[00:00:00] Nola: The decision to pursue entrepreneurship, whether full time or as a side business, is a viable option at any age. One obvious benefit of starting your own company later in your career is the wealth of experience and knowledge you can bring to the table. Our goal is to clear the path and eliminate barriers that stand between you and your entrepreneurial success. This, in our opinion, paves a way for you to seize business opportunities with confidence, craft irresistible offers that captivate your audience, and masterfully market your products and services. Today's guest is sure to deliver all that and more. Stay tuned, friend, for an engaging, illuminating, and skill-building episode you don't want to miss.
[00:00:38] Lori: Welcome to Sticky Brand Lab, where we bridge the gap between knowledge and action by providing you with helpful information, tips, and tools from entrepreneurs and other experts so you can quickly and easily jumpstart your side business. We're your hosts. I'm Lori Vajda, and this is my co-host, Nola Boea.
[00:00:59] Nola: Hey, Lori, you know the author, Rick Rubin? He wrote the book, Creative Act, A Way of Being? Okay. Well, he said in his book, "To live as an artist is a way of being in the world. A way of perceiving. A practice of paying attention." And while that's true, I think you could easily substitute artist for entrepreneur.
[00:01:21] Lori: Oh, yeah, I totally agree. I would say you don't have to be a business owner. That quote could easily apply if you simply used an entrepreneurial mindset.
[00:01:31] Nola: I like where you're going with that. Please explain.
[00:01:34] Lori: Where I was going or what I was meaning by that is I think whether you've already started a company or you're currently an employee who aspires to become an entrepreneur one day, an entrepreneurial mindset leads to innovation and creativity. I think everyone can develop that muscle. In fact, I think it's a way of being in the world. So for me, the creative challenge that I see many experienced professionals and those just starting their business, is that they struggle with explaining their ideas to others. I know personally, I have a lot of ideas that really sound great in my head, but get stuck when I try to get them out of my mouth.
[00:02:16] Nola: Yes, I can relate because even though I have often very well developed and even brilliant ideas in my head, they certainly don't sound that way when I go to explain them or write them down. So, of course, for anyone, including myself, who's trying to convey the advantages or the benefits of a concept, a product or service, they risk losing their audience. And that's true regardless of whether it's a potential customer or your own team members.
[00:02:44] Lori: Absolutely. And I think in today's market, people are flooded with online ads and marketing messages. It's becoming increasingly challenging for brands, small businesses, as well as personal branding, to differentiate yourself and effectively connect with your ideal customer or your ideal audience, who could be your boss. Knowing how to use words to break through the noise is where our guest excels. Meet Lisa Mullis, a dynamic, strategic brand coach, accomplished copywriter, and the visionary founder of Paraphrase Communications, a leading full-service marketing agency. With over 23 years of entrepreneurial experience, Lisa has honed her skills as a brand messaging specialist. She and her dedicated team are passionate about helping service-based professionals and entrepreneurs in mid- to late-career transitions clarify their messaging and streamline their marketing so they work with better clients, regain their time and take home more money. Which sounds amazing to me. So welcome, Lisa.
[00:03:56] Nola: Welcome.
[00:03:56] Lisa: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:03:59] Nola: We have been so looking forward to this conversation. Your background and career has been in design, even though you have a degree in journalism. Tell us about your journey with your career and what led you to start your side business.
[00:04:14] Lisa: I grew up always into art and writing. Twin passions of mine. And when I got to be of college age, I decided I'd focus on the writing side of things. And had that idea that I couldn't make it necessarily as a creative writer so I might as well go and do something a little more practical like journalism.
Well, when I got into journalism school, I wasn't really attracted so much to newspaper writing or reporting, but there was advertising as one of the tracks in journalism school. And I got very excited about that because that's essentially, it's copywriting and it's a very creative form of writing. So I've got really inspired in that.
