Ep 83: How Women Entrepreneurs Elevate Authority Through Executive Presence with Jennifer Lemmert

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

Shauna Lynn Simon (00:02)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is Jennifer Lemmert. She's an award-winning communications consultant and expert in executive branding as well as employee engagement. She comes to us with over 20 years of experience supporting leaders in various industries from healthcare to tech to finance and government. But here's what makes her story so relatable to our audience is that Jennifer herself became an accidental CEO when she lost her job during the pandemic.

the pandemic. Sound familiar, anyone? So starting her business during nap time and late night, she's built a high six figure company in just five years while also get this raising three boys under the age of eight. She's passionate about helping leaders to craft authentic brand stories that are going to inspire trust and action. And today she's going to be sharing with us how women entrepreneurs can help to build that executive presence that commands respect.

and drives results. And she's going to talk about how we're sabotaging our brand sometimes and how we can overcome some of that. Because I think we all know that sometimes we are our own worst enemies, whether we mean to be or not. But we know how these things happen. So Jennifer, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much, Shauna Lynn. I can't wait to talk all things executive branding. And I so appreciate you having me today.

I can't wait to dive into this. So I need to start off. all love a good accidental CEO story. So you mentioned becoming an accidental CEO after losing your job in 2020. Walk us through sort of like the moment you realize that you are about to pivot from employee to entrepreneur. So it actually starts pre-pandemic because no kidding, New Year's Eve 2020, I had a three-year-old and a one-year-old. was spending

probably two and a half hours a day in a car commuting to my corporate job. I never had dinner with my kids. I like kiss them and ran out the door in the mornings and I was feeling really done. So New Year's, I said, this is my resolution. I'm gonna figure out how to do something different this year. I didn't know what that was gonna look like. I didn't know what it was gonna be like. ⁓ And then when things started to heat up with the pandemic, ⁓ word came out that most of the people at my company were gonna be furloughed.

⁓ And within a few hours, I was filing my LLC paperwork and thinking, all right, this is sink or swim time. This is it. You really don't have any other excuse because you don't have a job right now, ⁓ a paying job. was obviously an accidental stay at home mom for a while too. But what happened was it really forced me to stop and think about what is it that I want to do? Who is it I really want to be when I grow up?

And how do I create a company that is sustainable both for me as a career-driven professional and also to raise at that time two kids, now I have three kids. ⁓ So it was hectic and I spent a lot of nights and nap times agonizing over who were my clients gonna be, how do I reach them? We couldn't see people in real life at the time.

⁓ And that's kind of where I even fell into executive branding. How do I tell my own story? How do I write my own story of this business and my career? And yeah, so within, I don't know, six or so months, as soon as I finally got up the guts to announce it, ⁓ that's when big things started to happen. And I thought I'll do this for a little while. And now, you know, over five years later, it's it's grown into something that's so much better than I could have imagined. So

It was an accidental win that I'm really grateful happened to me. Well, I like how you talk about how you put it on your radar at New Year's. And what that does is it really opens up your mind to start looking for the opportunities. Now, little did you know there's going to be a pandemic coming down the pipeline. That's right. Here's your opportunity. Yeah. A little more extreme, think, than we're usually hoping for. Very extreme.

And I certainly, it's one of those things where you find the silver linings. There were many things that were obviously difficult and awful about that time. But I mean, I think those are the times when we can really find the most growth. whenever I think about why am I doing what I'm doing, when I start to feel some of those burnout moments, I can take myself back to that moment in time and realize this is where it all started. This is why it started. And I can find new energy there. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, again, it's so fortunate that you already had your mind kind of pre-primed to be thinking about something. But it's so important that we think about what is it that I actually want to be doing? Because this is a big thing, you you're talking about burnout. This is where burnout comes from, is if your passion is not aligned with where your profits are coming from, or if your business isn't moving forward, making the progress you need. Like we need all those three things, your passion, your profits and your progress all need to be in alignment.

