in alignment with the strategy. If it's not in alignment with the strategy, then why are we doing it? So therefore, the decision was made haphazardly. It was not made with any intention, every decision should be tied to the strategy is what I'm doing right now is what I'm about to say yes to right now, helping me to execute the strategy so I can get closer to my end goal. Here's a quick principle. I'd like to share Tom. Every, every time we say yes to something, you're effectively saying no to something else. And every time we say no, we're effectively saying yes. The key is to be very in tune to what exactly are you saying? Yes. And no to?
Tom Bailey 07:53
Yeah, and having that strategic plan, as the map allows you to make those decisions. And throughout the year. So yeah, really important. Thank you so much for answering that additional question. So for anyone listening that does want to get more strategic they want to work on their brand or business, where would you point them so they can get access to some free resources, training videos,
Natasha Davis 08:13
etc? Absolutely, I would encourage people to go to Natasha Davis, visionary, calm. That's Natasha Davis visionary calm over there, there is a plethora of resources and information, there is a free tools, templates, there's also trainings, there's the IBC Academy is over there, you can go and get some really great DIY courses to help move the business forward. Oftentimes, small businesses are scared to access certain services because the fear that it may cost more than they can afford, right? However, the best thing that a company can do is make small, incremental investments in the business on the self so that the company can move forward. We can't keep saying we don't have enough money. In order to make more money, we have to make an investment to do what to get a return on it. And that's what I like to say, if you don't make an investment, don't expect a return. So a basic investment could be just spending time getting access to resources. If you can get access to free resources, by all means take it, take it and run with it and apply it. But then the goal is to grow the business so that it can afford to access some of those paid resources on those different levels. But a bunch of free resources is on Natasha Davis. visionary.com.
Tom Bailey 09:32
Absolutely. Thanks so much for sharing that. And what I'll do is I'll put a link in the show notes, so you can click on that. And they can go and get a hold of those those free or paid resources from you. Yes, yes, yes. So you've obviously had a journey that you've been on in business, and what would you say is one of the biggest mistakes you've made or failures you've made or things that you've learned along the way?
Natasha Davis 09:54
Oh, my God, we only have what seven minutes? I don't think I could share all the mistakes. All right. Let's get one big one. All right, because we make so many mistakes, but we learn and grow from them. Um, one of the biggest mistakes I made when I first entered into the business space entrepreneur space is I went and I borrowed money, I borrowed money to, to run the business, get the business started. But that was a huge mistake. And the reason why that was a mistake was because when I went and borrowed the money, I never had a plan for what I was going to do with each dollar, how I was going to deploy it so that I could do what get a return on my investment, I was just happy to get the money. But you know, people don't lend you money to park it in the bank. So you can look at it, people lend you money, so that you can grow the business, make the investment and grow the business. And that was a big mistake, I borrowed money. So therefore I didn't respect where that money really came from. I then put my company in debt as a startup because I have to pay that money back, right. And I never had a plan for how I was going to deploy each dollar and building it to the point I could get a return on investment for each dollar that I deployed. That was a big mistake. So I actually don't encourage people to unnecessarily borrow money. Because if you borrow money, you've already put the company in debt. That means now you're accountable to do you need to paint and that to the vision of the business or to the plan.
Tom Bailey 11:16
Yeah, perfect, great, great. And thinking I guess a lot of this will come back to that strategic thinking as well, you know, don't go get don't get cash and go straight to tactics, you know, pause for a second think about strategic planning, and then build tactics on the back of that. And exactly. Last question for me today is what is the one question that I should have asked you today that will also bring some great value to our audience.
Natasha Davis 11:40
Questions should have asked is how do you build a team?
Tom Bailey 11:45
Great question for people starting out, you know, and the thinking about expanding How do you build a
Natasha Davis 11:49
team. So the quick clean way to build a team is to hire your weakness first. Most people in small business they start out with hiring what society says they should hire, you should get an assistant you should get an operations, you should get this you should get an accountant, you should get this, you should get that when you're first starting out and your company is lean, okay, it's lean, you're trying to grow it, you want to control costs. And but you also need to scale you need to scale rapidly build momentum quickly. The way you build momentum is one is be true to up, here's where my weaknesses, and you go and you hire your weakness. First, just because you are the founder of the company doesn't mean that you have to also be the marketer doesn't mean that you have to be the accountant and all of that. If you are not good with money, but you're great with marketing, then you should be the founder and over marketing and you go and hire somebody over the money. So just because you're the owner and founder doesn't mean that you have to be over the money. You have to be over certain things because society says that's what you should do. No, you hire your weakness, because people paying for your strengths. Don't pay you for your weaknesses. Hire your weakness first. Absolutely. Great
Tom Bailey 13:05
advice. And thank you so much Natasha for that today. I really appreciate you coming along and sharing such great value with our audience.
Natasha Davis 13:12
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
