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Omnichannel
The Marketing and Business Podcast For Online Entrepreneurs! Learn the best approaches from experts as well as the psychology of what it means to be a human in business!
Omnichannel
Your Message Ecosystem: Build a Relevant Personal Brand that Consistently Attracts Right-Fit Clients
As a former ghostwriter who stumbled into the world of copywriting, Parmees takes us on her unexpected entrepreneurial journey, she paints a vivid picture of the necessity for clear communication in our hustle-driven society.
Parmees's transformation from student to messaging specialist underlines the power of resonant writing, as she recounts the ah-ha moments that propelled her forward and the profound impact her work has had on local businesses and service providers.
Meanwhile, we also dissect the strategic architecture of personal branding, discussing how to craft messages that truly echo our values without overstepping boundaries and diluting our professional presence.
Concluding our session, Parmees shares her insights on the significance of establishing a brand identity that resonates with clarity and authenticity!
behind every single piece that we craft, and it doesn't matter whether it's a social media post, whether it's a sales page we create, whether it's an email that we put out there. The human touch is what makes messaging powerful, where, instead of looking at your message or your solution as just one siloed thing that you do, I want you to look at it as an ecosystem that comprises of three core pillars, simply because I think that good writing is clear thinking, and the more we get into this practice of being able to articulate our thoughts in a very cohesive, structured way, the more we realize that there's more expertise in us that we can get out there.
Speaker 2:Hello, welcome to the Omnichannel podcast Today. I have the amazing Parmese joining us today and sharing all her business ethics slash messaging wisdom. I really hope you're going to enjoy this episode. Thank you so much, barmiz, for coming.
Speaker 1:Okay so.
Speaker 2:I already filmed the intro for you, but hi. Barmiz.
Speaker 1:Hello.
Speaker 2:You know I've been courting you for months now, so I'm so happy to have you on the show.
Speaker 1:Me too. I know it feels like we've been wanting to do this forever, so I'm glad that we're finally here.
Speaker 2:Finally doing it. So you are in Mexico, right? How's that been for you?
Speaker 1:It's been an adjustment. It's been wonderful in some ways and then more of a kind of like a mindfuck. In other ways I feel like I've had to readjust. It's a bit of a culture shock when you come from Canada or from the US and you're used to things being a certain way, you're used to people being a certain way, order in society, and it feels like here everything is a lot more on island time and everything is a lot more laid back and people just operate on a very different, more laid back mentality. So if you're very hustle, go, go, go and need things to be done a certain way. It's yeah, it's different. It takes some getting used to, but it's kind of nice. It's kind of nice for those of us who are constantly in this state of like things need to go our way. It's a nice opposition to what I'm used to.
Speaker 2:It's a nice opposition to what I'm used to Just walk me through from the moment of you starting to write at school, you know, being a ghostwriter to becoming the person that you are now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you want me to start at the very, very beginning, not even just what I'm doing right now, it's up to you, but I think that's kind of your genesis story anyway, you know.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. Yeah, I kind of call myself the accidental entrepreneur because, quite honestly, writing, copywriting, marketing it was definitely not in my wheelhouse. I started my business out of a need for survival when I was in my second year of university, recognizing that I very much value freedom and I value working on my own schedule. And back in that time period, what was really a value to me, or priority to me, was being able to be a good student and have as much capacity as possible to put all my effort for my academia, and I didn't want to have a job, but, being the ambitious person that I was, there had to be a way for me to make money. And so I remember this one night sitting on my computer looking for remote jobs, looking for things that I can do, what are skills I can monetize, or going into different people's businesses and what value can I bring to them, where I can charge money. And one thing that I had known for many years, even before getting into university, is that I'm a very talented communicator and writer, but up until that point, I didn't realize that I can actually monetize my writing ability, and it wasn't until I came across a couple of ads of a few local businesses talking about how they want to bring someone on board to manage their emails and their newsletters and their blogs and their website and social media, and back in the day, social media and blogs and websites were not anywhere close to what they are now, but there was a huge demand for writers and back at that time, I didn't even know that copywriting was a thing. I'd never heard about copywriting. But what I did know is that I understood humans very well and I understood writing and I understood how to frame concepts in a way that get people really engaged and get them to consume material, and so I took on a couple of freelance writing jobs. I wrote for different offices like medical spas, chiropractors, crossfit gyms just anyone who had any sort of presence or had burgeoning their presence in the online space and just wanted to get more and more people on board with what their business does. So, yeah, I was writing for a lot of local businesses and these were a lot of brick and mortar businesses where they had people physically coming into their shop and purchasing either services or products, and what was interesting about that time is that I got a lot of experience writing for a vast array of an audience. So it wasn't just coaches you know coaches and consultants, or people who sell courses and digital products. It was actual products. And how do you position them in a way so that when people come into the store, they already have a good idea of what the value of this product or the services we were selling? You know CrossFit packages, supplement bundles for some of these clinics, chiropractic packages so various different you know services that all differed in what their value proposition was.
