555. How to stand OUT in the crowd - with Ronne Brown

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We believe that we need someone else to put us on. We believe that we need someone else to give us a platform. We feel like we need someone else to endorse us. We're waiting for this acceptance from other people, but the truth is we freaking have it in us already. It's already within us.

Welcome to the earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of The Bliss Project, 3 Time Fitness World champion, fitness expert and cover model turned self love junkie, lifestyle entrepreneur and author. Each week I'll bring you a guest or a thought that will help you bust through your fears, connect to your soul and get focused and clear so you can elevate your life, business and relationships. We don't wait until we're ready for someone to touc us. We're good enough. We take what we want and we anoint ourselves, get ready to earn, own and unapologetically rock your happiness every single day. Are you with me? Here we go. Ooh, you guys, today's podcast is such a good one. I'm so excited to have you back and tuned in for another week. You guys, thank you so much for tuning in. I mean, you have no idea what it means. It's actually you who gets the podcast out into the world. So I just want to say thank you for all of your shares and tags and all of the stories because that is the only way this podcast is getting shared. So thank you so much. And today's podcast is. You know, I just had the best time interviewing her because I could not believe the synchronicities in our stories. And I'm going to be going on her podcast actually today, the day that I'm recording this introduction for Ms. Ronnie Brown. She is the founder of Girl CEO and the author of From Mopping Floors to Making Millions on Instagram. Rani Brown is a branding expert. She's a professional speaker, author, mentor, wife, and a mother of four. She's made her mark internationally in the online and social media businesses with her revolutionizing branding techniques. She went from being a statistic to a success story and turned minimum wage income into a Seven figure Sal within a few short years. Now she's equipping women nationwide on how to be the CEO in their business lives and homes. She is one of social media's most influential entrepreneurs, inspiring and teaching people around the world how to create six figure incomes, become debt free and live life on their own terms. We also realize that we are both coming out with products really, really soon and I can't wait to help support her company. And I know that she was really excited when I shared my company as well. So you can probably guarantee that Ronnie and I will be connecting or collaborating in some way in the future. So you guys sit tight. Enjoy this podcast. I absolutely loved it. I was obsessed with some of the things she said. I'm still using some of her quotes. Let's get started. Ronnie, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm so excited to have you on.

Thank you for having me, Laurie. I'm super excited to be here.

I tripped across your profile because I always love looking at these amazing Instagram feeds and memes and just things that kind of like, you know, get you pumped up for business or life or whatever that is. And I kept on coming across your tiles and I was like, who is the person behind this? Because I think that I would love them. And I was like sharing all of these tile because I was like this is, this is so great. Like I absolutely loved it and I had to go and find. It's funny, I followed Girl CEO for a while and then I was like wait a minute, I need to find who is running this page because I'm. I think I'm like obsessed with the person. So that's when I tripped across you or found you and I was like wait, let's have. Let's have a conversation because this girl is doing so many amazing things. So I would love for you to. I know that you have an awesome story too. I would love for you to just share what it is you're doing now, but how you kind of came into to what it is you're doing.

Okay. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for loving the Girl co page. We put so much work into the content to really connect with like minded women. I started my business probably over 10 years ago and I came into entrepreneurship after being a teen mom. I had my kid at 16 years old. I grew up in the projects. I was not able to finish college. I started college and it was kind of one of those things where you have to choose between being a mom and going to college or working and Taking care of your kid, right? I chose to work and take care of my kid. After growing up in that environment, I decided that I was going to change the trajectory of my life. As crazy as this may sound, it's like when you grow up and you have all the odds stacked against you, sometimes all of the doubt, all of the letdowns, all of the judgment is one of your biggest motivating factors. And that's exactly what happened to me. And because of all the rejection, all of the side eyes, all of the pressure that I had on my back from having a kid at 16 years old, I was determined to change my life around, but most importantly, change my environment. So I got online because I was poor as hell and I could not afford a website. I would never forget the day I got fired from my job and I went home and I. I started to think about what I was going to do to put food on the table for my kids. And I started to make products in my home. And I was broke as ever. And I decided that I was going to jump on this thing called Facebook. I had just came off of MySpace because everyone was kind of on MySpace at that time, and there was this thing called Facebook that everybody was talking about, but they were on there connecting with their college friends. But, hell, I didn't go to college, so I had no college friends. But I started seeing that they were sharing pictures and, like, fun moments, and they were having a good time. And I'm like, jesus, I'm just going to post these pictures of these products that I'm making in my house on here, and maybe they'll give me some feedback. So I just decided to take a risk. I used it for marketing, and if you look on my Facebook page back in 2009, you'll see photos of me posting candles that I was making and mineral makeup and, like, all this stuff, and it just blew up from there. I started to get a lot of entertainment from people who were looking and watching me, and they were supporting me because they knew that I was a mom. And the next thing I knew, I was literally pasting little PayPal buttons on my page. Some of you guys are going to hear this. I'm like, what the hell is she talking about? This is back in the day. So this was when there were PayPal buttons. Laurie, do you remember?

