44. Boost Brand Visibility as a Creator CEO

Limitless Podcast —Episode 44 – The Creator CEO

Entering into a new year, it’s normal to think about the best way to create more growth in your business, but even more important is to think about where to best spend your time. Being a Creator CEO means owning your brand vibe, but what does that really mean? Today, Jamie Ratermann talks about why in 2023 you should focus on creating more visibility in your brand and in yourself as the leader. 

Episode’s Highlights: 

• Changing social landscape: SEO prominence

• The importance of brand awareness and marketing

•  How to stand out from the crowd 

• Leaning into branding elements: what makes you different? 

Resources:

Are you looking to build a thriving business built on a strong brand message, money-making offers, and a resilient, growth mindset? Join the Marketing Mastery waitlist: https://www.jamieratermann.com/marketing-mastery

Launch with certainty and excitement with this new free training! This mini-course includes 15 minutes of coaching, my 7-point launch planning guide, and a workbook to start planning your next launch: https://jamieratermann.com/how-to-launch-a-new-offer-social-media

Leave a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in to the Limitless Podcast, we'd appreciate it if you wrote us a review. You can also share it to help other entrepreneurs expand their network and create faster business growth. 

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Transcript: 

Jamie Ratermann  00:06

Hello lovelies, welcome to episode 44 of the limitless podcast. And welcome to 2023. Happy New Year if you haven't been told already, but this is our first episode walking into the new year and I want to call it the episode of what I really hope you focus your time on. Now. Before we get into that, you're going to hear me over here when we slip in a little bit of coffee. I'm going to be talking a little bit unfortunately for me, my holiday season was filled with sleeping I unfortunately caught but it seems to be going around that flu that RSV, whatever I don't know, why should I share this?

Jamie Ratermann  00:46

Hello lovelies, welcome to episode 44 of the limitless podcast and let me be the first or next or whatever 10th person to say Happy Fucking New Year, welcome to the new year. I know, usually when new the new year hits, we're already thinking about how we wanted the year to be a little bit different from the year before, where we want to focus our time and energy. So today's episode is going to be all about what I see for you as a solopreneur as a small business in 2023. And where you can focus your time and energy. I am over here coming off as a bit of a cold during the holiday season. So working through that. But I I've been waiting for my voice to be 100% so that I could share this I've been talking I've been thinking about the topic of today's episode for a very long time, you probably heard me say some of the words that I'm going to come through but today is going to be focused on why 2023 is going to be the era of the Creator CEO. So let me take a sip here before we get going.

