A Personal Note from Orion

We are who we say we are – and this is especially true when it comes to our brand. Whether you have a product, service, or program, it’s up to you to show up strongly and consistently to your customers, in a way that is unique to you as an entrepreneur. My guest this week, Chelsey Marie, has been transforming the way entrepreneurs build their brands and share their message with the world through one simple concept: bravery.

You have to be brave enough to show up in the world as your true self, because that’s they way you are going to attract and grow a loyal legion of fans and customers. And you have to be strong enough to know that you won’t be able to make everyone happy – Chelsey herself went though this when at the age of 20, about to start her first webinar with 2,500 registrants, someone asked how she got could even provide anything valuable to her attendees, being only 20 years old. Well, she now runs a 6 figure business, so Chelsey definitely has given so much to her fans, and she shares a lot of that good stuff on this week’s episode.

 

 

In this Episode

• [02:59] – Chelsey introduces herself and explains the core of what she does. She also talks about the history of her own company.
• [04:20] – How did Chelsey’s success at a young age affect her as a person? She mentions the moments when she decided to quit her Victoria’s Secret job, and later school, to focus on her business.
• [06:44] – Chelsey shares a moment that showed her the difference between herself and her peers in the early days of her business.
• [10:34] – We learn about how Chelsey found the courage to pursue her business, and she shares some of what her home life was like and how it helped her.
• [12:20] – Orion talks about the connection between creativity, faith, and spirituality.
• [12:04] – How did Chelsey get 2,500 people on her first webinar?
• [15:10] – What were some of the greatest hooks that got people to sign up for Chelsey’s webinar? She offers several key tips for people who don’t currently have a mentor to help them with this.
• [18:39] – Chelsey loves using Instagram to promote her brand, she explains.
• [20:42] – Chelsey has been mentioning a marketing calendar; here, she goes into more depth about her system and how it works.
• [24:53] – Perspective is what Chelsey would consider the greatest strength that she has as a young entrepreneur.
• [27:11] – Chelsey shares her definition of a brand: “Your brand is anything and everything that leaves a first impression.” She explains that you don’t need to wait to become bigger before you can become a brand.
• [30:27] – What are some questions we can ask ourselves when we’re creating our brand’s identity?
• [31:22] – Chelsey talks about the first conversation she has with a new client who comes to her for help with branding.
• [32:46] – What elements are important in a brand or website? Chelsey talks in depth about the visuals as well as the words that you choose.
• [36:16] – Your logo is important, but it isn’t everything, Chelsey explains.
• [36:46] – The biggest mistake Chelsey sees people make is being “Vicky Vanilla.” This involves wanting everyone to like you, and therefore watering your message down to make everyone happy.
• [38:53] – What can we do to avoid being Vicky Vanilla? In her answer, Chelsey shares the story of a particular client who she helped with this.
• [42:05] – There isn’t much of a difference between who Chelsey is in her day-to-day life and on stage, she explains, but there are certain things that she keeps private.
• [43:13] – What are some of Chelsey’s favorite brands that are good examples of branding?
• [44:47] – Chelsey shares her three top tips to living a stellar life. 1: Be brave in all that you do. 2: Know that you don’t know everything, and find the right people to partner with. 3: Play and be creative as often as you can.
• [46:29] – Chelsey offers a giveaway to Stellar Life listeners: a three-video series called How to Start Standing Out.

About Today’s Show

‏‏Hello and welcome to Stellar Life podcast. I’m your host, Orion, founder of Orion’s Method. I just wanted to invite you to enjoy one more episode of Stellar Life podcast where we share about everything that makes your life stellar from business, to sexuality, to health, to biohacking, to everything that can help you live a more fulfilling and powerful life. I invite you to go back and check out other episodes. We have Dr. Demartini from The Secret on the show, Dave Asprey about biohacking, Alison Armstrong, lots of amazing, amazing leaders and luminaries. Today’s show is about branding. Chelsey Marie is a great brand designer, marketing strategist, and founder ofiamchelseymarie.com. She’s been called a go to girl when it comes to creating online presence that reflect who you are and what you do in a way that converts. Chelsey has helped build the brands of some of today’s most innovating industry leaders. In this episode, she’s going to share how you can bravely be who you are in your presence online and in your brand. She will share how she built her own brand into six figures by the age of 22. She started when she was 19, and what to do in your brand so you are not Vicki Vanilla because you do not want to be Vicki Vanilla in your brand. She’s going to explain what it is and why you shouldn’t be it. Now, without further ado, onto the show. Hi Chelsey and welcome to Stellar Life podcast. How are you doing today?