Or that is how you end up hitting burnout. And of course, we want to try to avoid that as much as possible. So in those early days of starting the business, and again, you definitely had a bit of different circumstances in that you're dealing with a pandemic, can't see people in person. But how did you navigate some of the first challenges? What were maybe some big mistakes that you made in those early days that

kind of led you to some of your successes. We tend to learn sometimes from some of the biggest mistakes that we make. Of course. And I think when you're talking about being driven by passion versus profits, that's all I had at the beginning was passion. And part of the passion was I don't want to be broke, right? But when you start out and you're new, and especially if you're coming from a corporate job, you think, well, I can do everything because I've done all these things in my past. ⁓

Fact the matter is you're not good at everything. So I think I started out being really broad. Like I do all things communications. I was ⁓ letting people pay me to do websites for them. I'm not a website professional, but I could figure it out well enough, right? And so when you start sort of really big like that and you do work that you feel ⁓ you're just doing just to get yourself going, you can start to really narrow it down and start to niche down. And that's what I started to do.

What are the things that I find most enjoyable? What are the things that I think I'm the best at? And to your point, this whole idea of authenticity and executive branding, it was something that we'd always done in communications. I don't know that we really had the language around it ⁓ at that point five years ago. ⁓ But I was like, I love telling people's stories. I love telling other people's stories. I always wanted to be a journalist. And the more I started working with clients on those pieces instead of the stuff like,

know, websites or, you know, certain ⁓ like media relations, some of the things that were not ⁓ the passion points for me. I realized I was really good at those things and people would continue to pay me for them. And then I could charge more because I was, I was offering a service that, you know, an executives or an internal person could not do because they have 10 million things on their plate. I can really be super specialized. So at the beginning it was, it was going from like this huge menu of options.

and really scaling into what are things I'm good at and I really offer the most value for. I think another thing that I ⁓ did not really have a good grasp on early on was like some of the financial stuff. I still struggle with that. I have to outsource kind of all those things to help people, you know, have services in place, people in place to help me stay accountable so that I remember to my taxes on time and I pay the right amount or make sure my corporate credit card is paid, like all those things you just don't even think about when you're in a corporate.

corporate space but ⁓ I think trusting some of the wrong people, getting bad advice, ⁓ but all of that becomes fuel for how to do it better and how to share it with other people so that we can all do better when you know better. Well and one of the things that I really like that you talked about was how you started off broad and you fairly quickly narrowed it down but this is one of the things that you know often we make the mistake of well I can do it so why wouldn't I do it if someone's going to pay me to do it but there's a cost that comes with

doing things that don't actually align with where you're really good and where you're that sweet spot is and what you're really passionate about. But I can also understand when you're first starting, you're like, just give me money. just, I don't care where it comes from. Just give me money. So, I would not do that if we were fast warding five years and I was starting now, I would not do that. So,

agree 100%. But it's also always easier said than done. I'm sure there's some people listening to this, like, listen, I got to put food on the table. I got to pay some bills. I'm to take the awful client that just came down the pipeline, whether I like it or not. But the goal is that we want to work towards even if that is the case that we're taking some of these, these clients that are not necessarily ideal, we want to work towards ensuring that we are working with the best clients. And this is a common challenge that my clients have all the time when they come to me, they're how do I get

the people I actually want to work with. Like every client I get just is a pain in the butt and they're haggling over the price and all these different things. And so you talk about using our stories and you talk about like an executive brand. Let's let's actually backtrack this for a moment. What is an executive brand? If someone's listening to this and being like, I'm not a brand, I'm just a company. Like I'm just a person. I'm an entrepreneur. What is an executive brand?

I think we get caught up sometimes in what the brand elements are. People think, I talk to people all the time who want to get started and they're like, well, I need a logo and I need a website and I need a color palette. And all of those things are important at a certain point, but you can't create them if you don't really know who you are and what makes you special. And I know that might feel a little bit woo woo, but when it gets down to like the nuts and bolts of it, it's what do want people to say about you and your company when you're not around?