Oh, my God.

I.

It's scary how much I did the same things that you did 10 years ago. So, yes, yes, I remember.

So I was making these little PayPal buttons, and I was literally pasting them on my Facebook page and people were clicking them and it would take them to PayPal, they would make a payment, and then I would literally meet up with these people or ship the product to them. And that's when I looked up. And before I knew it, I was paying my rent with all of the stuff that I was posting on Facebook. I took the same technique and I continued to the salon, became very successful doing that. Use Instagram at that time to get customers to come into the door as I was selling products as well. And then I learned how to sell products online in the direct sales industry. And I used the same formula. I made about a million in my first 17 months. And I said, oh, I kind of get this. I helped about three or four people become millionaire earners at that time. And I said, man, there is a science to this. I took the last probably seven years and I started to work with small business owners behind the scenes. Totally for free. Totally for free. This is. You know, sometimes you don't even know how good you are at something. And I had this guy tell me he was a multimillionaire. He told me, he said, one day, when you get a little older and you become a little wiser and you get a little more confidence in yourself, you're going to realize that what you're doing is called consulting and you're going to charge a lot of money for it. And I just started going to work. I was really focused on just pouring into people, helping women change their lives. I was giving people blueprints on how to create companies. Women would come to me, I would sit down with them, really teach them how to monetize their businesses, and they were seeing major results. And from then, they started referring me to other people. People started to see the brands that I was building online. I decided to walk away from all of the direct sales stuff and I went strictly into personal branding and focused on building passion businesses. That's what I call them now. Things that I really love and I really love to do and things that I enjoy doing. And I launched Girl Co. And it's just been crazy. It's been crazy. We have thousands of women who are involved. We have a platform of over 200,000, 200,000 plus women. Lives are being changed and we are just really making a difference.

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That is so awesome. And I can't tell you how many. You know, it's easy to look at people and just be like, wow, how did that happen? Or, wow, that happened overnight. And, you know, when you. You. You do podcasts, you get to interview a lot of people. And obviously, you're also in the business world, so you know how the story goes. It's like, such a journey. And that's exactly what it looks like. You're like, please go back to my Facebook 10 years ago. Please. Like, please go look at what I was doing. And, you know, you said something that was so interesting. Like, I learned that there's, like, a science for this, that if I lay this path on other things or this idea or this science, that it's going to work on these other things. So for you, what was the moment from, you know, the mindset of, like, let me. Because there's people out there struggling, right, that maybe they haven't made those first dollars online yet, or maybe they haven't made, like, that moment where you're like, whoa, I'm kind of good at this. Like, I'm actually doing this. What would you say was the difference in your mindset, in focus, when you kind of shifted and said, okay, I could do more, or I could take this science and put it somewhere else?

You know, the truth is, Lori, I would have to say it was my confidence level. And I believe that initially, we really don't know our own power. We believe that we need someone else to put us on. We believe that we need someone else to give us a platform. We feel like we need someone else to endorse us. We're waiting for this acceptance from other people, but the truth is, we freaking have it in us already. It's already within us. And for me, I had to start thinking that someone extended an opportunity to me, or I got lucky. How many of us have really got to a space where we feel like, damn, we got lucky with this. No, this got lucky with us, right? So I had to change my mindset, and I had to start believing in myself, and I had to get my confidence up. Sometimes where you come from and the things that you failed in, in your life, they could really stall you and really just put you in a space where you're handicapped and you don't really believe that you can take that step, right? It's like becoming disabled and you not walking for six months, and then it's time for you to go to therapy. And after going to therapy, after being in a Wheelchair. Taking that first step without having anything or anyone to hold you up is really scary. And that's when my mindset shifted and I said, ronnie, you can do this. It doesn't matter if you don't have a college degree. It doesn't matter if you didn't come from wealth. It doesn't matter with, you know, it doesn't matter about all the things that you failed in, like, you can still rise up. And that is what I think was really different. Then I got to a place when I said, I can do this, and I don't give a shit who sees me fail. Because a lot of times, and I'm speaking just for me, when I was afraid to do things, it was public failure that scared me the most. And once you get past giving a you know what, after I've already said shit about what people think, then nothing. You don't even care. It's like, so what, you can watch me fail, but you're also going to watch me get back up and do it again?

Oh, God. I'm like, over here with my hands up. So tell me what you have, like, narrowed down to the science. I know that it's kind of just like throwing you on the spot, but what do you think the science is to what you were doing?