Jamie Ratermann  01:49

let's do it. So entering into the new year, it's normal to think about the best way to create more growth in your business. Now, I would love to tell you that there's a strategy, there's a tactic, there's all these things, but the one of the most important foundational pieces for any of my clients is where they are spending their time. So in general, I talk about this, I even think I have a quote quote on my homepage of my website is saying the the the way to measure success and an entrepreneur is the way they spend their time and energy. So it's not uncommon for solopreneurs to divide their time in many places. So program or product development, selling, you know, communicating with your clients, marketing, brand, awareness, all of these being really important parts of your business. But it's important to note that I will regularly have the conversation with my mastermind clients with my one on ones even with my sprinter is going like oh, how do I spend my time the most effectively so that I'm not burning the candle at both ends. So when it comes to growth, when it comes to building things into your business, I want you to think about visibility. So when I'm talking about the Creator, CEO, I'm asking you to kind of walk away from being behind the curtain, I want you to know that while your offers are going to be an essential way of keeping clients your offers, and how you clearly share them is going to be a way to bring in new clients. only focusing on the internal sides of your business is going to keep you right there, it's going to have you building something so perfect that nobody knows about. So when when I'm talking about being the creator CEO, it means that if you haven't fully embraced, sharing more of who you are sharing your type of leadership sharing your passion within your business, this is going to be that year more than ever before, for the fact that when you focus your time on letting people know about how insanely excited you are about your business, how knowledgeable you are in your content, how in general people can learn know your face, see your brand on a regular basis, you're going to do better than most, you're going to do better than most for the fact that this is how people buy. So here's three, four years for real reasons why your focus this this time of year should be on visibility first or visibility as a brand and visibility as you as a leader. So first and foremost, if you've heard me talk about this and some minisodes SEO is giving more prominence to expertise and brand vibes over followers alone. So you have a similar or a higher probability of being seen, based off of how well you know your audience. How well you know the people that you want to help most. How amazing is that? You don't have to have 3 million followers to be able to potentially reach up to 100k views I actually have a client right now in my mastermind who She has just hit 1000 on tick tock, but her one of her most recent tic TOCs got up to a million views. How exciting is that? So the idea here is that the vibe of your content, the way in which you show up and how well you know, what your clients are looking for, is going to allow you to get more reach to be seen more often. And you don't have to only focus your time on how you can build that audience first. So this is why I love this. This is not just something you're going to see on tick tock while I use that, as an example, YouTube is doubling down, Google's open their interface so that they get to see your social posts. Pinterest has always been that beautiful search engine that's going to allow you to be seen in that follower count has not really ever been really a big follower counts on Pinterest has never really been something that's really important. It's about how well your content serves what people are searching for. And then of course, Instagram is making that full transition into what that can look like about the cough. So this is where I want to encourage you all if you didn't get a chance to come live to my SEO masterclass all about your discoverability. I want to I'll keep it in the show notes. I wanted to make sure that that opportunity workbook and training is available to you if you want to take a deeper dive. But the basics you should really know about SEO is that it is a simplified process. So something that happens specifically for creators, or CEOs, leaders, they're thinking about what is like the overarching complex themes that are happening within their business, and how they can turn that into content. Now that is something that if you're passionate about it, you feel the energy behind it, I'm not going to have you shy away from but starting right now, when you're thinking about SEO for your business for 2023, how can you consider how people would search and find your service or search and find your product. If using the example of a meal prep coach, let's say like how they're not gonna exactly search meal prep coach, they might instead say how to stick with meal prep this year. Thinking about those key terms and making a content a complete content series around it can be really helpful. For a product based business. Let's say you are a candle company, they're not they may be looking for, you know,

Jamie Ratermann  07:37