Speaker 1:And again, back then, as a young copywriter, I didn't necessarily know fully what I was doing. I wasn't deploying marketing tactics. I wasn't, you know, I had no idea what the best copywriting frameworks and templates were. I was just simply going on. What need does this product or this service solve? What is it about this product and service that will fulfill a gap for a specific type of audience that's out there? And how do I communicate the value of it in a way where people can understand how it's relevant to their lives? And so, the more and more I started getting experience in writing and my writing really started to take off and people would come into some of these clinics and say, hey, I open your newsletter every week or I look forward to the emails that I get from your clinic, and it was nice for me because it was a sense of validation as to the things that I'm writing is not just because I'm a good writer, but people were actually consuming it and they found it very helpful. So at that time I kind of set up shop where I now realize that this freelance copywriting business is actually very lucrative and there's many ways that I can reach more audiences, more businesses, through this way. So, naturally, through word of mouth, the demand for my writing started to increase. So I started from the little clinics and gyms and medical spas to doctor's offices, dentist's offices, other chiropractic clinics, physio clinics, people that knew that I already had experience writing for that type of audience before I knew it.
Speaker 1:Within the first two years of launching this little side hustle while I was in university, I was making a full-time income basically writing for all these various products and services, and around that time I started realizing that the online market is growing even more, and so I decided to kind of venture off and leave the brick and mortar businesses aside for a little bit and focus more on the digital entrepreneur landscape and looking at the people who are really starting to take off with their digital products and we're talking this is probably around 2016, 2017. And I started attracting a lot of personal brands that were in the process of establishing themselves as authorities online and, of course, that's not the language we used back then, but people who wanted to establish a presence and attract a more sophisticated audience with their online presence, and they simply needed someone to help take their expertise and craft it in different messages and help them build that presence with their social media content in a way that attracts more and more qualified buyers into their world. And so I started working with um once again other kind of celebrity-ish figures within the health space uh, people who wanted to write books, and I started ghost writing for them and basically took on the entire uh project of writing the book, editing the book, launching the book, coming up with a side course that went along with the book for many of these figures. And from there I started realizing that my gift is not just in being able to convey other people's ideas in words, but very much more about being able to help craft concepts and ideas where people can establish a presence, and people can establish a brand that is recognized and is known for its way of thinking, and so around this time I started feeling very resistant to taking on copywriting projects, and anyone who knows me now knows I have a very strong stance on this. And it's a little bit controversial, even in the copywriting world, where I really do believe that, as much as I think words are important and being able to convey meaningful content and being able to get your ideas out there is important through copywriting, I really now know, and I've come to believe, that as a thought leader or as a person in a space where you want to develop a brand and get your ideas out there, you need to learn the mechanism behind messaging and not to just delegate that part to somebody else to do for you. And so much of my own development and growth went from being the person who was the voice behind a lot of these brands to then recognizing that my gift is actually helping these brands hone and recognize what their true message is and how do they convey that in a way themselves that makes them feel more powerful, that makes them feel more in control.
Speaker 1:One of the stories I use is I remember I was on a vacation, on a trip with my boyfriend at the time in Greece and I had worked really, really hard like 40 to 50 hour weeks on different copywriting projects up until that point, and I had just requested three weeks off no email writing, no sales page writing, no newsletters, no products or launches or anything like that. And I remember one of my clients emailed me once at like six in the morning in a panic, being like I just got asked to deliver a speech in a couple of days and I have no idea what to say. I don't know how to craft my intro. I don't know how to craft my. You know the talk, and I remember at the time as much as I knew I could help this person. I was more disappointed in the fact that, although this person is such an authority in their field and knows their expertise so well, they were really stumbling and really struggling with how do I craft a talk, how do I get there and talk about my expertise? Simply because this person had always delegated their expertise to a copywriter or someone like me to write for them.
Speaker 1:And so it really became evident for me that my zone of genius is not just being the person who translates the words for you, but someone who helps craft the ideas and helps you actually understand the importance of articulating the value that you have.