I think the science to what I was doing was getting to a space where I was 100% confident and comfortable being transparent. I think the transformational process that has to take place, it starts always mentally and internally with you getting to a space where you are okay with owning and sharing all of your shit. That is the first step, because there is, like, this little cloud that will hang over your head if you are holding something back or if you've experienced something that you haven't been able to share, or if you failed at something that you've never really been willing to share with other people publicly, or you've gone through a terrible relationship or someone has hurt you or whatever the case may be. We have this thing where we can't fully launch out into the deep until we come clean. And we're comfortable sharing our shame. That's step one. So you have to be willing if you want to transform, you have to be willing to first put it all on the table, because that's when you get free and no one has nothing over you. You know, Laura, you've done stuff in your past that you might have had a group of people that you're like, if I do this, they're not going to take me seriously because they Know this. And then you just put it out there. Bam, publicly. You don't have anything on me. This is my life. This is my story. I don't care what anyone thinks. I'm still going to kill this. So it starts with putting it out there and not caring about the shame. That's the first thing. The second thing that I will say is it's really about adding value to the lives of other people. I look at your page and other women that I admire, and the biggest thing is being able to add value. A lot of people don't add value to other people's lives. Right? So the first thing that we have to keep in mind is how can we add value? And what I see happen so often is more people are focused on the sale versus adding value. First, we want to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. Before we add value. Add value and value and value. And some of you are probably going to listen to this. You're going to say, man, you know, what if I'm not successful? What if I haven't made a million dollars yet? What if I. If I don't have a big house or a big car? Guys, let me just tell you this. You have to push past perfection, right? We're doing this freaking podcast right now. I have a. I have a dog that's barking in the background. Lauren, don't edit that part out.

We are important or we leave it.

Because we don't care.

Yeah, we don't even care. Listen, we are really moms. We're really home. This is quarantine that's going on. And this is real life. Someone's kid may barge in the door right now. What I've learned is the more authentic you are, the more connected your audience will be with you. So the second point is add the value and stop thinking that perfection equals value. Guess what? There are people who will follow your story, support your business, connect with you, come to your events, buy your products just based off of you documenting the journey. See, what most of you all are screwing up at is you think that you have to have 30,000 followers. You have to have made a million dollars for people to take you seriously. No, you just have to take them on the journey with you.

Oh, my God, So many amazing points. Because, you know, just like when you were first starting out, people probably loved. Well, I know they loved seeing everything that you were doing and what was going on or how you were making these products or throwing things up online or not being perfect. And it's crazy because looking back, though, that is when we built our audiences during those times where we just documented. Cause it's like, I actually find sometimes it can be more challenging to build an audience from here rather than just like, I'm like reminding myself, oh, just document again. Like, just show what you're going through again. Because sometimes the more that you feel you've reached these different places, sometimes it feels a little scarier. Like you have more on the line to document your challenges, right? Like, oh, now I'm a mentor, maybe I shouldn't document this. But I think that the more transparent you are as a coach and once you even get there, that's how you continue to add value, get those people engaged and grow your business. That is such a great point to just remember going back to the beginning, for sure.

And what I really notice is how relatable it makes you when you have this super perfect aesthetic. And it's something that I kind of pushed past on my personal page because people didn't feel comfortable even approaching me because there was so much perfection. All of the pictures were like perfectly crispy and it was contrasted up, but they were super bright because it was visually appealing. But people were afraid to even message me because everything was just so perfect. The moment I got down and deep and transparent and started showing behind the scenes and days where I look like complete shit online, that's when I. Some women started reaching out to me and said, wow, I can't believe you posted this photo and your hair is standing on top of your head. You just inspire me to just be more true to myself. I'm like, what? So you guys, you're inspired by me looking like shit in the morning? Oh, my God.

You know, it's crazy because it does. I've kind of stopped following people because it's not that I think they're bad by any means. It's that I'm like, well, that's not attainable for me. So I actually don't like being able to curate my page that way. Doesn't feel attainable. That doesn't feel like real life for me. So I, you know, and depending on where you are and where you're at in your business, it's kind of like I want to. I want to be following people that it feels attainable, it feels accessible, it feels inspiring while being attainable for me. And, you know, for some people, it is that they want to strive for those more curated pages and that's what turns them on. And that's. That's the kind of people that they, you know, want to attract. But if you really, really, like, want to just, you know, finding out who you really want to connect with and showing up in that way, that's so, so powerful. I totally get that for sure.

And I believe that as we grow, we start to want more substance. Right? I'm. I'm hungry now that I invest. I invest a lot in masterminds and mentorships and being a part of groups where women are really killing it in their businesses. I'm hungry for information. So the substance is what is most important to me right now in this season of my life.