non toxic sourced candle scents they might be looking for that they also might be looking for how to romanticize their life, they also might be looking for how to upgrade their desk settings. So thinking about not only what how someone might define your product or or service but also how they might be using it. So SEO is going to be the biggest thing when it comes to being a creator CEO, that you don't have to always be worried or concerned about growing your community instead of more about how you're serving them. Thinking about simplifying your content in the process and how that can in general create more reach per post, than just trying to continue to build and build and build a bigger audience. The second piece here, when it comes to being a creator CEO is that I usually get this comment where someone goes, you know, I like to post but I get most of my business through referral marketing. I'm going to tell you over and above word of mouth marketing referral marketing is always going to be the best form of marketing reasons why is that it takes people less time to decide they want to work with you. On average, when someone's trying to buy from a brand new business, they need to have at least seven to 12 touch points meaning they've seen you seven or 12 times in their feed. But on your site, maybe being on your email, in general, they need to see your name or your brand, seven to 12 times before they consider buying from you whenever that whenever you add referrals like somebody's giving word of mouth a stamp of approval on top of that, that seven to 12 times goes down to two to five. So in general referral marketing cost less money. So it's always going to make sense to have that but here's why your visibility is only going to boost that grow that your referral marketing is in general the first few places people do look whenever they've heard a name, let's say someone that someone decides to tell them about my own business or the limitless podcast. The first few places they're going to look for me is they're going to look at my website websites or the first place people usually look which is always why I encourage people to have a website. And then also Instagram according to data. Instagram is the second place most most people look when they're considering a business. So whenever you're thinking about okay, well I don't need to post so much because I'm just most of my business comes from referrals. This is where in general, if you don't have an idea of how, how inviting your social feeds are, or or uninviting they are, it could detract from anybody who's giving you that stamp of approval. So whenever we're talking about being a creator, CEO, this also plays into this role of how can you embrace the fact that content and social media is an essential piece? Like for if for any reason, you've been like, Oh, I'll get around to it. I'll get around to social media, I'll get around to those things. And will you continue to deprioritize it, here's another way to make sure you know, that anything you decide to put on social is only going to boost your conversion only going to boost new clients coming only going to boost someone's trust in you in some way. The third piece of why this year is all about visibility, is that we make buying decisions based off of our emotions. If you can create an emotional reaction within your marketing, it allows someone to decide, oh, they're memorable to me. Oh, okay. Like I have I felt this way before they make me feel good, or they make me feel like I can trust them. This is in general, I always like to use this example. Whenever I'm talking about the Superbowl ads. The Superbowl ads that always win are the ones that people go, Oh, I remember that. Because I can relate to it. Or oh, that one made me that was so funny, it reminded me of, or like, that was my favorite one of the night because I was laughing so hard at it. All of that whenever I'm watching the Super Bowl, which let me be clear, I watched the Super Bowl for the ads, I ended up I ended up looking at okay, that that ads gonna be memorable because of these reasons. So being able to know that whenever you are thinking about what is the purpose behind your marketing, what's the purpose behind the attention that you put into it? Because how can you create an emotional reaction? Now? Why is it important to do that, whenever you're creating strong content, if you want it to be memorable, you want to tie it to emotion, you want to tie it to that it's we, we create our brand. According to brain science, we create memories based off the feelings and emotions that come up along the way. So if you are able to be memorable, based off of the quality of the content that's really important here. So this is only going to make it easy to get new eyes on your leads. This is only going to make it easier to sell more easily. But here's really the key step here knowing that, like I said, before, that people need to interact with us at least seven to 12 times before they start to consider working with us or consider buying from us. How can you think about your content creation? How can you think about your creativity as an essential piece to your brand growth? How can you think of it as an essential piece to growing your business. So one thing I really want to get into it here is that sometimes I want to just detach content creation from selling, I want to just detach anything that people will like want a post to turn into a client for the fact that sometimes when we we add that attachment to it, we start to get a little bit burned out by the process when things don't happen as fast as we want to. But your content is not only something that can turn a follower or a follower into a client off of one post. But it can also turn the fact that people are going to be lurking and hanging out with you for a while before they're ready to jump in with their money. So this is kind of where in general I there's a