‏‏Oh, I’m doing so good. Thanks for having me on.

‏‏Yeah. Thank you for being here. I’m really excited to be talking to you because you are a branding expert and you know how to take a business and make it shine.

‏‏That’s right.

‏‏Correct, correct. I always start with you telling us a little bit about yourself.

‏‏Well, you already know my name. I’m Chelsey Marie. I’m a brand designer and marketing strategist. The core of what I believe about what I do and what I do is I help people, like yourself or myself, entrepreneurs in all different industries, bravely be who they are in their brands so that they can build the business of their dreams. I started my business when I was 19 so it’s been a little bit of a long road. We’re coming up on our sixth year of business birthday and so I’m super excited about that. I started my business as an accident, helping my step mom grow her Facebook marketing and it evolved into virtual assistants. A couple of years later, it really turned into creating brands. It is so amazing when people step into fully being who they are in their business, what the possibilities are for their brand’s exposure, their income, their impact in the world. That’s a little bit about me.

It is so amazing when people step into fully being who they are in their business, what the possibilities are for their brand’s exposure, their income, their impact in the world. Click To Tweet

‏‏That’s amazing. Wow, this is so incredible. To be so successful at such a young age, that’s awesome. How did it affect you as a person?

‏‏That is such a thought provoking question. In so many ways, I was doing what every other 19 year old was doing when I started my business. I was working retail and going to college. I remember the moment distinctly, actually. My stepmom had recommended me to one of her colleagues, another motivational speaker and trainer in the direct sales industry. She looked at me and she goes, “You’re going to start a business. This is going to be your business, your career.” I looked at her and I told her, “No. You’re crazy. I’m going to school.” And then we got about six months down the road and I was starting to not sleep because I was doing school work, and working, and doing that so I quit my Victoria’s Secret job. I delved full on into the business. I built it for another little while. While my friends were doing school work and everything, I just felt like I was learning more and more ignited just in myself through that journey. Once I decided to quit school, everything changed. I had this business that was different than any of what my other friends were doing. I think it allowed me to embrace all facets of who I am and who I’m becoming faster. That’s how it impacted me.

‏‏That sounds amazing because they say that there are three things that will force you to grow. One is relationships, the other one is having a baby, and third one is having a business and not necessarily in that order.

‏‏Yeah, right. It did not happen in that order for me.

‏‏No, but those are the major things in life that will force you into growing.

‏‏Oh yeah.

‏‏When you follow your dreams. Probably there was some kind of a separation between you and the other people at your age where you’re quantum leaping into being a successful entrepreneur and they’re still at Victoria’s Secret.

‏‏I can tell you some stories. I remember this one moment. Going into business, I think there’s already a certain amount of fear. It’s like, “Okay, what’s going to happen if I actually do this?” I will never forget I was beginning to make the transition. It was my husband’s, my now husband’s last year of college and it was the night before my very first webinar. I’m around all these people who are in their last year of college. This one girl looked at me and I was talking to a mutual friend about what I was doing next day. I had 2,500 people signed up for my very first webinar.

‏‏Are you kidding me?

‏‏No, I’m not kidding.

‏‏What? What?

‏‏My email list went from 250 people to 2,500 people in a matter of 2 weeks.

‏‏What?

‏‏Yes. That is exactly how I felt, like, “Oh my god, what’s happening?” I was creating my very first program called Fan Page Transformation which we eventually got 900 people in the first 6 months or 1 year that it was released, enrolled in and those people are still enrolled today. 2,500 people signed up then. I was telling our friend about this girl who I had not had very many interactions with looks at me and she goes, “Aren’t you like what? 20?” I was like, “Yeah.” She’s like, “You’re 21. What gives you the right to teach these people?”