Speaker 1:And so, from then on, I decided to make this massive pivot from going away from the copywriting world and being the voice behind the scenes for you to then establishing my own messaging and positioning and personal branding brand in helping thought leaders actually get really grounded and solid in what their expertise is.
Speaker 1:What is the unique stance they take in their industry, how to actually craft a personal brand that not only brings in a lot of demand and people into your world but actually stands for something into your world, but actually stands for something. And now I'm fully focused on helping people articulate the value of their offers, articulate the value of their expertise in a way that feels like them, not in a way that they've been told to do, or deploying these copywriting or somewhat manipulative tactics to instill scarcity or urgency in their people, but instead, how do you do this from a very authentic, ethical way, to get your ideas out there, to fulfill a gap, to be able to sell your offers with more ease and attract more aligned people into your world, without having to rely on somebody else to do the marketing for you. So that's a bit of the more long-winded backstory of how I got into what I'm doing right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Thank you so much for sharing that. Do you think that anyone can write for their self Like? Do you think there is just a skill that anyone can learn, and no matter which business they are in or how talented they are or not talented in writing? Can they learn it and do it for themselves, or should they do it for themselves?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good question. I genuinely believe that writing is a skill that everyone should put the effort into mastering and although many people will say that writing is not a skill that they were just naturally born with, or they're more visual or more abstract thinkers and they require someone to take those abstract ideas and put it into context, and I used to believe that a lot too. And I just said, you know, some people are just not naturally born writers, like you know, delegated to the people who are naturally good at it. And as I've evolved and matured through my own journey, the more I've realized that I don't necessarily agree with that line of thinking anymore, simply because I think that good writing is clear thinking. And the more we get into this practice of being able to articulate our thoughts in a very cohesive, structured way, the more we realize that there's more expertise in us that we can get out there.
Speaker 1:And for those of us who have trouble I would even argue articulating our thoughts or putting things onto paper or putting things into words, that typically is a sign that you yourself aren't fully clear on the idea that you're trying to convey, because the moment you try to put it into words, if you're stumbling or if you're having a hard time understanding how to convey it in the most effective way, yeah, that's a sign that the thinking behind it isn't clear or that the conviction behind the idea isn't there. So I do believe that everyone has, or should especially if you're a brand not if you're just working a regular job, but if you are someone who has ideas or a concept or a framework, something that you want to offer to the world, or if you have a business or a product or a solution I think it's imperative for you to learn how to articulate at least what you're doing in the terms of how other people can understand what it is that you do and how it can be relevant to them.
Speaker 2:What are your thoughts on AI? Because that's something that you know all digital marketers, entrepreneurs, are harnessing and using chat, GPT, chat, GPT and everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, there's a lot of thoughts that I have about AI, and I think there's two kind of schools of thought or two lenses to look at it, and the first one is the most easy, which everyone talks about. You know, leveraging AI to get your time back, and getting your time back through using AI to be able to duplicate, or, you know, exponentially be able to create more content than what us as humans are able to create. And my argument against that a little bit is that if we start thinking of our content creation or of our ideas as just commodities or things that just need to be pumped out religiously, then we start to lose that spark, that creativity, that human edge, and the essence of the message gets diluted because it simply becomes about more, more, more. How do we get louder, how do we get more frequent? How do we get more consistent, rather than actually putting effort and energy and intention behind every single piece that we craft? And it doesn't matter whether it's a social media post, whether it's a sales page we create, whether it's an email that we put out there. The human touch is what makes messaging powerful. Whether it's an email that we put out there, the human touch is what makes messaging powerful, and so by delegating that to a robot or to a machine to do for us, yes, it can be more efficient in the short term and the long term, because we're creating more in less time. But efficiency is not always by the volume, but it's also with the value that is being put out there. So that's my first one.
Speaker 1:The second argument, which is a little bit more philosophical and many people have disagreed with it, is that I genuinely believe that if we are consistently delegating our creative process to somebody else or something else to do for us, we lose the ability to think deeply. And it's almost like back when we were in school and our teachers would say you want to do mental calculations when you're doing addition, subtraction, multiplication, because if we don't, you know, the calculator is not always going to be around. So you want to learn how to do that for yourself, think more profoundly about your ideas, or to be able to take an idea and craft it into words. That uses a mental muscle that we humans uniquely have. And to only delegate that to a machine to do for us, once again, we're losing that ability to think more deeply, to think more creatively, and we're becoming overly reliant on something else or somebody else to do that thinking and that creation for us.