13:37

there's a

Jamie Ratermann  13:40

term or a phrase that is usually given around within the coaching business called the dropping from the sky client. I kind of hate this, this I find this to be really annoying to be honest, for the fact that there's no such thing as a drop from the sky client. I'm being honest with you, they interact with you in some way. Whether that is a referral, whether that is looking at a piece of content, or whatever that it turns out, it's been someone who's been lurking and hanging out and your followers and finally decided now is the time so what's really funny is that whenever I have a client going, Oh, I got a drop from the sky client what I really don't like about it is that really what it is is that they're the reason why quote unquote people dropped from the sky is the fact that they have been watching your dedication and commitment to the the content you create the energy behind the kind they've been watching for a long time. Usually for a long time that I like to call them. The Loyal lurkers, they're hanging out until they're ready. So whenever you're thinking about why this process is important to be visible, to put yourself out there to to get yourself from out from behind the scenes, is that every single one of these posts is an opportunity For people to start to trust you more, every single one of these posts is going to allow someone to be like, Oh, I love to get my advice, or my recommendations or entertainment from this kind of creator from this particular person. So knowing that the more you can put yourself out there, the more emotion and memory

15:19

your brand will have. So being able to attach both of those pieces. Now,

Jamie Ratermann  15:26

I really want to make make this this last one. As a caveat, I've talked about, I've talked about how SEO kind of eliminates the over importance of follow of how many followers do you have, because you have the opportunity to to get a lot of reach referral marketing can be an easy turnover for you. Putting out your content is only going to create more loyalty, more trust. But this last one I want to talk about when it comes to the Creator CEO is that follower growth does not happen without content output. So what's really important about this statement is that, yeah, I want you all to have a community that's ready to celebrate you not only when you're launching a new offer, but also whenever you have a new thing to share about your brand story. community comes from showing up. Now you've heard this Ben say before you show up often show up authentically, all all of these terms you've heard heard that being said, but creating a practice where your content or showing up on social media is an essential part of your week essential part of your day is going to create community first is going to allow you to get to know the people who are not only going to support you refer other people to you, but are going to buy from you. Sometimes the the when I have a client who's ready to come in, and they're like, oh, I want to run ads. But they've never done anything with their organic content has a lot to do with the fact that they don't know what their clients are going to respond to. They don't know what followers are really interested in. And your content gets to be that wonderful playground of like, oh, wow, people really get excited when I talk about being confident on camera. People get really excited when I give them really simple tips on how to improve their video quality are really simple tips of how to stop wasting food are simple tips on how to create a vibe in your apartment, whatever, like whatever the kind of product that you have, your content is like a is a data source, you get to know exactly what people are looking to you for. And you're and you want to create more content there. And then there's new followers. And then it happens all organically and you know that every single person who said yes to following you who said yes to clicking in your Lincoln bio trusts you who like every single one of those followers has decided that you give value in your free things. So it's only going to get easier when they decide to take the next step. So really important reasons visibility is going to absolutely beat out how, like how visibility is will be the thing that converts more clients than your offer alone. I know that sounds really hard to like to admit here. But you can have the most souped up, beautiful offer full of amazing tips, tricks, lessons, worksheets, workbooks, all of the above. But if nobody knows who you are, it's going to it's going to grow, collect dust, that offer might be beautiful, and might be full of science backed material and results and all of the things but if nobody knows about it, or you have a crowd of people that has never heard you passionately talk about what's happening inside those containers inside that product that you're so passionate about, you're going to have a hard time. So the reason why I wanted to hit these four points is for the fact that the more you can share about these things, the easier your growth is going to be. This usually comes down to I'll have a client that comes in with a large amount of followers, and they're ready to turn their followers into something that turns into a business, but their business, the kind of business they want to do. They've never heard about it before. They've never heard them even passionately share that story. It's going to take a little bit of time. So whenever I talk about being a creator, CEO, and why the 2023 is going to be that that year for you is that it's time to focus focus on people knowing why you started this business knowing why you have so much purpose behind it. And also deciding that you are the biggest selling point here you are that thing that allows people to decide, okay, this business This brand is for me over the next person. So keeping these things in mind Do you want to have some patience with those with what's going on there? Now, because being a creator, CEO, and oh means a couple of things you want to own what your brand vibe is. So I've talked about this a couple of times now being like being a brand, of course, there's the breakdown of your ideal client, what's your brand's story is what the type of content that you're putting out there, your brand vibe is a mixture of how you want people to remember you. So knowing there's a part of that feeling deep pride, and your offer suite and your product suite is important as well. So knowing that you're not just selling things, to sell things like you have a purpose behind them, is essential to talking about these two things. Of course, this is where marketing mastery has its soul right like that, like it's the soul of Marketing Mastery is here to make sure that you feel so freakin confident about those two pieces. But your offers are going to easily create an more wealth more trust with what that looks like you have a vibe that you're standing out from anything that's anything anyone else and that people know that that it's for you. But the really important piece of why this next round, I'm focusing so much on visibility first is that you want to make the largest chunk of your time pie if we're like, we're looking at a pie chart know how much time we're spending on our business. It needs to be in brand awareness and marketing. So to give them a little bit of background here, I always like to I always remember this perfectly. Whenever I worked at TripAdvisor. I was I was running a portion of their marketing department. And I was sat in a room of 30 people 20 of them being sales people. So they are the people that get the right hotels on the platform. They were the people that were working tirelessly to get the best hotels so that, you know, we could they could outperform anybody else that was helping people with travel. And the CEO was asked a question was asked, you know, all of these salespeople wanted more budget more money to be able to hit their goals. And they were like, you know, asking for please, we want more money in our budget. And they were asked like, if you were able to give more time or more money towards a particular department right now, where would it be? And without worrying about hurting the feelings of all these salespeople who are so passionate in there? The the dry reply was, I would spend it in marketing. I would spend it in marketing and brand awareness. And you know, that feeling was like really realizing that at the end of the day, if nobody knows about you, if nobody knows about your brand.