‏‏Oh, god. Oh my god.

‏‏Right? That was the moment where I had to still go into my webinar the next day and kick butt, but I had that emotional hit. She’s not the only person who was asking herself that. I think even at some level emotionally, I was asking myself it. The fact of the matter is I had built presents after presents for all these different people in those first two years of business and helped them grow their email list by thousands, get publicity, and media appearances.

‏‏Wow.

‏‏I had done it. It was a great lesson to just celebrate every win. The only person’s opinion of you that matters is yourself and your ability to be brave enough to express yourself.

‏‏Wow. Yeah, it seems like the universe always tests you before something big happens where it will show up as somebody saying something really defeating or something bad is happening and it’s like you’re going through a test. Are you strong enough? Do you want it enough? Do you have a strong desire to go for your dreams when it’s hard?

‏‏Totally.

‏‏Were you brought up in an environment that was full of self-development? How did you find the courage to go for it?

‏‏How did I find the courage to go for it? I’m still finding courage everyday, Orion. I think we all are. I grew up in a home that was very faith based. I think faith is just really important to me whether it’s religious faith or faith in oneself. I think that the basic understanding of that is important. I always think that if I can affect my life and someone else’s in a positive way today or tomorrow, or forever, that’s what gives me faith. I think my courage really came from my creativity, which sounds so silly. I think creativity is just courage and action. The reason I say that is because a lot of what I do relies on me being creative, feeling creative. I had always had tons of different outlets to do that as a child. Once I found this outlet to help other people express themselves and simultaneously use my creativity in a variety of different ways, whether it’s creating content, or designing logos, or designing websites, and using color. That’s where I found my courage, was just the ability to really express that side in my everyday life. The fact that I found it so young, I felt like was really special and that it was my duty to do that because a lot of people don’t find what they’re really passionate about until later in life.

‏‏That’s so true. I actually totally see the connection between creativity and faith, and spirituality and connection to higher source. I interviewed a really brilliant man named Bill Donius on this podcast. It is actually podcast number one, I believe, that was my first one. He was talking about how to do an intuitive writing to connect to your right brain because when you connect to your right brain and in creativity, you are connected to divine guidance or the universe. That is totally aligned in my mind. How did you get 2,500 people on your first ever webinar?

‏‏I partnered with my step mom. Actually, there are a lot of factors that go into if you’ve ever hosted a webinar or launched what I call a mini brand, which is the product, program, or service, then you know how much hard work goes into a launch.

‏‏It’s so hard to get people on. Yes, it’s hard.

‏‏It’s so hard to convince people. It was my very first program. Working backwards, I decided that I couldn’t take anymore one on one clients for their social media transformations. I only wanted to continue working with these higher level people who really needed someone to do it for them. There was this group of people in my audience that I realized I could help but I couldn’t do it one on one for them. I just took my process and I wrote it all down like a crazy person just everywhere, notes everywhere. Once I decided that I wanted to create this program, I was talking to my step mom, Julian Jones, who is that motivational speaker and trainer in the direct sales industry. She launched many programs before so I talked with her and she mentored me through it. Mentorship was a big reason that I got so many people on that. I had been able to do it multiple times now. For every launch that I’ve done, I’ve gotten quite a few people engaged because of having a mentor by my side who had their eyes on it, who was able to give me relevant feedback.

‏‏For the listeners like myself who do not have a mentor right now, what are secrets that you can share as far as populating your webinar? Did you do Facebook ads? Is it a certain language that you used? What were some of the greatest hooks that got people to sign up?

‏‏We did a couple of interesting things. Always have a video on your opt in page, always. Videos convert so incredibly well. We had a video on there. The video was a little long and it wasn’t perfect. I think most of it was like a slideshow style of me just telling people facts, previewing the tips that they’re going to learn, and sharing with them who I was going to partner with for the call. That was tip number one. Tip number two is find an affiliate partner who believes in you. An affiliate partner with a small list who believes in you can work absolute wonders. Because if they believe in you, they’re much more willing to send people to your list, they’re much more willing to say, “Hey, I know this person. Go check out how amazing they are.” And really prepare that affiliate. If you decide to have someone who’s going to promote them, make sure you take care of them, make sure you give them email copy, make sure that you give them social media images to promote you, make sure that you have their back as much as you want them to have yours.