Well, as we're going through copywriting, in school, we also had to learn the art side of copy because as you know, art and copy go together. And that led me into pursuing graphic design. So I actually went to school for both. I stayed in school an extra year to skill up on the graphic design side of things, I decided at that point, actually, I wanted to do design instead. So professionally, my first job out of college was working in house for a couple of companies as a designer. And I started freelancing my side business as a designer back in college. So I was doing a little bit of that, but I had a side business too, for a while in college, of editing. But professionally, I was more focused on design early in my career. And then I got to a point, especially after a couple of layoffs, where I was ready to give the side business a real go and do that full time.
I moved into that space, started working a lot more with clients, especially small businesses. And what I would find out is as we're building websites or other marketing material, and we'd say, okay, we're ready for the copy to put on the pages, the response was either, okay, I'm not quite sure what to say. Or they would hand over copy and I would look at it and quite honestly think like, oh gosh, this could be a lot better. Because I know them. I know the work that they do and this is not being communicated in the copy that they sent me. So I started working informally with clients on their copy just as part of the design work that we were doing.
I'd grown the studio to where I had a business partner at the time, and we decided we had different visions for where we wanted to take things. So in 2016, I sold my half of the studio to her and started Paraphrase Communications, my current business. And at that point I decided, you know what, I actually would like to work with the clients a little further upstream and help them figure out what words to put on their website and all the materials and what to say when they're in conversation with a potential client. So that is my trajectory into the work that I'm doing now.
[00:07:02] Nola: Wow. Now you have a team. How did you determine when it was the right time to actually expand your company?
[00:07:08] Lisa: As listeners are aware, whether it's a side business or your full-time gig, there's a lot to running a business, right? There's so much more beside just working with the clients. You get to a certain point where you just cannot do it all alone. You can be a solo person business and you can be a side business, but you don't have to do that in isolation. In fact, I don't think you should do that in isolation. So, when I decided to bring on team, the experience of doing that this time around in this business is quite different from my design studio days. Back in those days, I mean, I had employees, I had payroll, all that. It's kind of more of a traditional model.
Today, in my business, I don't have anybody on payroll. It's all contractors. And yet you can still have a team, you can still create a team culture. I mean, these are people I've been working with long term and we're just in the process of continually delegating some of these different aspects of the work that I'm doing so that I can stay focused on the few things that I'm really good at. That's what's wonderful about the virtual assistant field today is that it's very easy to bring on some help without making a big commitment to it and just trying some things out or bringing on support in different areas for finite periods of time. And the investment doesn't need to be very big at all, but the impact can be quite huge.
[00:08:30] Lori: Oh, I love that.
[00:08:31] Lisa: That is so handy.
[00:08:32] Lori: Nola and I have interviewed a lot of entrepreneurs and we either have entrepreneurs that came from entrepreneur backgrounds, so their families, or they grew up being entrepreneurial, or totally, they are the outlier of their family. Like no one is entrepreneurial except for them. And they felt like they were born that way. Which camp do you fall into?
[00:08:55] Lisa: I would say of like my immediate family, my family of origin, I would say we're in the camp of grew up in an entrepreneurial environment. My parents both worked in the school system and were raising four children. As you can imagine, money was tight. They needed some side gigs, which they did. They did so many side gigs and they still to this day, especially my dad, my dad's like the consummate entrepreneur. So yeah, I would say I'm in that camp.
[00:09:21] Lori: That's awesome. Do you have a specific experience from your childhood or from your adolescence that had a significant impact on you and your desire to eventually pursue entrepreneurship?
[00:09:34] Lisa: Probably the most delible memory of it all was the fireworks business that my parents still run to this day. This is the 38th year that they've been in this fireworks business. Now, where I grew up in Southern Missouri, fireworks is huge. And it's a seasonal business, of course, but I spent a lot of time in that business over the years growing up. I mean, all of the different things from pricing and checking out people all the way into when I was in my design studio days. And even now I'm helping with creating the branding and some of the marketing and setting up the website. I've been in a lot of different roles in that business. So because that business was so consistent in my childhood, I think that left a huge impression for this move into doing my own business.