I feel the same exact way. Like, I want to see all of it. I'm like, tell me all of it. Show me all of it. I want to know. I want to know what's real and what it really feels like. So, okay, those are amazing. So you said one put it all out there. That couldn't be more true. Like, I freed myself when I did that. You guys. She is 1 million percent spot on. Because there's always, like, this. What if my family finds out, right? Like, I come from a really religious family that held me back forever. Like, what if they find out that I believe this? What if I start speaking my mind in this way? Like, that was probably one of the most challenging things I've ever gone through in my entire life, was just being like, girl, if you don't put it all out there, you will forever never move forward. Like, you will live in this place of fear with whatever you actually want to say that you know will make a difference. And I'm telling you that that is the place that hurts the most. Not the place of actually speaking and dealing with whatever confrontation and choosing to move through it that comes with it. And then number two, add value. And you know what? I threw number three as push past perfection. Cause I was fricking genius. So one thing that I would love to chat with you about, because I know that this is something that's really just your zone of genius, is the secret to making brands stand out. And I actually think that you kind of went over. I think these coincide with some of the secrets to making your brand stand out. But let's talk about that. Let's talk about so many of us now, especially listen to this podcast. We have brands, or we're moving into new branding, or we're moving into a product or whatever that looks like that we really wanna make sure that it either has a voice or a community or it stands out. What do you think those things are that we should be focusing on to make a really successful, likable, relatable brand.

There are so many challenges to business that I don't want starting to be.

One of them for you.

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So the first thing that I will say is that we have to understand that there are two different things. There's personal branding and then there is business brand. Right? So we need to understand that there needs to be 2. I see so many people just saying hey, my personal brand is my business brand and that is a complete fail. Right? If you are maybe a service based person then you may feel like you don't need a business brand. But the truth is if you sell your company, you can't sell your personal Instagram with that company. So we need to make sure that there's a separation there in place. So I'm going to speak on. Would you like me to speak about the business branding or you want to talk about personal how we could do both? Lori, whatever you want to rock with, I'm totally down with it.

Let's hit personal first and then definitely I'd love to hear your thoughts on business.

Okay. So with personal branding I think that marketing has changed and I Believe initially people used to buy brands and then they used to do research and they used to find out, okay, who is buying? I'm sorry, who is owning? Who owns this company? Right now as I'm watching the marketing just shift and I'm watching influencer marketing just explode and I'm also watching the success of companies just kind of drop out of nowhere. It's happening from the root. And right now the individual person is always the root of the company and the mindset of the consumer is changing. And what I'm saying is they are looking to get connected to the person who owns the company first and then that is then leading them to make that decision as to do I want to spend my money with this company yet? Do I want to invest in this brand? Do I want to support this mission? And what they're doing is they're connecting with the owner, right? This is why we see CEOs going to all the social media boot camp. Now there goes all these social media boot camps because they're trying to come from behind the computer. Right now with our personal brand, we have to make sure that a, we are active, we are out there, we are voicing our opinions, we are letting people know what we stand for and what we don't stand for, what we endorse and what we don't endorse, what we love to do, what we do not enjoy. You know, we need to be more transparent right now. With personal branding, it is all about connecting with your audience on an authentic level. It is 100% about being yourself, sharing your shit and showing who you really are. I am watching people who are sitting at the table, eating their food on live, talking to their audience, launching companies and doing a million dollars in one day. And it is because of the personal connection and the personal relationship that they've built with their audiences online. These people know their kids names, these people know what they like to eat. These people are engaging in conversation. They feel like family. You have to nurture their relationship. So as far as personal branding, what you need, you need to be yourself. And I want to really touch on this, Lori, because I mentor a lot of women and a lot of them join these coaching programs and they are given this blueprint to success and it is bullshit, right? Because everyone is talking alike. They're being trained on how to talk, they're being trained on how to take their pictures. This is how your pictures should look. They should look super bright. You know, they're changing their voices, they're not being themselves, they're so afraid about what they're posing. I have women that cry to me, and they're afraid to post things because they don't know if their audience will receive it or not. Okay? So the solution to this problem is authenticity. This is the word of freaking 2020. Be yourself. The way you get ahead in life, in business is you get attention, right? And the way you get attention is by standing out. You don't get attention by looking and posting and sounding in your pictures, looking like everyone else's page. And the only way that you can stand out is by being you, Lori. No one can be Lori. No one can do Lori like Lori. Right? They can try, but they're going to fail because the secret sauce is your spunk. The secret sauce is that attitude. The secret sauce is that drive. The secret sauce is you knowing that you can do anything that you put your mind to. The secret sauce is your authenticity. The secret sauce is the relationship that you have with your husband. The secret sauce is the relationships that you have with those girlfriends that you have that other people cannot curate that. So when we start being our authentic selves, no one can touch it. People laugh all the time about, like, Cardi B. Do you see what happened with that? Like, do you see? Who would have ever thought that this outgoing girl who just says whatever comes to her mind would end up on a freaking Pepsi commercial, on the NFL halftime show? Like, being yourself and talking like that and saying whatever the hell you thought. That was not okay at one time. Do you remember that?