‏‏Right.

‏‏The third thing is give a bonus away. A lot of people when they’re getting people to sign up for a webinar, I think one of the things that they do is they just say, “Hey, join us here on this date.” What they don’t realize is that those people hit that page and they want something today. One thing that we did was we had the affiliate that I was partnering with, I’ve done this a couple of times and it’s been very successful, we had them give us a bonus. That once they sign up, they’re going to get that bonus free gift as well. I think it was just like checklist of here are 10 things you need to look at on your social media or here’s a getting started guide before we actually do the webinar. Kind of preparing them, warming them up.

‏‏Yeah, that’s brilliant. Starting with giving them something first. I’ve never heard of that. That’s really cool.

‏‏Yeah. Think of it as their getting started guide. They already need something right now so what can you give them that’s really juicy and going to get them saying to themselves, “Wow. If this is amazing, I wonder what I’m going to learn on that class. I better attend.” We had I think 800 people join us on the live call, if I’m remembering the numbers right. That’s a lot, that’s not all.

‏‏That’s mind blowing. For people who do not do webinars, it’s really hard to get 100 attendees. It’s hard to get 30, sometimes. Getting 800 is amazing. Wow.

‏‏Trust me, I’ve had webinars where I’ve had 15 people on line two. I think those three things that I just mentioned though, those are the three big pillars of what made that first initial one that I did so powerful.

‏‏Nice. What other social media tools do you use to promote your brand?

‏‏Instagram.

‏‏Yeah, obviously.

‏‏I love Instagram. I haven’t been that active as of late. I’m getting ready to relaunch my blog so I can’t say that I’ve been all that active. Facebook and Instagram are the two that my people are on and that they’re really engaged on. When it comes to choosing how I’m going to show up in the world, I go by this rule of threes. I choose three platforms that I want to be on. One of them is where my clients are, one of them is exciting to me, and then the third one is a combination of the two. To me, a platform or a social media platform or whatever, is anything you have to create content for. For me, my blog is one of my favorite places to be on and to give love, the second place is Facebook and the third is Instagram. I think the thing that makes all of those three work in harmony together is my marketing calendar. Having a marketing calendar where you know what you’re going to say and you can guide yourself through the week or the month from a marketing perspective and know that you have all the right messages out there.

‏‏Whoa, whoa, wait, wait.

‏‏Dropping so many bombs.

‏‏So many bombs. I was talking to my assistant like, “Yeah, we need to create a marketing calendar.” What are your hottest tips to creating a marketing calendar? What should be on it? How do you approach it? How do you even predict what you’re going to say? First, do you plan for the year? How do you predict what you’re going to do? What exact program? Are you going to launch every month or every week? How flexible is it? So many questions.

‏‏I think in terms of marketing calendars, there’s no perfect system. You really have to find what works for you. I actually have done a whole craft on this before but I’ll give you some sneaks. You want to plan a few different times throughout the year. You want to look at your overall year, and you want to decide, “Okay, what are my big goals for the year?” Is there a program that you want to launch? Is there an event you want to host? Is there a podcast you want to start? Is there a blog, a video blog you want to start? What are your three biggest things? And then you can also look at it from a month to month perspective while you’re doing your year planning. Decide on a theme for the month and really understand, “Okay, that theme is based off of two things.” First of all, what’s going on in the world? What can we be aware of? May is Mother’s Day so what conversations can we create around that that are on brand no matter what we do, so that we’re socially relevant. What’s going on for you personally? Looking at your world, are you traveling that month? How can you leverage that? Are you at any events that month? And then the third thing you look at is what do you want to make you money that month, because it’s not a business if you’re not making money. What program are you going to be talking about? To give you an example, I have a program called Brave Your Own Brand. Brave Your Own Brand is a course about creating your own brand and website. It will be released in the fall so if I’m going to promote it, then the month before I promote it, I’m going to have my theme for my month be bravery and so all my articles, my blog articles for that month are going to be around how to be yourself in business, why being brave in your business is important, 25 things that top industry experts do. It’s like cultivating a constant conversation. Going back to what I originally said, when you want to plan throughout the year, you look at your overall year, what do you want to accomplish, then you look at your quarter, so your 90 day sprints we like to call them, your quarter basis. What’s going on that quarter from an admin perspective and what programs do we want to fill. And then look at it on a month to month basis. And then you want to break down that month into a theme then you want to choose how many times am I going to communicate with my audience throughout that month? What are each of those communications? For me, it’s blog posts. What do each of my blog posts communicate to support that theme? The week that the blog post goes out, you create a conversation in your social media that creates a craving for what your content communicates.

