A Marketing Expert Explains How to (Successfully) Expand Into a New Market

Working at the Union Tribune, was there for a few years and then.com became a word and I went over to Cox and I launched the, the online division of Cox Interactive Media, which is Cox Communications. A little child of theirs.

Yes.

And one thing led to another and the, the story goes on and over the years and in 2009, I decided to go out on my own and started Sizzle Force Marketing. And here we are.

Wow, that's quite a journey. You know what, I study journalism as well, so I didn't even know we had that in common. But that, you know, the writing is such a big part of what you do. So I'm sure that that absolutely helps. So let's talk about, because you have, first of all, incredible book. It's called Absolutely. The Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating a Heart Centered Brand and Standing out in a Noisy World. And that's, you know, there is so much noise right now. There's so much distraction. I mean, what do you feel, Stephanie, are the biggest mistakes that business owners make when they jump into marketing, whether they're trying to do it themselves or hire someone else?

Biggest mistake by far that people make is they jump right into implementing tactics before really creating their brand and deciding who they're going to be in the marketplace and who they're going to try to attract and how to speak the language of that particular market. And so a lot of people will be like, oh, great, I'm starting a business. I'm going to get a website. I'm going to start showing up on Facebook and whatever, social media channels, and I'm going to start blurting all of this stuff out there and I'm going to say a lot of confusing messages because I'm not clear in my own head with who I am and who I'm trying to attract. I'm going to create a ton of confusion out in the marketplace and my business is never going to take off the way that it should because I don't take that first step.

So you think that you need to hurry and you're jumping in, but you end up wasting a lot of money and a lot of time because you didn't really think these things through.

Right.

So let's back up a little bit. And what would be the first step? And you know, let's say you have a company and you feel like, okay, I'm ready to get to the next level, you know, but I'm just, I'm not getting the traction that, that I want. So is it. Does that mean it's time For a rebrand, it's time to, you know, is this my ideal customer after all? What are those thoughts?

Yeah, sometimes when you've been in business for a while and you're feeling like your brand is just kind of fizzled, or maybe it was never develop, maybe you bought the company from somebody else and once you did the shift in hands, it lost ownership. If you want to say the passion behind it.

Right.

When that happens, I find the best thing to do is to kind of go back to basics and almost pretend as if you don't exist and say, well, if we could rebuild this from the ground up right now and create anything we wanted this company to be for any market, to meet any need at any time in any place, what would we do? And getting back to those core fundamental questions of who do you want to be and what do you want to do? What difference do you want to make in the marketplace?

I love that. So can you give me an example? I know I'm like putting you on the spot here because you're like, probably. Let me think, let me think of somebody that did that. Like they just, you know, they were out there, they're talking, put a lot of information out there, but not really sharing the story. Not super clear. And what you did and how you helped them.

Let's see. Well, you know, there's one company that I did quite a bit of work with and they had a parent brand, but they had a lot of products under their brand.

Right.

And what was happening is that the company brand had been well defined 40 years ago. Okay. Now we're in a completely different marketplace today. And so it is 100% different landscape and things need to change with that.

Right.

As they were releasing these new products, they were releasing them under the old branding Persona.

Okay.

And it wasn't working, right? It wasn't working. It wasn't attracting. They had decided they were going to go after the young millennials. Okay, well, what works when you have a bunch of 60 year old balding men trying to come up with campaigns that will attract the 21 year old girl that just graduated from college?

Seems kind of obvious, right?

Yeah, yeah. So I came in and really helped them redefine what their brand voice was going to be, creating their brand vocabulary, helping them create a story that would take this older company and make it fresh and new and energetic and appealing to a younger market. And we were able to move a whole lot of stuff because of it.

That's fantastic.

It's fun.

That's fantastic. Now let's Talk a little bit about your book. Absolutely Unforgettable. And I love the elephant because I love elephants. And you know, elephants never forget. So this is fantastic branding for you. So talk about the book. What are you sharing in this?

So in this book I talk a lot about. Well, here's something really interesting that everyone needs to know. I don't know if you know this. The brain actually has unlimited capacity to remember things like unlimited capacity.