[00:10:20] Nola: We're going to shift to what you're doing today. But I'm going to introduce that with one of my favorite quotes. I've constantly attributed it to Mark Twain, but Lori has recently told me it was actually coined by a French philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal. And that quote is, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time." And it's ironic, but true. Because writing that concise, creative, and powerful brand messaging, it's more important than ever, but it's also so very difficult to do. In your own words, can you please define for our listeners what we mean when we say brand messaging for those who may not be familiar with that term?
[00:11:01] Lisa: The way that I look at brand messaging is it's like you're mining for gold. You as the business owner have all this value that you're bringing, you have this lived experience, expertise, so the value of your work is there, so the gold is there. It's like you're mining for the gold, and sometimes that vein of gold is buried deep in the earth, sometimes it's closer to the surface, but the whole purpose of the brand messaging is to unearth it. To bring it forth. And then copywriting is taking that gold and turning it into coins and jewelry and tools and useful things so that now all of that value has function and practical use. So now you can use that literally as currency to win over those clients and customers that you're looking to work with.
[00:11:47] Nola: I love that.
[00:11:48] Lori: Do you have any suggestions or tips for how people can really go about crafting their own brand messaging?
[00:11:56] Lisa: First of all, just know that if it's difficult for you to do it, it's difficult for almost everybody. Because basically you're inside your jar and therefore you can't read your label. Similarly, you're not necessarily the miner that's got the tools to unearth all of that. So if you're finding it arduous to do the writing and come to this level of clarity about it, just know you're not alone and that you really do benefit from working with someone. That doesn't necessarily need to hire a professional right away to do that, but having somebody that you can use as a sounding board, even somebody who can ask the questions of you so that you can have a response and they can respond, is going to be so helpful in this process. So that's just one thing to keep in mind.
Brand messaging truly is answering five main questions. It is, 1) Who are you as a business? What do you stand for? 2) Who are you for? Who are your clients and your customers? 3) What are their issues that you're helping solve? What are their pain points? What are their aspirations? 4) How do you solve for those and what kind of results are you getting for them? And then the last piece of this is, 5) Why you? Why are you the best choice of all of their options that they're considering, including doing it themselves? That's really the main questions that comprise brand messaging. So if you look at words on a website or even posts in social media and stuff, almost all of them drive back to answering one of those questions.
Tip number two is just write down those questions and then start to answer them. Is it easy to do that? No, no, not necessarily. Right. Not always, but having somebody working with you and helping you get to those answers will greatly speed up the process.
And then my other tip is that for people who don't find writing easy to do, it's really important for you to be in this process. And the reason why when we're working with clients, we do it as a do-it-together process is because when you're in that process together to answer those questions, you become so much more enrolled in the value of the work that you're doing. And you become connected to those words and the language that's coming forth and the ideas and the coalescence of all of that. So it's really important for you to be in that process. And one of the ways you can do that if you don't like the writing is to vocalize it. You can use your phone to record it. You could get on a zoom call; however you want to capture it. But have somebody interview you and ask you these questions about your business. And just talk it out loud. Then you can go back and you can transcribe it. And that can be a much easier way for some people to actually get the words out.
[00:14:47] Lori: Do you have some specific do's and don'ts when it comes to writing copy in general, and more specifically, for a website?
[00:14:57] Lisa: You first need to know, what is the purpose of your website in the first place? Because some people need a website almost like an online brochure. They're not necessarily selling directly off their website, but they do need to have a presence there and they need to be able to communicate what it is that they do and who for. Maybe what the main call to action off that website is to book a call so the actual sales conversation is happening offline. In that case, my suggestion for writing is definitely you want to answer those five questions on your website, but you may not need a whole lot more information beyond that. If the goal there is to have them book that initial consultation.