Create a conversation in your social media that creates a craving for what your content communicates. Click To Tweet

‏‏I love how you think. You’re so brilliant. I love it.

‏‏Thank you.

‏‏So, so cool.

‏‏I’m so excited.

‏‏Yay. You know that person that told you that you’re too young, sometimes what we see on our path is disadvantages. Actually, a disadvantage turns into an advantage. What would you say your advantage is as being a young marketer and a brand expert?

‏‏Perspectives. I think the best superpower that people have and that anyone has is their perspective. I think mine, it’s what sets me apart. There are a lot of people in the world who do branding and web development. I always anchor back to that my perspective is unique. I think that everyone has a different way to say anything. With so much communication going on in our world today, your perspective is the one thing that can make you stand out, it’s your superpower.

‏‏I think that your perspective as a younger entrepreneur is that sometimes entrepreneurs get either jaded or they don’t understand social media the way younger people understand it. I think it’s a huge advantage.

‏‏Yeah. There are a lot of people of all different ages who do social media really well. I think what it comes down to is how much are you willing to learn? As an entrepreneur, we have to constantly innovate and use our imaginations. I think the people that we follow, the people that we want to hear from and engage with, they are the people who are using their imagination and they see the strategy that filling a webinar takes. They’re willing to do something unique that goes along with it or try it a different way. If it doesn’t work, that’s okay. It’s that just get up and go and that ability to just keep moving as things come your way. I think that’s one thing that is really a strength of mine. Is that if something doesn’t work, okay, what can we change? What can we mix up?

‏‏It’s flexible.

‏‏Yeah. Flexible, for sure.

‏‏Yeah, nice. It’s very important to be flexible.

‏‏Yes, it is.

‏‏We live in a very dynamic world. What’s a brand? People throw this word right and left. What is a brand according to Chelsey’s definition?

‏‏According to me?

‏‏To you.

‏‏This is a tweetable. Your brand is anything and everything that leaves a first impression.Traditionally, to tell you what that means. Traditionally, brands were this identifying mark. It’s the identifying mark of a company. Brands are no longer so singular. Brands are so much more than that. They’re the community culture that you’re creating, it’s the content, the words that you say, it’s the visuals that you use, it’s anything that one of your prospects or your consumers could look at and describe you because of it. There’s that old phrase, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” That is so true. I think that as entrepreneurs, it is our duty to our business to cultivate what we want people to say when we’re not in the room and we have the power to impact it. My favorite example of that is Michael Jackson. He called himself the King of Pop and that’s how everyone in the world refers to him. But he was the first one to claim it. He was the first one to say it. I think that there have been a lot of examples of that in all different industries and that’s just one of my favorites to keep coming back to. Your brand is anything and everything that can leave a first impression.

‏‏So I just crown myself a queen of something and I am?

‏‏Oh yeah.

‏‏Sounds good.

‏‏I think so. Traditional branding and the bliss that come along with that is that we have to wait until we’re bigger to be a brand and that’s not the case. You don’t become a brand waiting for someone to tell you that you are a brand. You become a brand by deciding to show up consistently and specifically. For instance, if I want people to describe me as a brave brand designer, well then I should be calling myself that. It doesn’t have to come from a place of ego. It’s just understanding where your strengths are, what you bring to the table as an individual, who you are, how you want to people to feel when they interact with your brand, and making sure that every single decision you make, whether it’s your next Facebook message, your next email to a client, the next promotion that you do, how do you want to people to feel when they’re reading it? That is your first impression and that is your brand.