Really, I need to tap in more to those things that are like, you know, they need to be woken up.

Right.

Okay, but here's the million dollar question. If the brain has unlimited capacity, why do we forget so much? And from a marketing perspective, why do we forget so many brands? Why are there only a few that we can, you know, recall like that and yet so many that we see every single day that are completely forgettable.

Right? Yeah. You know what, that's such a good point. I mean, the ones that you remember, you think about from, from childhood, like Oscar Meyer, I was gonna say Baloney.

Yeah.

Maytag, the really lonely, you know, Maytag Repairman. All of those things. Yeah, I know, it's terrible. You start singing those songs, right? And so that's the key is creating a brand that is unforgettable. So that when a customer, they may not be ready to buy right now, but when they are ready, they're going to remember you.

Right, Right.

And one of the best ways to do that is through story.

Right?

Because a lot of companies, they might have a big company story that maybe they're articulating it, maybe they're not, but the problem is they're not humanizing it.

Right?

Okay. So sharing a story and humanizing a story are two very different things.

So tell us the difference.

So sharing a story is. It's a talking head, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is what we do, this is who we do it for.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

This is the snooze worthy stuff that nobody cares about. Humanizing a story is when you, you really get raw, you get, you get real, you hit emotions and you make people feel things.

Right?

And that is the most important thing if you want to create a brand that's unforgettable. Unforgettable brands make people feel things.

Right? And that's important because people buy from their emotions and not from their head. Right. Which, you know, it leads us into that whole idea of. I think where business owners get stuck is they're telling too many details about their product instead of the feeling that their brand or their product is going to convey from the result that they will get.

And that goes back to the thing that we hear frequently about. Selling the features or selling the benefits.

Right.

Selling the steak or selling the sizzle.

Right.

What we're trying to do is we are really needing to appeal to the emotions and to appeal to the feelings, the feelings that drive the purchases. 90% of purchases are based on emotions.

Right.

So if we're not appealing to the emotions, we're not going to sell.

Yeah. Well, I think that's why you hear so much today about be authentic. Put your real self out there, you know, and, you know, like, I remember when Facebook Live first came out and remember the. The woman that was in her car and had the Star wars mask?

Oh, yes, Right. The Jedi.

Yeah.

Right.

And Chewbacca. And you just laugh so hard. You were crying.

Right.

Because she was so excited and you could tell she was so real. Right. And I think it went viral. So that's it. And I think that we as human beings sometimes feel vulnerable. Like, do I really want to put my real self out there? And that's been such a shift in marketing over the last few years. It used to be the business brand. Now it's the CEO putting themselves out there. What do you think about that?

Yeah. It can be very, very scary for people, especially, I find those that are over 50, because it goes against everything you ever learned about how to do business properly.

Right.

So it can be very intimidating. You can feel very exposed at certain points. The good thing is you have full control over what part of your life you choose to expose.

Right.

Because you're exposing one part of you does not mean you have to expose every skeleton in your closet.

Right?

Right.

That's not necessary.

Yeah, definitely not necessary. Which I do feel like sometimes there is too much that is shared. So you have to really think about what is the energy around your brand that you want to convey. But how do you get over that hurdle?

How do you get over the hurdle of being afraid to be vulnerable? I think it's a matter of choosing. It's really a choice of how you choose to. A choice of how you choose how you decide you're going to think about it.

Right.

How you're going to frame it in your own head.

Right.

Are you going to frame this as, oh, my gosh, I'm sharing a part of me, I'm not ready to do this. I don't want to do this, but I'm doing it because I have to. Or are you going to share it because you're Going to say, you know what? I know that people do business with people they, like, know and trust. And I know in order for people to. Like, in order for people to know and in order for people to trust me, I'm gonna have to get real, and I might just have to take off the mask that I wear in the public arena sometimes and get a little. A little real, a little bit raw, maybe even a little irreverent.

Right, right.

You know, you think about some of the famous brands that are out right now. Gary Vanderchuck is one that comes to mind.

Right.