Another piece to it is, the people coming to your website, are they totally what we would categorize as cold audience, meaning they are just now learning about you? Or are they warmer? So some people, especially I find this true with a lot of consultants and service based professionals is they'll meet someone in a networking event or they'll get a referral and that person goes to the website. So they have some context and then they come to your website for more information. In that case, they're more of a warmer audience. But if you have a lot of people coming to your website, quote unquote, cold traffic and you're selling off the website, well then you need a lot more information on your website. So there's a lot more copy involved. Because now you are having to take somebody from the very early stage of that buyer's journey all the way through to where they're ready to make that purchase. And so that usually takes a lot more information to move that person through. Here's where design comes into play though. It doesn't have to be like a wall of text. Design serves the function for further clarification and amplification of the written message. And so you can have a lot of copy and yet it still not feel overwhelming because of how the design has been applied.
[00:16:52] Nola: Yeah, that's really helpful. Based on your expertise, what are the basic pages and information that every business website should contain? Is it different if you're a solopreneur than if you're a little bit more farther along as a small business?
[00:17:07] Lisa: The homepage is number one, right? Because that's typically where you're sending most of your people to, whether it's organic traffic, or even if you might be running ads. And the reason why I say that is because if you are really new in your business, or if you're making a big pivot in your business and you're like, I just need to scrap everything that's on my current site and kind of start over, you can have a single page website. I have a model, a High-Converting Homepage, that I use in those situations where the client really just needs a single-page website because that model incorporates like all the critical elements that somebody would need and that can serve someone really well. And so I would recommend that for somebody new in their business because what can happen, I see this all the time, people get caught up in creating their website and it's months, sometimes years, of trying to get this website together because maybe they're doing it by themselves or what often happens is like, I don't know what to say on the website that gets stuck in some fashion or another. Instead of thinking about it as I need to have all these different pages for my website, you can have a single page website. And this works especially well for a service-based professional who really is just needing to establish presence, give some basic information, enough to have somebody who would want to book a call with them.
The About page would be the second one. If you're moving past a single-page website, then the About page is a big one. The About page, even for big companies, is one of the top looked at pages for most businesses, and particularly for people-driven businesses because you want to know, who am I doing business with? But people want to know that about companies, too. So the About page or the About section of the site is really huge.
The other page you would want on your website if you are in a position where you have some kind of a resource that you're offering people in order to come on to your email list or come into your community or some next step, I would recommend having a dedicated page to that. Because you'll use that in a lot of different situations where you will say, go to this page to get my resource or sign up for this thing or come into my community. Those would be the three that I'd recommend.
[00:19:28] Nola: It's very helpful. How does someone go about weaving or interjecting their brand message into their website content?
[00:19:36] Lisa: First of all, start with the writing piece before you do the website. That's my initial recommendation because it's very attractive to just jump right into, I'm going to put my website together. It's the visible piece of all of this. And I get it. You feel like you need the website in order to either feel legit, go out there and promote yourself. But the reality is you really don't. What you really truly need is you need that brand messaging. You need to know how to say what it is that you do and who it is for and why they should hire you. You need that first and foremost. Yes, that's going to show up on your website, but it's also going to show up in the way that you talk with people and how you carry forth that conversation. So that's number one. Always start with the messaging first. Now you've done that work and you've got that in order to weave it into the website.
Honestly, that High-Converting Homepage model, it is a free resource that I have, that's such a great template to use because it does capture all of those critical elements that you need for your website, whether it's just going to show up on your homepage or you're going to expand it out onto other pages. But having some template like that, or some kind of a framework to work from for your website's going to be really helpful.
[00:20:53] Lori: When you're talking about weaving that message in are you talking about yourself in the first person or are you talking about how you weave that brand message in so it comes across as beneficial to the person you're talking to? In other words, is it all about me? Or is it all about you?
[00:21:12] Lisa: I'm so glad you brought that up because I agree. I see a lot of the all about me and it really should be all about you. Should really lead with talking to your ideal client, your ideal customer about them. What's going on for their situation. That's like the first way to kind of connect with them so they understand, oh, they're talking about me and what I'm going through and then how you're helping them achieve their aspiration.