Oh, yeah.

Yes, it was not okay. But you know what's happening now that is acceptable. People want to feel like they know you. So right now, personal branding, if you want your personal brand to take off and you want people to go take a look at your company, be yourself. Your tribe is going to find you and it's going to explode. But the biggest mistake you're going to make is pretending to be someone else. Oh, that's a lot of work. It's hard to keep up. You're going to have to change your voice every time you go live. You're going to be super, you know, trying to edit everything up. Everything has to be perfected. You're going to have a script for which you post, like, get rid of that and be yourself. That is the secret sauce for personal branding. You have to educate, entertain, and inspire.

Oh, I love. Yes. And it's so crazy how we can hear this and know this and some people don't know this, but I can hear it and I can know it. And I can still hear it again. And I can get more inspired to be like, okay, how much more authentic could I be? Like, what am I not showing that I feel comfortable or not comfortable, right.

That I.

That I know will add value to people. But maybe I'm just kind of, like, guarded. Or maybe I'm still worried about someone judging in some area. Like, and usually that's where my magic ticket is to what is next on really deeply connecting even more with my audience is being like, oh, yeah, that's that spot I didn't want to show. Or that's that spot that feels like too much work to show or whatever that looks like. So thanks for that because that really helped. I'm over here. Like, yes, I need to go and do X, Y and Z right now. Okay. So where I think a lot of people get stuck as well is they're ready to be authentic, right? Like, you just lit a fire underneath my ass. Like, everyone on here is ready to go and, like, be more authentic online. But then sometimes I find people, like, like, overthink it. I actually found myself overthinking it for a while. And I was like, you're just. You are going to. If you don't post, like, in 10 minutes, then you're like, you have to grab anything and just put it up there with a quote. Like, I'd been challenging myself to do, like, 30 posts for 30 days of, like, just getting it out there and trying to add value during that. But, like, just making sure I'm consistent. Cause I was pretty consistent, but never, like, every single freaking day. And so with that said, what do you recommend for people? Because now they're ready to be authentic, but now they're finding they're overthinking what that even means.

So I think that we overthink when we're not being authentic. That's when we go back into the boat of being a perfectionist. Because we're checking behind every single thing. And you know what I always tell people? You know, we don't have something motivational every day. We're not. I don't have it. I don't have it. And to be quite frank with you, when I see people online and they're motivating videos every day, every day there's a motivational speech. I'm just like, get the out of here. Like, get out of here. It's bull crap. Like, I'm not taking you seriously. It's love. So what I wanted to say is some days you don't have anything to pour Isn't that. Isn't that okay? Like, some days I don't have anything to give. I just take a break and I'll go to my stories and I'll document. And you may see me working out. You may see me doing absolutely nothing. You may see me washing my hair. You may see me brushing my teeth. You may just see me just reading a book, having a smoothie. That's okay. I don't have a word or a gem for you every day.

Yeah, that's very freeing just to, I think, to know when those points are. What actually recently happened to me was I was, like, giving myself so much grace. I was like, oh, take all the grace. Like, you don't need to post or do these things. And I was like, wait. I almost, like, fell into this groove of, like, feeling good on stories but then never posting because I was like, ah, not important. But then it didn't. It started to not feel good. Does that make sense? I'm like, that actually doesn't feel good. And then after years of, like, being pretty consistent, I freaked myself out. Like, I didn't even know where it was coming from. I think from just taking such a break to going, I don't even know how to do this anymore. And then I was kind of exactly what you said. I was like, you're just gonna post whatever you're feeling right now, and if you don't have something, I'm like, you're gonna grab a quote that you love and you're gonna throw it on an old picture.

You can grab something that says, hey, guys, today I'm not feeling very motivated. Bit below. And then you'll realize that there are. That are having a shitty day, just. And there it goes. The engagement goes up from there. Find a group of complainers, right? Like, everyone can come. And it's not that it's negative or it's complaining, it's just that it shows that you're a real person.

Yeah.

Yes.

So right back to the authenticity thing. So amazing.

Personal branding is just connecting with your audience, being yourself, educating, inspiring, and making sure that you are engaging with your audience. I look at a lot of feeds and I think that they would be, you know, those people that own those pages would be getting much more of a return on their investment if they even did something as small as go down the comment section and respond to the people who are talking to them.

Is there something. Because I do you recommend for people on their personal page, and maybe this is not a good thing for your personal page, but let's say you start to get a lot of engagement and that feels really overwhelming to you. Maybe it distracts you from actually doing needle moving things. Do you recommend getting someone to comment once a day on your stuff?