Speaker 1:So, all that to say, how do I think AI can be used? I think it could be used to amplify certain ideas. It can be used to take ideas and concepts that you have already created and think about newer ways to present them. It could be used for overcoming certain blocks in creativity and wanting to see different perspectives that you perhaps haven't thought about. But the con with that is that we want to keep in mind that AI only pulls from information that already exists in the world, and many people that I work with or who are attracted to my work are trailblazers in the industry that are introducing disruptive concepts that don't exist, and that requires human intention, that requires human creativity. We can't just put that into an AI machine and expect AI to be able to come up with new and unique ideas for us. So that's kind of my take on the current AI debate that exists.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks so much for sharing that. I think I want to go back to um, because we had this conversation, I think, over chat and um. It was something like hey, I, I feel like I need to dumb down my messaging because it's too abstract and you were just saying how you know, sometimes those messages and the ideals can be a bit of a tail breeze, tailblazer ideas, in a sense that you know it's new. What is your stance on dumbing down messaging or it being too abstract to a creative, a creator?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's two ways to look at this one as well, which is, I do believe, as someone who works on people's messaging and positioning, and especially as a copywriter, we know that we want to make sure that our message is digestible. So if something is way too abstract, where it's not relevant, there's no context given, it's not clear what the real message behind it is, we definitely want to add relevance, tangibility, specificity, so that the person consuming it can understand how it resonates with their current situation. But that's a separate argument to dumbing the message down, because I think, with a lot of people who have, you know, more developed ideas or have new ideas that they're bringing to the marketplace, they're constantly told that if it's too different, or if it's too new, or if it's not within the realm of what's already accepted, that it's going to go over people's heads, and so we want to dumb it down and make it popular, make it stand out in its own way, but make sure that people understand how you know, how it's relevant to them. Or even within the messaging marketing world, we're always told you know, you want to write at a fifth grade or at an eighth grade level so that everybody can understand it, and that's the line of thinking that I disagree with.
Speaker 1:I think that the message, the essence behind it, the energy behind it and the level of sophistication behind it attracts the type of person that you want to have in your world, or attracts the type of client that you want to work with. And so if I'm consistently dumbing my message down so that it pertains to everyone or that it's easily digestible and easily understood by everyone, I'm also only going to be attracting people who only resonate with that frequency of messaging, and that's not necessarily what I would like to do. I am targeting the trailblazers. I am targeting people who have very unique ideologies and concepts that they want to bring into their space, and they know that it's very rarely talked about or barely even touched upon, and so they're coming to me so that they can understand how do I position this idea, how do I position this offer in a way that people understand. But in doing that, if we dumb their message down too much to make it conventional, it loses that essence of being unique and being new and um, I want to kind of go back to.
Speaker 2:We had a vip day in london and I think what I you were teaching a lot of things with emily and one of the things that I want you to kind of to.
Speaker 2:If you can explain that to the listeners, and I'm not sure if you spoke about that before, but I'm so you know, I'm interested if you could share that with with us is it's basically like a foolproof way to write your messaging, and that is really you know how you structure your messages, which is your core messaging, your peripheral messaging. Can you share that with the listeners too, so that they can never feel like they're making a mistake when it comes to your messaging, so that they can never feel like they're making a mistake when?
Speaker 1:it comes to your messaging. Yeah, absolutely so. This is a concept I only developed, I would say, probably in the last year and a half, and it started from a place of observing how frustrated many of the personal brands are that I work with, who've always been told by people in the marketing space that you can only be known for one thing and you can only have one message, one way of talking about it and in your presence. You can only be known for one thing and you can only have one message, one way of talking about it, and in your presence. You need to have these clear cut content pillars and you can't veer away from these content pillars. And, typically speaking, especially in the marketing and sales space, a lot of our message revolves around the offer or revolves around what it is that we do, and so the problem that I was observing in the last year and a half or so was a lot of creators coming out of the woodwork, or a lot of creators developing very unique things in the world, but then only feeling like their presence needs to be consistently convincing their audience of why their product or solution is the best thing ever, and the frustration of many of my clients was. Well, I have a lot of other things I want to talk about. I have a lot of opinions and perspectives, and I have a lot of very hot takes on things, or there's parts about me and my life that I want to share, but I'm consistently told by you know, the marketing gurus that if I do that, I'm going to lose credibility or that people are going to get confused about what it is that I do.