Jamie Ratermann  22:45

Why are we spending so much time trying to sell sell something when they don't trust who you are so so really what's important is that there's a reason why marketing departments are some of the biggest departments on the corporate side of things, for the fact that just being known is going to turn into better sales just being known and that people recognize what your brand pillars are, what you're about, will turn any of your other efforts into profit into wealth and to growth for you. So keeping these things in mind. So like I said, visibility is going to be a big part of what I am going to be sharing a lot more about in 2023. So here's a couple of things to consider, as you're beginning to think about what you how you want to be more visible. So first and foremost, I don't think this is going to if you be listening to this whole episode, this is going to be a surprise to you, it's time to do a time audit. How much time are you spending on tweaking the little, little pieces within your business? How much time? Are you making sure this particular graphic is perfect, or that you update this particular lesson are just hanging out in your email? I'm giving you permission right now, to not worry about Inbox Zero. How about we just have a we focus on your output of putting your brand out there up to five, four or five times a week, instead of making sure that inbox stays at zero all week long. So being able to really realize if you are spending too much of your time on the inner workings of your business, you are most likely lacking some visibility. So how can you look at your calendar look at your schedule and be able to say I'm gonna devote Monday mornings Wednesday mornings to making sure that I market my business and I'm putting myself out there. So of course this is a large reason why I created this brands I know this the doing this type of timing can be difficult. So this is an opportunity for you to you know consider that of course but I'm also just saying block off some time to be creative block off some time to really understand okay, what do I want to represent my brand And about this week, what's what are my focus is what are, what is the way in which I'm inviting new people to get to know me, and give yourself at least two and a half hours to really think about that, be able to think about how you want to represent what's going on in your business. So do that time audit. And if right now you're spending and I'm I want to be completely direct here, if right now you're spending more than 10 hours a week on admin related tasks admin being answering emails admin being fixing the automations, I'm going to tell you that you're wasting your time to over 10 hours a week, and you're starting to try to build this thriving business. Walk away, walk away from that, either figure out what is happening that time handed off to somebody else, or realize that it is it is not as close to building wealth within your business as it would be to do marketing. So I like to call in marketing Master, I talk about money making tasks. And if you're looking at the list, because we all can brain dump an endless list of the to dues that we would like to be doing. In general, I want you to take a look at that list and go what is the closest task to creating a new client. So sometimes that might mean responding to an interested lead first, that makes sense. And then the next is going to be marketing, the next is going to be being visible, the next is going to be putting yourself out there, versus trying to make little tweaks here or make sure that your website looks perfect there. So being able to really audit how you might be wasting your time in the wrong places. Most important piece, so important. So if you want to get more visible, start there. The second, the second piece here is 2023 is going to be the year for you to join another social platform. I'm gonna say it again, join a another social platform, if you are a lover of Instagram, please don't only use Instagram, if you are a somebody who you know, only like thinks their email is the only place that they're going to convert. No. Think about sorry, Danny, I cough