So, of those five questions, going back to thinking about the brand messaging and how to weave it in, I would say focus first on who are you serving and what is going on for them? Like, what is their situation? What's that look like? And what is it that they want? And how do you factor into that? How can you help them achieve it? So, leading with them. And then there is a place for you to show up because they definitely want to know, how do I know that you are the person to help me with this thing? So they definitely need to know that, but your stuff can come secondary to them.
[00:22:12] Lori: Yeah. I think that's not only really important. It's also, the way you explained it, very helpful. So switching gears just a little, in what way does living a vibrant life, what does that mean to you?
[00:22:24] Lisa: Hmm. Oh gosh. That's a big question. Living a vibrant life.
[00:22:28] Lori: It is!
[00:22:29] Lisa: For me, living a vibrant life is living in alignment with the values and the vision that I hold for how I want to feel. And the kind of relationships that I want to have in my life. So, if I can come to a place of really feeling clear about that and knowing that, and then I'm also now taking the steps that match up to moving me in that direction, even while the fear exists, the unknowns and all of that exist, then to me, that's a really vibrant life, like living full out and being me in as much as I know who I am at this point in my life.
[00:23:10] Lori: It gave me chills. So I think it feels, yeah, that's a wonderful perspective.
[00:23:15] Nola: That was profound. Lisa, as we wrap up this really amazing interview, do you have any upcoming programs that we should know about?
[00:23:24] Lisa: We are going to be having a week-long workshop series coming up at the end of August, and it's called Copy Camp for Homepages. And I've run this series a few times now. It's really fun. There's a workshop each day of the week and we're going through those parts of the homepage, the messaging, but we also get into some design and some tech issues and stuff around how to either create your first homepage or revamp your homepage. So some people come and they're just like, I'm ready to redo it. I'm actually trying to revamp mine as well. So yeah, I would definitely encourage listeners who are in that place where they need some support around their website homepage. And especially for those who don't have a website yet and really just need a single-page website, like this would be a great series to come to.
[00:24:14] Lori: Yeah, you get actionable feedback right in the moment, which we could all use instead of after the fact. So, that's awesome.
[00:24:22] Lisa: Yeah, you're right. Because I'm delivering those workshops live. There's lots of time for that kind of support and feedback that week. So along with that, though, the other resource that I mentioned is the High-Converting Homepage copy and layout template. So, it's a template that walks you through all those different sections on a really good homepage that could serve as a single page website. And that resource comes, there's the actual template itself, some copy prompts in there. And then there's a little video that goes with it that I walk you through how to use that template.
[00:24:58] Lori: Oh, that sounds great.
[00:25:00] Nola: Very good.
[00:25:00] Lori: Thank you, Lisa, for being our guest. We're sure your professional experience, along with your real-world tips and suggestions, will inspire more people to write their own brand message as well as digital content for their businesses and as part of creating their personal brands.
But before you go, how can listeners get in touch with you? Where should they go if they want to learn more about you, your business, the programs you offer, or even resources that you might have available for them?
[00:25:27] Lisa: I would actually invite people to join me on my email list because that's where I have the most current information and frequent information with resources and ideas and other tips and things like that for messaging, for marketing, even a little business mindset. But otherwise, if you just want to check things out first, I would say you can go to my website. It's paraphrasecomm, C O M M, dot com.
[00:25:53] Lori: We'll be sure to put not only all of those links in our show notes, but we'll put them on our resource page on our website.
Well, listener, we hope the ideas and thoughts shared here today have sparked your interest and curiosity to create your own messaging, and to become a first time entrepreneur in the second half of your vibrant life. Be sure to stick around to the very end of this podcast for a fun little chuckle.
[00:26:17] Nola: If you found the information we've shared helpful and want more tools, tips, and inspiration delivered to your inbox, sign up for news you can use over on our website, stickybrandlab. com or click the links in our show notes. And remember: small steps, big effects.
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Are the pages or information that every business webshite should contain. Every business webshite, webshite, webshite.