Yeah, I think from a company perspective, when we go into the business branding, I definitely suggest having your team to make sure that they are engaging with the people who comment from a personal page. If you need that level of support, for sure. But for me, I'm still doing it right now. I still go, no one manages my personal Instagram. Yeah, I will never probably, I will never let anybody do that because it needs to be my voice and it needs to be me. And I just do the best I can. It's just that. And I'll even put up a post, say, hey, guys, I'm trying my best to respond, but there's a lot of engagement on this post and I just want to make sure that you guys know that I see you and that's just that I'm just going to do the best I can. Yep, that's it.

Okay. I love that. Letting myself off the hook. All right.

All right.

So do you want to. Do you have any more on personal branding before we move into business?

Yeah. So one more thing that I want to add to personal branding is making sure that you're actually giving your audience an opportunity to ask you questions and get to know you. Right. That really changed my business and also really being a little more open. I was very business, business, business, business on my personal page at one point in time. And I saw the difference on how my engagement and even my following shot up when I started to be more personable and when I started to do lives and allow people to ask me questions. So I'm very intentional on weekly doing a live and allowing my audience to get to know me. And I've seen people say, like, you are literally my sister in my head. Wow. Yeah.

Because they have. You then go from, you know, fairly accessible to, like, completely accessible and somebody who, like, they actually want more of you in their life every day and they want to, you know, keep you around, whether that's through business or, you know, through engagement. That's so valuable.

For sure.

Okay, amazing. So let's move into the business side.

Perfect. So with business, what I've learned is that you have to find your brand voice. And I did not know the power of brand voice when I initially started my business page. This was years ago, but believe it or not, your brand voice, how can I explain this? It's literally a Little personality. It's like the mascot for your company. So this is where our imagination kicks in from second grade, and we are imagining what the mascot of our company would look like and what her personality would be. Right. What would she say? Who would she talk to? What are some of the thoughts that will go through her head? What does her brand identity look like? Right. What would she wear? What would be the sarcastic things that she will put up? You have to really sit down and dig deep, and those are the types of things that will be put out there. That's your content. Right. Like when you found Girl co, you were saying, who is this woman? I need to find her. Because whoever is behind it, I would love this page. I follow a ton of pages like that. Right. There's this one page. It is really off the chain, but I love it. It's super sarcastic and it says the craziest stuff. I think it's called daddy issues. Do you follow that page?

Oh, I've heard of it.

Yep. But everything that they say on that page is just, like, 100% sarcasm. And I just sit on that page and I just eat popcorn and I laugh sometimes. And I want my page to be a page that connects with my audience in that kind of way. So think about who your mascot is. Think about what the voice is. Think about what that person would say. I have no idea who owns that page, but I love that page. So you need to really think about those things when creating your voice. That's the first thing. The second thing is, how do we remember a brand? Let's play a little game. Lori. When you see yellow, what is the first food store that you think about? When you see, like, the yellowish golden color?

McDonald's.

Exactly. That's brandy. Right. When you see a little apple, what is the first thing that you think about?

Oh, my iPhone and computer.

But not an apple that you eat, Lori.

I know.

Nope. It's called branding. Right. When you see that light pink and that purple stripe together, the first thing I think is Victoria's Secret. This is branding. So then we go into color palettes, and our color palettes have such a big psychological effect on our audience, because when people see the branding, it's something that they will remember all the time. So we create the brand. We think about the voice, we think about the type of content that we want to put out there via the voice. And then we go into, how will these people remember me? How will they remember you? They remember you by your brand covers. A lot of companies don't understand the value of a solid brand palette and being consistent with that brand palette. They change their fonts. We're not even just talking colors. I'm talking fonts. You should be consistently using the same colors, consistently using the same font, the same font weight. This is how people will identify your company from years to come. You haven't seen Gucci hasn't changed its font. Louis Vuitton, they haven't changed their font. Chanel hasn't changed the font. It's classic, it's timeless. Right? So these are some of the things that we need to put in place. And then another thing that we need to think about when we are creating a successful brand is our brand promise. What solution, what solution are we putting in place? What problem are you solving for your audience? Sometimes we launch businesses and we don't even know the problems that we were actually solved with that business. Hell, half of the time we don't even interview our audience to see if they even want that from us. Some of us could be making a ton of more like just a ton of money, much more money, if we humbled ourselves enough to ask our audience. Everyone's listening. Everyone that's listening to this right now. Go on your social and ask your audience, what do you want from me? What would you like to see more of? When I tell women this, I have women that work with me. They're seven figure earth. When I tell them this, they're like, what you want me to ask them? They're going to think I don't know shit. No, they're going to be happy that you care. Give people what they want versus what you want to give them. When I started asking my audience, what do you want to see from Girl Co? They're like, oh, I want this. I want planners, you know, I want workout gear. I'm like, geez, thank you, guys. You just saved me a year of brainstorming. I gave them exactly what they wanted. And guess what, Lori? When I gave them what they wanted, they wanted it so bad they were even willing to pre order it from me. That's security. I won't have to take a loss after I go in that direction. Wow.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. I can tell you from experience that I have created things without asking because I've seen, oh, someone did this. And maybe this is what people want right now. Or I must, you know, this must be the, the thing that we're supposed to do if we're in this arena. And wow, that fell real, real flat. So you can, I can save you Six months to a year of time and say, please do what she's saying. And I was just thinking, as you're saying that, like, yes. So much. Yes. I'm building a new page out right now, and I am finding the more I ask, the more it's not only turning into, like, you know, it helps you kind of detach.