What do you want customers to take away from the experience of working with you? And that to me, sort of the executive brand is really the story of you and your business. And I think about it ⁓ as being almost like your personal identity as a business leader, because each of us is. And I think that's a hard mindset shift too. You think.

Well, I'm starting a company. When I was starting, I would just say, well, I'm a freelancer. And I don't say that anymore. I say, I own a communications company that does this, this, and this. So I think you really have to claim that space first. I'm a business owner. I'm a CEO. I am a founder. Really using that power language and not being afraid of that, even when you're just getting started. I think that is so important. Sorry, before we move on. Yeah, problem. Because I think this is, I really want to make sure people are hearing this.

Because I can remember doing the same thing. So my first business was a home staging business. And I would go to networking events or parties or whatever. And people would say, what do you do? I'm like, I'm a home stager. And they thought that I just went around and fluffed pillows and such. of course, staging was quite new. This was back in 2008 when I first started. Staging's brand new. People don't know what it is. And so I very quickly changed the language to telling people I operated a home staging.

company, right? I own a home staging firm. There was different terminology that I used for it, but it changed how people looked at me when I said that. And I'll admit, I actually built a team of stagers, which was unheard of at the time. Stagers were single people. were driving around in their trucks themselves, and they brought in the odd person to help them with things. the most part, they were doing all the things themselves. And I was very quickly like, no, I'm going to have a team, and this is how this is to work.

So I did have a team of people, but I would say even if you don't have that team yet, even to your point of you're outsourcing things like some of the financial stuff and like we're probably all of us are outsourcing something, even if it's just in a small way. But even if you're not outsourcing anything, I think that putting yourself, like you said, in that title of running a company, you are in charge. You're responsible for this company and all of its outcomes. That is

not just you. Yes, you are a big part of it. Yes, you are a big part of your brand. But I think, like you said, just going taking yourself from the doer to the person who's who's really leading everything. That is a powerful change in your messaging. It's and it changes how people receive you too. I mean, there people that I've seen at, you know, kids birthday parties and they'll say, are you still freelancing? Which I say, no, I own a company.

Right. And I, you know, I have these big projects, you know, I think, and we can get into this later, but I think sometimes as women, we are, we are afraid to brag, like we feel like we have to be modest. If it's not perfect yet, then I can't talk about it because, because somebody is going to know that it's not perfect. But when it comes back to executive branding, I mean, this is your story. It is, it is the three pieces of it that I think are the most important. What is it that you do?

I mean, the nuts and bolts of it, not just I'm a homestager, but I own this homestaging company and I manage a team of homestagers. What's your unique value? What sets you apart from the other people who are in your space? And then why would someone pay you to solve their problem? Because I could do what I do for free, but I don't because there's a value add there. There's a real cost and a demand for it in the business. So think we have to be comfortable.

with those things and not feeling worried that somehow we're not telling the right story or we're not qualified to be a founder or a CEO or a business owner. But you do touch on something that's really important to address. And I know we've addressed it on previous podcast episodes, but I feel like it just can't be said enough and by enough people. But just that mentality of just we're not enough. I'm not big enough to call myself a company yet. ⁓

I need to know a little bit more about this or even just what you're talking about in terms of your unique value. Why would someone pay you to solve their problem? And I often talk to people like, well, I don't know, like I'm doing like the same thing everybody else is doing. So I don't know. I'm not, I'm not that special and getting our breaking free from that mentality and owning our uniqueness. And I can tell you, I, I've worked with so many businesses, every one of them. I can work with 20 different interior designers in the same day.

Every one of them is going to have something that's going to set them apart. But until you start pulling that out, you are just going to look like everybody else out there. Like, I don't know about where you live, but for example, where I live, I can't throw a rock without hitting a real estate agent. So if you're going get into real estate, you've got to have something that's going to actually make me want to call you, as opposed to just doing the same thing that everybody else is doing.