Speaker 1:And so this concept that I created is what I call the messaging ecosystem, where, instead of looking at your message or your solution as just one siloed thing that you do, I want you to look at it as an ecosystem that comprises of three core pillars. So the first one is your core message, and your core message is what people come to you to solve. So, when someone comes to you as a copywriter, it's because they're lacking the words, they're lacking the understanding of how to craft the words or how to articulate their value in a way that makes sense and that converts. That is the problem that is being solved. So, with your core message, the question that you want to be asking yourself is what is the gap that I'm solving? What is the need in the marketplace that I have a solution for what is the actual thing, the tangible thing that I do for people that gets them results. That is the core message and, again, unfortunately, way too many people focus on just the core message being their core thing, whereas now there's these two other pillars that I've added to the equation as well.
Speaker 1:The second is your adjacent message, and, in my experience, and even looking at consumer psychology and the research coming out about why people make decisions in today's landscape, I would argue that your adjacent message is probably even more important than your core message, meaning people don't always buy what it is that you do, but they buy how you do it, and so your adjacent message is your approach, your philosophy and your take on how you solve the problem. So, for example, you can go to two different sales coaches and one person might have a method or a blueprint where you're posting consistently, you're doing live launch events, you're consistently online, and they have a very loud method of selling your services versus somebody else who perhaps, maybe resembles my methods a little bit. More is a bit more on the quiet side is a bit more on. You know, let's demonstrate your expertise, let's play the long game. You don't necessarily need to go live every day, you don't need to do live launches, but I have a different approach and a different methodology to help you get to your goal. And so people aren't making decisions just based on the end result of what you get them. They're making decisions based on your mechanism, your approach and how you solve the problem.
Speaker 1:And what's really important with the adjacent message is that you're really allowing your values to be on display. You want people to make ethical decisions about whether they coincide or whether they see eye to eye with your values, who you are as a person, what your perspectives and opinions are, and so it can be very controversial, but, just as any good marketing is, you're meant to repel people as much as you're meant to attract. So your adjacent message I just want you to think of it as your perspectives, your ideologies, your approach on how you solve the problem that you solve. And then, very lastly, is what I call your peripheral message. And with your peripheral message, the resistance that comes up with it is that when I describe it, people think that it seems a little bit influencer-ish. It seems a little bit like it's me focused.
Speaker 1:But here's why your peripheral message is important, the way that I define your peripheral message is that it's all of the things that make you you. That perhaps has nothing to do with what you do for work or what your opinions and perspectives are on your approach or on the industry, but it's all the things that make people feel like, oh, we have something in common. So, for myself, I like to go on very long walks and I always document my nature walks and it's become a very big thing and a part of a part of my presence where people know that I enjoy my daily 90 minute nature walk, because it's become a very big thing and a part of my presence where people know that I enjoy my daily 90-minute nature walk because it's my time to think, it's my time to ideate and, although that has nothing to do with what I actually do for people, many people are attracted to my way of living and the way that I live through my lifestyle. Maybe it's your passions, your hobbies, your things that you do outside of your work, but as a personal brand, I think it's imperative in being able to display your authenticity and being able to display what are the things that make you you. So, once again, it doesn't mean that your peripheral message is just, you know, always showing your food or your travels, or your husband or you know.
Speaker 1:It's not necessarily taking that influencer, flashy lifestyle, but it's demonstrating what are the parts of you that make you you For you.
Speaker 1:For example, you have your pole dancing, which has become a really big part of your life, and that is something that has nothing to do with what you do for work, but it's a great way for someone to look at your brand and be like that's something I would like to get into as well.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's something that they want to initiate a conversation with you about. And right there you're establishing a relationship or a connection. So the intention of your peripheral brand is to establish familiarity, is to humanize the brand a little bit so that people are not just looking at okay, this is what Parmese does, this is what Domi does, but now looking at the full scope of who is this person, what do they value, what do they spend their time doing, what areas are we familiar in? And so once you start looking at your messaging from these three pillars, you realize and you recognize you have so much more freedom to talk about the things that everybody tells you you shouldn't be talking about or that's distracting from your message, and you have so much more flexibility to be more you and still inspire and create demand within your audience without needing to constantly be talking about your offer or what it is that you do.
Speaker 2:So basically, what you're saying is that the peripheral message is meant to humanize people. Right it's to. I'm a human, I'm not just a robot, I'm just working all the time. So that is a very attractive threat to see.