27:27

think about how

Jamie Ratermann  27:29

different platforms are going to have different mindsets. And the biggest thing when I have someone who feels that they're going to be overwhelmed by using more than one platform is that there's a process to it. I give a lot of this sustainability routine within marketing mastery. But being able to know that your ideas have more than one place more than one shelf life more than one audience. So just to give a general idea here is that Instagram is a place where people go for entertainment, education, and beat to be inspired. It has all the bells and whistles. Now if somebody is going okay, fine, Jim, I'm ready to do a new platform, I like to type I like to use word I like to write copy, I'm going to tell them head on over to LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a place where text and video work really well. So knowing that whatever effort you might put into a caption on the gram, and has a second life after a little bit, I have a refresh and repurpose method that I give to my clients were visible small adjustments that you can make so it performs better somewhere else. And that's where that can be. But even more if you guys listen to the episode with Nicolette, there's going to be a war of the video platforms. This year, there's going to be a bit of a war going on of which one are we are people going to be swiping through that short form content the most. So if you right now are creating reels. Oh my gosh, you have so many places for that. YouTube, Tik Tok Pinterest. How amazing is it to know that if I'm going to spend this two and a half hours creating five videos a week or whatever that might be that is not only going to be seen by the guys on Instagram is also going to be able to be seen somewhere else. So if for any reason you have been shying away, you thought you'd be overwhelmed by a second social platform, I want you to take a deeper look at if those are just excuses. If if it's just a matter of figuring out the workflow, the system that you want to put into place. This is going to be the year that if you embrace second platform, follower growth is going to be really easy. Knowing that more leads are going to come in when you decide to do that. Next piece about this is getting really clear on your brand and what makes a difference. So the more that people use social the more that people are joining your industry. How can you differentiate yourself brand brand marketing is going to be the thing that helps you stand out. And if clearly if you haven't listened to all of these episodes, I I'm obsessed with helping you find your magic, I'm obsessed with helping you really realize that you can carve your own corner out of the internet. So if you are not clear about who you serve, if you're not clear about what makes you you different, take some time focus in on your brand marketing what what that all means? Find, of course, within that brand, what are the types of content you want to be known for? So I don't want this to sound like I'm telling you to niche down. That's not it at all. But what inspires you most? What could you talk about for days? What are the things that people ask you the most questions about, build those into content pillars that you can regularly share about? So one important piece is whenever we're talking about content building, the foundational rule here is that, yes, you want your content to serve your ideal client, but you also want to be inspired to share it. So instead of choosing content that quote unquote, makes sense for you to share based off of your industry, make sure it's something that you'd like to talk about. So that I like to use example for myself is that I'm never going to do a trending audios real. Like I'm never going to spend my time finding all the training audios and putting putting them out there. For me, I find that to be something that is a tactic, but not something I want you like I could spend all day talking about, I could spend all day talking about how to be a leader, how to represent yourself how to put your content out there. So I'm going to focus my time on that. And now let the people who love to do the trending audios, decide to do that somewhere else. So whenever you are focusing and deciding what your content is going to be about, make sure it hits two points that it serves that audience but it's also something that energizes you, so that you want to create content around it all the time. And then of course, I've talked a lot about brand marketing here, I want you to think about your branding elements. So of course, what makes you different is going to be important, what what makes you stand out in the feed. So it could be anything from your brand colors. It could be anything about the way you speak, it could be in general, just your approach and the way you talk about things. So if for any reason right now, if you've been going, Oh, I don't, I'm a little bit silly, or I'm a little bit different, or I like to drop the F bomb from time to time. And you're like, Oh, that's not professional, I need to act a certain way. break free of those limits, please break free of those limits. So being able to know that the more that you can be more of yourself, you're going to be recognizable, people are going to experience you in the way in which you are a leader. And that's going to allow someone to go I choose you, I choose you over choosing the next person because I can relate to you. So making sure we're not playing the quote unquote, part of the CEO. We're defining it around who we are. And then of course, the last piece is whenever we're thinking about this, whenever we're thinking about how we want to stand out, how can you represent yourself a little bit differently. So all of you if this is the first episode that I've decided to be on my blue couch, I'm a blue, my brand and colors are blue. In general, I know that bringing some of those branding elements on into any of my videos only allows someone to go oh, I've seen that person's background before. Oh, I love her her brand vibe because of these colors, there's going to be people who just love that. So being able to think about how can you showcase your branding in an intentional way, without having to like really shove it in people's faces. So those are just a couple of things, right? I'm giving a couple of ideas. But the reason why I really want you all to see yourself as a creator CEO is it's an empowering position. It is something that is going to allow you to feel your most resilient, it's going to allow you to see that it doesn't have you don't have to compete with others. Instead, you just get to showcase your passion within your business, your ability to commit and be devoted to that growth by showing up. So I wanted to make sure that you started the new year off on a positive note. So I talked all this episode about visibility, but I'm going to be running a visibility masterclass. So visibility the masterclass is going to be on Tuesday, January 10. And it's all going to be about how to embolden your branding to stand out. on any platform, you decide how to create more content in less time. So I talked about how you want to show up, I want to give you a lot of the ways in which your content process can be built. You can post a lot more content in less time. And then how you want to build this memorable brand and offer suite that grows with more ease and builds on itself. So if you're interested this is going to be a completely free masterclass where I'm going to be have a workbook everything in there so that you can start yourself off on the right foot so that you can come in to 2023 as the creator CEO that you are, we'll make sure to put it in the show notes but I would love to hear how you are ready to embrace visibility and in the new year go ahead and share with me on social or, of course come to this masterclass because I'm super pumped