Right, exactly. I mean, when I'm talking about my ⁓ executive brand, mean, communications is an enormous field and it encompasses so much. So I talk about, I'm a communications expert. I help executives shine in their industry. I blend ⁓ storytelling with thought leadership. I have a proven track record of elevating leaders into thought leaders. I help them connect with the stakeholders that matter the most.

when you break it down into those pieces and we can talk about what those steps are and how I recommend to do that. But when you break it down into those real steps, I think that's where the power lies. And that's where when somebody's hearing it on the other side of the conversation or reading it on your website, then that light bulb goes off and they're like, ⁓ okay, you're definitely not like the 10 other communications people I know. You have a really specific area of expertise and that's the one I need. Yeah, and you're focusing on like,

results driven, like how this actually matters to your audience, to the people that you're speaking to. And that connects with them. The whole point is we want them to raise their hand and say, that's me. How can you help me? Right? Yes. And I mean, I am someone who, ⁓ like I said, ⁓ someone who in another life would be a journalist or a novelist or something like that. I mean, my recommendation, if you're a business owner, ⁓ write these things down. Go ahead and just journal it out so that you have that reference point.

and share it with other people that you trust and get that kind of feedback because that's, mean, you can market test it, sure, but why not A-B test it with people who already like you and know you and think you're smart? Yeah, for sure. And I mean, one of the things that you also talk about is, you know, we talked about kind of the messiness of building our business sometimes, and, you know, we all hit these setbacks, we make these mistakes along the way.

And you actually talk about taking those setbacks and turning them into brand stories. And I can imagine there's a lot of women who are probably listening to this and being like, no, I would like to keep that to myself. I don't want to share that with anyone. But you're right, though. I feel like it's more relatable. I went to, was about a year or two ago, I guess, I went to the seminar that was put on by the executive coach for a colleague of mine. And so I really respect this colleague. So I really wanted to check out what his coach had to say.

And the coach gets up there and talks about how he decided he wanted to start a coaching business. So his dad gave him a bunch of money and he hired a bunch of consultants and he started this coaching business. I'm like, cool, I'm never going to have to that. Right. You don't know what it's like down here in the trenches. So I feel like people want to understand. And a lot of us, we develop a business out of the things that we had to learn the hard way. want to kind of mama bear it a little bit of like, let me help you not learn the hard lessons the way that I learned them and give you a smoother path.

So how do we take some of those setbacks and actually turn them into a brand story that people actually want to hear about? So the brand story doesn't just sound like, this woman doesn't know what the heck she's doing. I think that's we're all afraid of. Yeah, and I think you have to be very discerning about which setbacks you're going to share, right? Which are the ones that you have that are real lessons that you learned that you feel are most applicable to someone else? I mean, I have a million stories about a million things. But I mean, you can look at the life of your business, and you can probably

pick out, even just to start like two or three kind of pivotal moments where, ⁓ you know, you felt like you weren't doing well, and you were able to spin that into something positive. And I'll just share one from my own experience, which is, ⁓ there was someone in my network who had a very specific skill set, I had a client that needed this specific skill set. And I thought I was early on, and I was like, ⁓ I will bring this person in, they have this really specific skill set.

And instead of me writing a contract with this individual and me getting paid and then cutting that out, I introduced them to my client. And then they like raided the business or, you know, not raided the business, but attempted to take some stuff from me, like just that whole kind of nightmare experience, right? ⁓ At the end of the day, I mean, I was able to turn it into good, which is I said to myself,

I know so many now women communications consultants. What if there was like a safe space where we could ask those questions, where I could say, hey, I'm thinking about working with this person. Does anybody have any advice for like how to bring in a subcontractor? I'd never done it before. So I just created kind of a community. I think we're up to like 30 now of just women who know each other in my, most of them in my local area to be able to put some of those questions out there. And I've told this story a million times now because

The root of it is when you are a business owner, you cannot be afraid to ask other people for help. Ask other people for advice. Have your trusted board of directors to pressure test people with. I thought, I know what I'm doing. This can't be that hard. I trust this person. You can't do that kind of stuff. So that's a setback where in the moment, I was like, my gosh, I've lost out on thousands of dollars. This person now has access to my contacts.