‏‏What are some questions we could ask ourselves when we’re creating our brand’s identity?

‏‏My favorite question to ask is how do you want people to feel? What’s the number one feeling that you want people to have when they interact with you? That’s a really good kind of pulse check on how consistent are you actually and how you want your brand to show up in the world and how it currently is. Colors evoke different emotions, pictures evoke different emotions, fonts evoke different emotions. All of these things combined can create your specific feeling. When we know what that feeling is, we’re much more prepared to be able to make decisions that support that.

‏‏What’s the first conversation you have with a client that comes to get guidance from you?

‏‏My first conversation, it’s a very interesting conversation. It’s comprised of a lot of these type of questions that really dig deep into what the vision is for their brand. Your brand should reflect where you’re going as much as it reflects where you are right now. As a business and as a brand, we have to constantly innovate and step up and up level and we hear it all the time. When we let go of all that noise at the end of day, how do you want to be described? What do you want to be known for? In the future, what are future things that you want to do? Keeping all these things in mind so that you can really create a brand that you can grow with. That’s the first conversation I always have is very dream focused, what’s their dream business really look like.

‏‏Yeah, I know. I had this conversation with myself many times. I made some changes to my website and more changes and it’s still not exactly how I want it to be or I think I need to add more images. I guess professional photography is really important. Colors are really important. What are elements that are a must in someone’s brand?

‏‏I have a whole checklist.

‏‏You do?

‏‏I do, actually, which I’d be happy to give you a link to. There are a lot of elements. I think that there are actually three categories of elements. The first category is your visuals. From a visual standpoint, visuals make that first split second interaction. It’s been said that in different studies, you have 11 seconds to make a lasting first impression. That’s in person where they can look at your clothes and see what you’re wearing, see how you speak and hear you, and they can make all these assumptions about you in those 11 seconds. What happens online is you have three seconds before someone will either click something or click away for good. That’s terrifying because those visuals are the first thing that make that determination. What kind of fonts do you have? Whatever fonts that you use, be really consistent. Actually, for all your visuals, you really want to be very consistent. If you have professional photos, that’s awesome. What kind of style are they? How many of them do you have? The next time that you do a photoshoot, you need to make sure that they fit that style, that brand style that you’ve created. Color, pick a couple of colors. There’s so much that goes into deciding color for different brands and lot of color psychology. But at the end of the day, which colors represent you and your business, and evoke the emotions that you want them to, and be consistent about those. Those are my top visual ones. There are quite a few other visual elements that would take a long time to go through.

‏‏That was just number one?

‏‏That was just number one.

‏‏Oh, I’m sorry. Let’s keep going. I love it.

‏‏No, you’re good.

‏‏No, no, keep going.

‏‏The second one is the words that you choose. Vocabulary is everything, the way that you speak, the way you communicate, it can make a difference on whether or not someone clicks away or doesn’t, same as images. I like to always make a big list of what my favorite words are. That way, every time I create a tagline and I use that tagline over and over. When I write new copy for my website, it’s clear, it has the same voice. Having that voice and understanding that voice is so much easier if we have that list of words. The third thing is just making sure that across all platforms, you are one person. What I mean by that is if I go to your Facebook and then I pull up your Instagram, and then I pull up your website, and then I download an email or one of your free gifts off of your website, it should be the same person throughout, the same voice, the same visuals. That’s what’s going to help you create the brand even before you really know exactly what that is.

‏‏Right. That’s amazing.

‏‏That’s all that juicy information for you.

‏‏So much, so much information. Is logo important for brands?

‏‏Oh yes. Yes, logo is so important and you need to love your logo, but remember that your logo isn’t everything. It’s just one piece of the visuals and most often times, font and color play into that as well. Whenever you use a new logo, it’s typically what trickles through everything else that you do.

‏‏Right. What are the biggest mistakes you see people do with their brand?