He's killing it. He's been killing it for several years now. He's sometimes very crude in the way that he delivers his stuff.

Right.

But he has an audience of raving fans that they think that's hilarious, and they appreciate that part of his brand.

Yeah. Well, he's just being. He's actually one of the sweetest guys he's been on the show, and he really cares, but he's just like, this is who I am. You know, either love me or not, and that's okay. Which I think is great because this kind of goes back to the important steps of marketing. You don't need everyone to like you. Right. You only really need to be speaking to the people that align with your message, your values, you know, the things that you care about.

Yeah, absolutely. And that. That's a big lesson to learn. I think a lot of us struggle with that. I know I personally have struggle. You know, I've struggled with that.

Right.

Of that feeling of, well, if I say it this way, they might not like me.

Right.

Well, you know what? I'm at this point now finally, partially, and thanks to what I've learned through you and Pinnacle. But just, you know what? The more people that say they don't like it, the closer I am to finding the people that do.

Right, right.

And the more people you. You know, maybe I watch a certain show or I read a certain book, and I' Gosh, I don't like that guy.

Okay.

I'm not supposed to like everybody.

Right.

And there's something to be said for, like, I. I think there's a statistic out there that says something along the lines of, for every 10 haters you get, you have 90 lovers.

Right.

And so, okay, yay, I just got a hater. That means I'm closer to getting. You know. Yeah, I'm closer to getting more lovers.

But you've also stirred energy around something.

Yeah.

Right. So that's always a good thing, too. And then, of course, not taking things personally.

Right.

That's a big thing. But, you know, as far as the marketing goes, you know, it really is about standing out. It is about being unforgettable. And if you're like everybody else and you're just trying to please everybody else, then you're not really going to, you know, have your own lane or own your own space. You will be forgettable.

Yeah.

You'll be forgotten, period.

You definitely don't want that to happen.

No. That's horrible.

That's really wrong. Bad. We don't want to forget you. We want to remember you. We want you to be memorable.

But you have to take risks to be unforgettable. And one of those risks is being willing to take off that mask and share that story.

Yeah. I love it. I love it. And this is. You're so good at helping people develop their story. I've seen a lot of the stories that you've helped to birth of our clients. And then you build the website around it and you have done public relations, you do all kinds of marketing and branding and the social media, all of those things. Sales pages around that. So story. And then it's consistently carried through everything.

Yeah. Consistency is so important. I'm glad you brought that up. Because if you have an inconsistent message that's being sent out, you have a very confused marketplace. And confused people say no.

Yes.

Every time.

Yeah. I mean, probably you've had the experience where someone comes up, you ask them what they do or what their business is about, and they're kind of back and forth. They talk about this thing, they talk about that your eyes glaze over because you're confused, you're not going to buy. Right, Right. And I think too, this is, I think, an important thing. I think we make marketing too hard. Oh, 100%, you know, because we try to make it complicated and flowery. But you look at some of the best campaigns, like Apple, you know, think different. Just two words, three words. You get on their website right now, you're going to see so simple, but just brilliant because it gets to the point.

Right.

But also, if you think about Steve Jobs and what he did to bring Apple to where it is.

Right.

Steve Jobs wasn't the most likable dude.

Right.

Anyone that's seen the documentary on him.

Right.

He was somewhat challenging.

Yes.

And there were a lot of people that he ticked off along the way of building one of the most powerful brands in the world.

Right.

But he had a vision, he had a plan of how he was going to do it. And yeah, okay. He had some haters along the way. That's okay. Look how many lovers he's got. And look at what he built.

Yeah, right.

He took some risks, and that's what we have to be willing to do.

I love that. I love that. And, you know, it's all about getting uncomfortable and doing things that are scary, and that really builds your confidence. But really, marketing is about getting your brand, your message, your product, your service out to as many people in your specific market that you know will love you as you can. So Stephanie Navinskas, that's her name. You don't want to forget her, look her up. Your website is sizzleforce. Com. I love that name. And check out her book. Absolutely Unforgettable. All right, thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on the show. This was awesome. We'll see you all next time.