And instead now I've pivoted into this community of women where I have trusted contacts where I could say, let me sub you in, let's put a contract together. And like, there's that shared agreement now. Perfect. Yeah. Like, what are those moments? And this is the thing too. Yeah, like when you think about the people that you're learning from and they're giving advice, I mean, I've had people like,

meet me in person and have said to me like, like you're actually like a real person or I can't imagine you making that mistake. Like, my gosh, I made a lot of mistakes. I still make a lot of mistakes to be clear. And I, I openly share them as well because I never want anyone to think that I'm just over here, like saying like, I got it all figured out and I'm just going to teach everybody else all of my jewels of wisdom without ever still taking risks and, and, you know, trying to.

to grow myself both personally and professionally, all of that does come with setbacks along the way. But when we can take the lessons out of those and turn them into a positive and turn them into a story that resonates with other people, I to be able to build this community out of something that you had that was so unfortunate and probably so stressful at the time, and you probably felt so alone dealing with it. And now you've got this whole community. So when this comes up, you can really catch it before it becomes a big deal. Right.

Right. And I think the thing too, we're afraid to share those setbacks because we think that somehow we will lose business if people know that we didn't get it right the first time. Right. But in reality, when you share that, mean, nobody is looking, nobody has the time to look at Jennifer Limmert or Shauna Lynn and say like, oh, well, she made 10 mistakes. So I'm not going to work with her. People don't have that kind of time. It's just like a blip to them. But when you have that actionable lesson, like, oh, yeah.

That's when you really elevate yourself as an expert. And that's kind of the whole point. Yeah. And so one of the things that you talk about is that women often are making a lot of different branding mistakes. And sometimes they're actually undermining their own executive brand despite they have got great messaging. But they're kind of undermining their own brand. How are they doing that exactly? Can you give us maybe a specific example of what that might look like?

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So what are some of the big branding mistakes that you see women entrepreneurs make? Like you talk about how a lot of times executives, like women are undermining their executive brand despite having some great messaging. And you know what, before you answer that, we're gonna just take this really quick break. And when we come back, Jennifer is gonna give us her best insights on this topic. All right, welcome back to the Real Women Real Business Podcast. We're talking with Jennifer Limmert and...

We want to talk about the brand messaging. A lot of women, like they work really hard on their messaging, but a lot of times they're not quite hitting the mark. And so what are some of the big branding mistakes that you're seeing that's actually undermining that great messaging that they've come up with? I think we're afraid to brag about our success. I think a lot of us are brought up to be very modest and you don't want to be a pick me girl. You're not trying to be Miss Popularity.

You have to throw all of that out the window when you're a business owner because we are literally out here singing for our supper, right? You have to unapologetically own your space and own your expertise. So I think bragging, ⁓ even though you might feel that it has a negative connotation, don't be afraid to brag about all the things you've done. ⁓ I think we can be afraid. Yeah, think we could be afraid that we're not gonna be taken seriously if we show a little bit of our personal life.

I know with the execs I work with, sometimes they're nervous about even saying that they're moms or they take a vacation or something like that. Because some of us, if you've come up in the corporate world, that can feel like, well, I'm not serious about my job or my career. When you're a business owner, all bets are off. You're telling your story. You are a real person. You are also running a business. It's OK to have some integration between your work and your life.

I think we also tend to prioritize everything else above ourselves and above kind of keeping our own stuff going. ⁓ You know, it's easy to put ⁓ your own story on the back burner if you feel like you've got bills to pay, you've got invoices to write up, you've got a product to move, whatever it is, you can be like, executive branding, I'll do that later. ⁓ But taking time to evaluate ⁓ how you're showing up is part of your business that is part of your value proposition.

I think the last, sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. No, go ahead. I was just going to say the last thing I think we're afraid of is what people are going to think. I think we're afraid of just.