Right?

It helps you. It helps you understand exactly what direction you want to go as well. Because you're like, yes, this is the community that I want to build. Of course I want to build it for them. Of course I want to build it so that it's engaged. And they love what's coming out. So it's a really beautiful way to create exactly what you're doing next. I love that, like, the more engaged, it creates so much engagement asking them, and they feel a part of it. So just like you said, they're so hungry for it when it comes out because they've been a part of it the whole time. They feel like they had something to say about it and they helped create it.

I was gonna say they will even give you feedback. They will tell you what your packaging should look like. Let me just. This is gonna blow your mind. I'm in the process of creating my own lifestyle and beauty line. Right. I got the name from one of my followers. She gave it to me on Live. She messaged me and say, hey, I think this should be it. I want you to have this. This. This is the idea. I trademarked it. It's coming. That is how involved they are.

Wow, that is amazing. So what are you doing with your. Okay. Cause I. I saw that, and I'm so glad that you mentioned this. This is really huge. So you went from coaching to. Or writing books coaching to digital courses and sounds like masterminds. And I think I saw some events as well into a CPG product. So what has for you in building this out and really planning for the future of making sure the audience is there for when your product is launched?

So the first thing is my first business was a product company first. That was my first.

Oh, that's right. You said that.

Yeah. I started it in my home, but I was broke then, so I didn't have money for manufacturing. I didn't have money for packaging. And heck, one person loses a package. And I was. Was in the negative of my bank account. Okay. So I put that on hold because I did not have the finances at that time back in 2010 to really mass produce, mass manufacture. So as far as transitioning, even now, you Know, it's still. I can give you some feedback on how to do that. Right now, the biggest thing is you have to make sure that that is what your audience wants, wants from you. So what I did was I studied the analytics on my page. Some of you all may not be aware, but Instagram has analytics, right? And if you have your page set up as a business account, which you should, right, you can go to the top right hand corner of your Instagram screen. It's little hamburgers, like three little lines. And you will literally just click insights. And what you want to do is you want to pay attention to those insights. You can actually toggle it from a weekly view, a six month view, a yearly view, and you can see what photos people engage with more. You can also do it on your stories as well. And over the last five years, what I noticed about all of my photos and my stories is people would always talk to me and ask me about my skincare products. I would post different things that I'm using. They would share those things. I would pay attention to what photos got the most, most saves. All right, this is data. We have to pay attention to data analysis. And what I came to realize is they're very concerned about a few things they care about. Entrepreneurial education. That's the first thing they care about cute shit that I'm wearing. They want to know where I got it from. And then they want to know about skincare and fitness all day long. Mm.

Mm.

So, and you were, you were super interested, obviously, in, in skincare. So was that something for you that was like, wow, I could do this? Or did you have a mentor? Did you talk to somebody? What was the idea that you were like, okay, I'm. I guess I'm gonna do skincare? Did you want to do a product and you were looking for which product that would be?

Yeah. So I started off like I said back in 2009 with the product, 2010 with the product that flopped. I got back into the direct sales industry and I sold beauty products for six years. I made a million dollars in my first 14 months. I found a product that I like then, but I wanted something that was more niche, Right. So I started doing my research. Okay, I need to figure out how to formulate my own product. I got with a chemist that really assisted me with doing that, and I put together my own formula and I used it for almost a year before I actually launched my product. So those are the steps that I took to make sure that it was to my liking. I didn't just want to create anything. I didn't want to white label. You know, nothing against those who do, but for me, I didn't want to just white label something. I wanted a custom formula that I use and that I created and that I believed in.

Okay, so what are you going to do? What is your plan to make your product stand out? Are you focusing mostly online? Are you going to stores? What is your kind of your business plan with that, and how do you want to make it stand out?

I'm not interested in stores at all.

Yep.

You're like, I've done this all online. Why would I go do something brand new?