‏‏There are four brand plunders that I go over in my free series but the biggest mistake that I see people make is what I called being Vicki Vanilla.

‏‏What’s that?

‏‏You have probably seen it or experienced it at some point in your entrepreneurial career. I looked at all my clients, my ideal clients were coming to me and I kind of did this exercise where I pinpointed what are the main things these women all have in common. One of them is wanting to be liked by everybody. It’s that I can help the entire world, all women in the entire world and not being specific. Ithink that when you’re being Vicki Vanilla, what you tend to do is focus on wanting everybody to like you which means that you’re probably not attracting the right type of people because you’re watering your message down to make other’s happy. Two, you’re not fully being yourself in your business for two reasons. One, you either don’t know how or you’re scared that somebody will see that side of you and be turned off by it. That’s the biggest thing, is I find a lot of women particularly, they dull down themselves or maybe they’re quirky, personable, charming, and they’re that way on stage or when you meet them in person. But then when you go to their website, it just doesn’t match. That’s one of the biggest mistakes that I see.

‏‏Right. What do we have to do to not be Vicki Vanilla? Because I’d never ever want to be her, ever.

‏‏I don’t want to be that.

‏‏I don’t want to be that so what do I do to be like you said, bravely more of who I am?

‏‏I think understanding what makes you unique, which sounds so cheesy. To give you an example, I had a client, she was a leadership coach. She worked with companies and corporations and spoke a lot in person. She was really fun, she’d get in there and she’ll excite the crowd. She would say that she wants to transform your leadership but what she was doing was revolutionizing it. There is a very different vibe in those two words. I was getting to know her a little bit more. Her photo for example, when I first got my hands on her, she had a white button up and she had blonde hair and she was smiling pretty, and it was just a very normal headshot, a good photo but just very normal. She was using all these blues on there because she wanted to be a fit for corporate. We got to know each other and I find out that she loves riding motorcycles, like loves it. I was like, “Well, we should totally show that off more.” What it broke down to is that she was revolutionizing the whole experience at the companies that she was with and the leadership there. I’m really helping to amp them up and help them embrace themselves and really just rubbing it up. I was like, “Well, that’s perfect.” We changed her colors to yellow, which is her signature color, and we changed everything to fit this revved up like revolutionize your leadership.

‏‏Did you have her on her motorcycle?

‏‏Yeah, we have her on her motorcycle.

‏‏So cool.

‏‏It sounds really cheesy but we did it in a very classy way. She got more people because of it, she got more clients. She was getting better clients because they actually expected that woman who was going to come in and shake things up and make things happen.

‏‏I love it.

‏‏There’s no one way to not be Vicki Vanilla but understand what’s unique about you, even the things that you like make you unique. I think that’s the biggest point here. The second thing is know who you are talking to, exactly who that person is. Because the more that you know that person, the more you are going to be able to speak to them like they are your best friend.

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‏‏Yeah. They love it because it seems like people get more success when even in their email marketing, they speak to that one person and they’re being personal. You write your emails as if you write it to your friend and then people engage a little more.

‏‏Yeah. It’s funny because I am very much my brand. Everything that you see from me, whether it’s my email, there’s not that much of a difference between who I am in my day to day life and with my clients, who I am on stage but there are subtle differences between my family and my friends and definitely things that I keep private. Personal branding is not about putting your whole life on display and everything that you do and treating everyone like they are your best friend because you have to be professional if you are professional. I think that you can be professional and you can be personable at the same time.

‏‏Yeah, there’s a fine line, of course.

‏‏Yeah, totally.

‏‏What does a strong brand look like? Can you give me some example of your favorite brands? Let’s not talk about Coca Cola or Gucci. Some of the smaller brands that people know about, that are a good example of good branding.

‏‏Yeah, for sure.

‏‏Like my clients.