I mean, I sat on the fact that I had a business established for I think months before I publicly I I'm stupid and I don't you know, I have no right to go out there and start a business. But at this point, who cares, right? Either way, sink or swim. It's about you and your success. So you don't have to worry about what other people are thinking about or judging you for.

And I think this is it. We all talk about, you hear this word, authenticity being tossed around. very few people are actually living and showing a true authentic life. They're showing what they think authenticity is supposed to look like, as opposed to what it actually is to them. And we're so afraid of what everyone else thinks. And here's the truth. First of all, people are not thinking about you as much as you actually think that they are. That's the first thing to come to terms with. You're not as special in that way as you think that you are, because everybody's caught up in their own world and their own things.

But even the ones who are looking at you and if you start getting a little bit of that, that hate and that negativity out there, that means you're actually doing something right. And I know it sounds so cliche, but if you actually start getting a little bit of pushback or people are taking notice of you and casting maybe a little bit of shade over on you, like that is actually a good thing because it means that you're making some waves and you're standing out in a crowd. And that's exactly what you want to do. But it is uncomfortable, I think, for women, especially to

to get over that modesty. We are taught, like you said, to be humble and to be grateful and to not make too much noise and to be polite and respectful. And so we see this bragging about ourselves as being arrogant and taking on this stance that we're maybe not as comfortable in. But you can be confident in all the amazing things that make you incredibly awesome while still being compassionate and natural and kind and caring.

and those two worlds can come together. How does someone take those two things and bring them together? Like that, I need to be the hard corporate person, but I also want to be the soft person. And how do I take the, I want to be my true authentic self, but I also want to make sure that I'm being respected. And how do they find that balance? Yeah, I think you just have to

is come from middle ground. For me, it's like middle. Like I have a home office. I have these three kids. Like my work and life are so integrated that I have to be able to talk about that. And that's what helps make me relatable. I think when you swing too far in one direction where you're talking about baking brownies for the PTA bake sale, every other social post, or you're pretending that you don't have a life away from your laptop.

that that's where you risk not being relatable in either sense. You want to be somewhere in the middle where it makes sense that you're talking about the things that are business related, but you're also giving a flavor of your outside of the business world ⁓ life. So that's where it comes in. It's OK to talk about going on vacation. Everybody relates to that. We all need to recharge. It's OK to talk about hitting a huge revenue goal. That's showing your expertise in how

how well you're doing. It's making sure that those things are well balanced. And you obviously want the business content to take higher precedence. But don't be afraid to just add a little bit of infusion from your personal life. ⁓ Think of it as like going to a barbecue with people who might be your potential customers. I can't tell you how many times on social I'll tell a story about ⁓

you know, just a client interaction ⁓ and the takeaway is somebody will be like, yeah, I saw your, I saw your post and how are your kids doing? Just like some of that random stuff. People will see the business. They still want to get you, get to know you as a person. They'll see you as a person. They'll also want to get to know you as a business. Sort of that push pull. Totally agree. I mean, like before we hit record here, we also talked about, like, listen, if a kid comes into the picture, if an animal comes in, like whatever, like that's all reality.

And anyone who's ever watched this podcast on YouTube has seen my cats behind me. Anyone who's ever seen me on a webinar has seen my cats. Sometimes they get a little vocal or they to pop their head up. And this is just the reality of life. But it's funny because whenever I meet someone, like, how are your cats? And how is this cat and that cat? different. What was this one's name? And they all have their own personalities, of course.

You know, for me, I'm also, I'm an avid runner, very passionate about running. And I mean, if you've ever met a runner, you know, don't get them talking about running because we will not stop about it. I try not to make my entire Facebook feed about running, but I like to throw little things in there sometimes. And sometimes it's just strictly personal. Sometimes I'm relating it back to business as well. Like one of the things that I love to say is anyone who ever said you can't stop time obviously has never been a runner because when you're running, I have all the hours in the day.