Exactly. I am really big for everyone that's listening to this. If you can lower your overhead and keep your overhead down. Keep it down. Right. Sometimes we fall in love with this standing in front of the bricks and the windows, you know, and it looks really cool. It looks like you've accomplished a lot. But the truth is you're just in debt. That's all of this. You're paying rent and you don't own that property. And when things Happen, look at COVID 19. I know so many women that are closing their stores right now because the landlords are not even willing to negotiate with them because they haven't even been able to open their stores in three months. But they are still expecting three to $5,000 rental payments. So I am not interested in owning a storefront location. That's the first thing. The second thing that I've done to get my audience involved is I've taken them on the journey with me. They watched me formulate this. They watched me use it. They've given me feedback. I've interviewed them. I've asked them what they wanted. You know, I've gotten their input. I've allowed them to give me names and ideas, and they're on this journey with me. So they're ready.

Yes. Is there anything that you. Because we're nearing the end here and I could talk to you all day, especially now. I'm like, oh, let's open this. This other can of worms right at the very end where I'd love to talk for another hour. I'll have to have you on again in order to talk about, actually your next new company, because it sounds so exciting. Any parting thoughts around the personal branding? Like, really making your personal branding and your business branding stand out that we didn't cover?

Yeah. I think collaboration is one of the most important things that change your business right now. And not only just personally, but from a Business perspective. You know, I talked a little bit about brand identity, I talked about brand voice, I talked about about color palettes, I talked about fonts. You know, I talked about making sure that people know what the solution is that you are providing. Making sure that you also interview your audience and find out what they want. But the most important thing is collaboration in business and I want to stress this. Make sure that you are intentional about connecting with like minded entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs and being willing to share your platform with people who are in the game that you are in and make sure they are just as credible. Right. I always tell people, make sure that you all can benefit each other. Right after this, Lori is going to be on my freaking podcast. She doesn't know it, but that's the next question.

Yeah, I can't wait.

Right? Because at the end of the day you have to look at it like, can we both add value to one another? Sometimes we start reaching out to high level people when we haven't arrived there yet. I start networking on my level. That's how I got to where I was. I started networking with the people and the women that I had access to. As they grew, my access grew. As our following grew, their following grew and we were on the same page. Often we want to network up, right? We have to stay at a space where we see the value in those beside us. Some of us are looking at, you know, let me go get Lori. Well, what about Christina? She's right there beside you. She has some value, she has some stories. She has a story. And one day you're going to look up and Christina's going to be up there with Lori. But you completely ignored Christina when she was right there. So networking, sharing platform platforms, repurposing content, tagging. Make sure you tag the people who are creating this content. Because when people post and tag me, I always go to their pages, I always check it out. And when we work together, you go fast alone, but you go far together. We have to get into the mindset that if we come together we can kill it.

Okay, yes, that just like perfect spot to end because my God, it couldn't be more true. If you are hitting a wall, it might be because you are missing that last component. And not only does it just change the game for you, but it makes this whole thing so much more fun. Like it literally takes it from being work into making it the most exciting thing ever because you're sharing it and, and those feelings of celebrating together are like nothing I've ever experienced in my life. I swore After I started collaborating with women that I will never do anything alone again. I will always have businesses that somehow connect or create relationships or celebrate other businesses because it's so fricking boring and hard without those elements. So thank you so much for that, Ronnie. I'm like, this was such a beautiful podcast, such a beautiful hour for me. I would love to know, make sure that everybody can find you, follow you.

Where's that at?

So my personal brand is Ronnie Brown, and that is R O N N E Brown. There is no I in my name. And you can also connect with the girl co community. We have the playground for female entrepreneurs. And you can connect with us at Girl CEO Inc. That's Inc. And that's where I am. Lori.

Oh, my God. Well, thank you again. I just want to thank you for how you show up and for how authentically you share because truly, like, you didn't just say it today, you really were being it. Because I feel it. I'm literally levitating. I'm very inspired to go and take my even authenticity online and in this new business up a notch. So, so inspired. I can't even tell you into action. And that's the best part. So, Ronnie, thank you, thank you, thank you. Super grateful. And you guys, if you loved this podcast, I always say one of the biggest gifts that you can give if you've gotten anything from this podcast or especially if you've gotten something from Ronnie today, is to tag Rani on Instagram and tag myself and let us know what your biggest takeaway was like. I'm telling you, this is where it gets really fun for us, is to be able to see what you've taken, what nuggets you've taken, what impact it's made. So make sure that you do that so that we can meet you. And you know that I always love to share your stuff. So make sure you tag Ronnie, it's Onni Brown or girl CEO and tag myself. And we would love, love, love to meet you. So, you guys, until next time, earn your happy. Bye, everyone. Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the earn your happy podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it, that would be absolutely amazing and we would be forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so moved by going to itunes and leaving us an honest thought and honest comment. Tell us what you think, tell us what you want to hear more of. It would really help us out on our journey to helping thousands and thousands of people. People. Until then, don't forget to earn your happy. Thanks again, guys.

Bye Bye.