‏‏Yeah, like clients, like how cheesy is that? I think there are a lot of different examples. A great example of a personal brand is Marie Forleo. She really got it dialled in and her videos are amazing and her growth, her path to growth I should say is really amazing. I also think that one of my other all-time favorite brand is, I think it’s Show Me Your Mumu. It’s this fashion line that they know who their girl is. They speak definitely just to that one girl and their marketing is really fun. Another one of my favorite brand is Tone It Up. I don’t know if you follow Tone It Up but I’m a TIU girl. Their workouts and their fitness and their nutrition advice, it’s just spot on and they definitely, again, they know their person and they communicate directly with that person. They have a lot of different layers to their business too. It’s not just a personal brand, it definitely is a personal brand and about their team, and about their community. It’s just amazing watching them.

‏‏Chelsey, what are your three top tips to living a stellar life?

‏‏I love that by the way, such good branding.

‏‏Thank you.

‏‏You’re welcome.

‏‏It goes with my name.

‏‏I love it. Okay, my top three tips. Number one, be brave in all that you do. Being yourself in front of people on a daily basis is hard but when you are that, it is so freeing. I think it allows you to live more fully. If you are fun, be fun. If you are quirky, be quirky. If you’re interesting and sexy and sultry, be that. Whatever you are, be it. It sounds really cliché but I believe it. Tip two for living a stellar life, one of the things that I think has helped me live a stellar life so far is knowing that I don’t know everything, finding the right people to partner with or to mentor you, even if it’s just reading one of their books or talking to a friend and asking for their opinion. I think partnership is really important in all areas, and friendship I should say. It’s more about friendship for me than it is for anything. And then the third thing I would say is to play and be creative as often as you can, once a day at least.

‏‏Amen. Where can people who probably want to work with you by now find you? I know that you have a giveaway for our audience.

‏‏Yes, I do have a giveaway. It is brand new. I’m super excited about it. It’s called How to Start Standing Out. It’s a three video series where I’m going to walk you through brand plunders like we were just talking about. I think I mentioned one but there are actually four. There are four different big mistakes so I’m going to definitely be walking you through that. The checklist that I mentioned earlier for what areas of your brands to focus on, it’s in there as well. I’m also going to dig deep into how to start being a brand even when you don’t feel like you have a brand yet, because again, we wait so often for someone to tell us that we are a brand and it’s really our job to step into it. These three simple strategies over these three videos are things you can implement immediately to start making your brave branded first impressions and becoming that leader in the industry.

‏‏Where can they go to find it?

‏‏ iamchelseymarie.com/stellar

‏‏Whoho. You even got the name Stellar in it, that’s so smart.

‏‏Your special URL, my friend.

‏‏Perfect. Thank you so much. This was awesome. I really appreciate your time and I appreciate you sharing so much, so many beautiful nuggets of wisdom with us.

‏‏My pleasure, I’m so excited.

‏‏Yay, thank you.

‏‏Thank you.

Your Checklist Actions to Take

✓ Dedicate myself fully once I decide to start a business to really ignite my passion and throw my entire being into my work.

✓ Embrace all aspects of who I am when developing a brand strategy and product to stay true to my self and be authentic.

✓ Hold a webinar and partner with a mentor or JV partner to increase my attendees by inviting their list. 

✓ Visuals are the most important part of my brand. Invest in strong visuals that really represent the message I want to convey.

✓ Always have a video on my opt-in page – they convert better than just text – to preview some of the tips and things that will be learned in my webinar.

✓ When partnering with an affiliate for my webinar, make sure to provide them with all the materials (email copy, photos, links) they will need to promote the webinar to their audience. 

✓ Give a bonus away that will be something that potential attendees can have and use right away when they sign up for my webinar.

✓ Build an online presence with an email list, so I can keep in contact with my fans and have a communication channel. 

✓ Choose 3 platforms for my social media marketing. I want one that my clients are on, one that is exciting to me, and one that is a combination of the two. 

✓ Develop a yearly marketing calendar by looking at my 3 biggest goals for the year, then drill down quarterly and have 90 day sprints, and look at month to month activities to accomplish these goals.

Links and Resources:

About Chelsey Marie

I’ve been called the “go-to-girl” when it comes to creating an online presence that reflects who you are and what you do in a way that converts. I was speaking on stages, building my own brand into 6-figures by the age of 22, and I’m proud to say I’ve helped build the brands of some of today’s most innovative industry leaders.