Right. I run for hours and hours and as soon as I get home from running, I'm like, ⁓ I have an actual life I got to get to here. Whoopsies. Like, you you just kind of like get back into the groove of things. But I post about my runs and the different things that I'm seeing on them. And I rescue cats on my run sometimes because it's crazy. But like, these are all things that how does this relate to business? It doesn't always, but it makes me incredibly relatable and it's human and it's something I'm passionate about. And I feel like I want to share that.

with others because I think it's just a fun story and I think that people are going to connect with it. And I'm not trying to make a sale out of that, but it does help when I do connect with them further. They're like, you know what? I really love that. What you did about your cat or what you said about this or whatever. And even to your point of like talking about moms, I think it depends on your audience, of course, as well. Like if your audience is strictly, you know, old school alpha male, you know,

sure, they might not care about you sharing all of the stories about your kids. But if your audience is predominantly women, share about your kids. They're going through the same sort of thing. They're going to care. They're going to enjoy that. Yeah. And I think it comes back to how you want your brand to make people feel. How do you want people to feel at every point of the customer interaction? People do not want to work with a robot.

And even if you're talking about the alpha males, I'm telling you, they are also getting in touch with their outside of the office side. Because at the same time, that's part of your experience. That's one of your differentiators. So I like to say, think about it. What are the three to five words that you want people to feel when they interact with your brand? For me, I want my executive clients to feel safe.

I'm someone who's going to take care of their story and amplify them in the right way. I want them to feel like they're ascending, like they're moving on the upswing, not just kind of staying static, because otherwise why did they hire me? ⁓ know, trustworthy, all of those words. So think about like, what are those three to five words that you want people to feel after they get off an intro call with you, after they read something on your website, after they start working with you?

⁓ And you can map out your customer experience too against like what those different feelings are. ⁓ Because that's what brings people back over and over. And especially if you're somebody that works on referrals, right? It's not just that the work product is really great. People wanna work with somebody who can take feedback, somebody who's strategic, somebody who will give them good advice. think about like, what are those ways that you are infusing feelings and emotions

from your brand, from your brand story into your customer base and into your potential customer base. It's okay. They come up with these say three to five words about their brand and they use that as sort of like their base for things. At what point should they be revisiting this and kind of looking at it again? should we be continually updating it or is it sort of once you nail it down, you know, it's working. Don't mess with it. If it's not broke, don't fix it kind of thing. Like we're

Where's that space in there for how that brand evolves or what? Yeah. Well, I think you definitely always want to be evolving. ⁓ For me, I look at this stuff for myself ⁓ at least once a year, sometimes every six months. Because what happens is the world is constantly changing. You are constantly changing and growing. And a lot of times, so are your customers. So is your business. So is your approach to business. ⁓

can't even think of one business line in the last five years, it's been like completely flat and unchanging. So to create it and hold the line and never shift means that you are kind of putting yourself in a place where you're not going to grow. So take a look back, see what's working, what's resonating. I'll use social media as an example. You can have real metrics there that you're evaluating.

and see how your audience is reacting to different messaging and different stories over time. And there's nothing wrong with recycling those stories, right? There's nothing wrong with repackaging it, but you can see where your audience is really, ⁓ really, where the things you're saying are really resonating with your audience. But yeah, I think every six months, ⁓ take a look, see if some of those things may not change, but some of them might, ⁓ your services might change. You you just, you just always have to be in sort of that

willingness to evolve and okay with leaving some stuff in the past and moving forward with something new. So once a year, every six months. I would say I think that's so key. mean even just we learn kind of the different things that are connecting with our audience or something comes up that sort of pulls us further in one direction and we start to give up another direction. Even how you were talking when you first started and you were this freelancer and kind of doing all the things and then you sort of niched it down to where you are today. And so

for, you you don't, who knows in six months, you might be even further niche down to very specific type of entrepreneurs that you're working with and the messaging that's going to connect best with them. And so, yeah, I think it's important. I would say every six months to a year to be reevaluating and your brand messaging doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do a whole revamp of your website, but just look at some of the trigger phrases, look at some of the core things, even just positioning of things on your website. Like if you're promoting.

Let's say you've got say three core services and you've a lot of times what we do is we list our core services in order of pricing like the lowest priced one up to the top priced one. But you don't want to sell your lowest priced one as your main one. Like it's the middle priced one. That's kind of the main one that people like the one that you want to sell the most of. That's your sweet spot. So let's just shift the order that you have these things in on your website.

And you know that after you've worked with people and you see what is what's connecting with them like, this is what's most valuable and changing your message to say our clients love this because or this helps you because because you have that language. Whereas if you first introduce a service, for example, you don't even know like, you know why it should help people. But it's not until you start getting feedback from people and getting real time data. And I love how you talked about digging into the analytics on your social media and see what's resonating with people and see what's actually performing well. Now, that said,

If you did a whole reel on how to create the best gluten free, sugar free cupcakes for your PTA meeting ever, and that has nothing to do with your business and isn't about to pull in anyone in your audience that could be in your audience. Okay. It's great that that performed well. It's great that it got you some traction, but maybe we're not doing 20 more of those. Doesn't mean it's not a good post. If it attracted people who are potentially going to be your ideal clients, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's the same way that I feel when I attract people because of my cats.

doesn't, just because they love cats doesn't mean that they're going to be the best client for me. But we're going to get along pretty well if they like cats. I know that for sure anyway. All animals for that matter. Any animals, if you've got any animals in the picture, I'm very happy with them. Wonderful. Jennifer, this has been, you've shared so many great insights and if people are just starting to get going on their executive brand, they're like, if they're kind of looking at things and saying, well, know, kind of looking at things and I realized I look like every other

person in my area that's the same sort of services. So I definitely know that I need some change. If they take one thing away from today's episode, one thing that they can do this week to start moving their brand in the right direction, what's the one thing that you hope that they'll take away from this? My hope is that they will get very serious about what is the brand story. Write it down. I can't say this enough. Write it down. ⁓ Just going back to what we talked about at the beginning, write down what it is that you do.

What is it that makes you unique? Even if you feel like maybe you're looking similar to everyone in your market, what is it that makes you unique and sets you apart? And what are the things that you want people to be paying you for? ⁓ And I mean, I would even go through the exercise of how do you want customers to feel and just doing a map of like, how am I making sure that that's coming through? You can even pull past customers and say, I'd love to just get some data from you about what

you know, what resonated the most and use that data to start building that story. But write it out, write out who what is your ideal? If somebody had to describe you as the ideal business owner, what does that look like? So don't be afraid to be creative. ⁓ It's a safe space when you're just working at it with yourself. But just get started. And dump all the ideas. Yeah, like rain dump is exactly that. Just dump all the ideas out. Don't worry if they're good or bad. Sort through them once you've got the list. But I think that's a great way to start it just like

Just get it all out on paper, not in your head. Your head is not the best place to store anything. So get it out, write it down, and start when you see it written down in front of you too, that's when you also can start sitting with it and saying, well, how does this feel if I try this on? If I wear this for a little while, how does this feel? So, wonderful. Thank you so much. If people are looking to find you, where's the best place that they can find you?

You should find me on LinkedIn, Jennifer Limmert, easy to find. ⁓ Please connect. I would love to chat and learn more about you, learn more about your business. If there's any executive branding you'd like to chat about, hit me up. It's my favorite thing. Amazing. Thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us. And if you're listening to this episode today and you're thinking this is really resonating with you, of course, I hope that you will continue to tune in every week. We drop new episodes every Tuesday at 7 a.m. Eastern time. And I hope that you allow us to continue to be a part of your entrepreneurial journey.

Don't forget to leave us a review and subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform, wherever you get your podcasts. And if this episode is really hitting home for you, you the best way to share your support for not only this podcast, but for your fellow women entrepreneurs is simply to share this episode with someone that you know really needs to hear this messaging today. Honestly, Jennifer, thank you again. I really appreciate you joining us. Thank you, Shauna It was great. All right. Until next time, everyone keep thriving.