Speaker 1:That's right, because, if we think about what actually establishes that connection with a personal brand, yes, they have to trust you and, yes, they have to see that you have a relevant solution to a problem that they're looking to solve, but there's also an element of intimacy that needs to be created and, with many creators who are consistently just pitching their offers or constantly talking about the problem that they solve, although they might be amazing at what it is that they do, the thing that is missing, or the element that is missing in getting people involved with them, is that intimacy factor. Is that familiarity is feeling like oh, I really enjoy what this person does with their free time. I really love that this person is as into as fitness as I am, or is into the keto diet or travels to destinations. I would love to go to it's adding that human touch so that we can breed familiarity and for someone to feel comfortable with our presence, not just see us as a walking, talking, solution or pitch.
Speaker 2:Do you think there are areas that we should not be sharing? Because when you brought up pole dance, I'm thinking maybe that that should be something I should completely stop sharing with people, because every time I do I get some creepy messages and I don't want people to think that I'm like a whore or something. You know. I just like um, so like we can talk about religious. You know beliefs and you know those are also peripheral. I think um, what do you think is like a no go zone or or that it's maybe too much, or you know yeah, what?
Speaker 1:how can we think about? Yeah, this is a great question and a lot of resistance that comes up, like I said, with the peripheral message. As many of my clients say, well, I'm a very private person. I don't necessarily want to share you know details about my intimate life or details about what I do with my free time, and that's totally fine. The intention again behind the peripheral message is sharing things that you feel comfortable sharing, that make you you.
Speaker 1:The example that I always use is that I'm very heavily tattooed and if you were to look at my presence online, you never would be able to tell that's not really something that I think is relevant to my brand. And although I know maybe there's plenty of people in my community who are, like, really heavy into tattoos or people would be like that's so cool, I have no idea that you were so heavily tattooed, like that's awesome. I like you even more now. That might be a thing, but personally I just know that my imagery or what I create on my body was something that I created for myself. It's not necessarily really relevant for my audience to know. Know. So the question you really want to ask yourself is is this something that I feel comfortable bringing to an audience, that displays my values, that displays my personality, that displays who I am and is something that I'm comfortable overtly sharing with people who I want to establish a relationship with. Or is it just something you know private, that I want to do on my own?
Speaker 1:Because the fine line here as well is that I do see many people in the space sharing intimate details that actually kind of backfires and there's a way to be able to share your peripheral message in a way that's grounded, in a way where you're displaying your personality without turning certain people off.
Speaker 1:You know, I've seen creators talk about their very intimate sex lives. I've seen creators talk about their kinks. I've seen creators talk about things that, again, maybe that attracts the type of person that they want to work with. But there's also some beauty in mystery. There's some beauty in not having every single intimate detail about someone. So if you're talking about your hobbies, your passions, how you'd like to spend your time on weekends or your Bible study group or whatever, that might look like and that feels like it's an integral part of who you are and it will attract the type of person who also will resonate with that. That's something you want to share, but if it has no relevance to it like you know what I do in the bedroom or what my tattoo on my back looks like, that doesn't seem like it's a really relevant information to get someone really on board with with me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, makes perfect sense to me, and I mean about the Kings, if we are talking about that, if you are this, like you know sex coach or something like you know they have, in that case that would be like a perfect thing to share, right? What are your plans? But as far as your business goes, like, where do you see yourself? Do you have any kind of predictions, sort of where you're headed? Are you happy with where you are Like? Where are you going?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I made. I wrote something out about a week ago that talked about how I don't have any intentions of growing my business. That, once again, it's another one of those things that I've said that wreaks havoc amongst the marketers of the world, because I've been consistently told that I'm small minded, I need to work on my money mindset, and what I offer is so powerful, and how dare I not want to get it into the hands of thousands and thousands of people? And going back to again, your energy attracts what it is that you want to do and even what you asked about. You know. Dumbing down your message is that I don't have a desire to reach thousands and I don't have a desire to reach the masses.
Speaker 1:With the work I do, I take a lot of pride in being able to take one or two individuals and really go deep in helping them develop their frameworks, develop their concepts, being able to hone what their zone of genius is and how to best present it in a way that resonates with where they're at and what they want to become known for. And so the way I work with clients right now has evolved greatly, even just in the last couple of years, as to I went from being the messaging person that people came to so that they can get my eyes and my brain on their copy, on their funnels and looking at you know what are the gaps and what are the things that are not converting, what are the things that they need to improve To. Now people come to me because they say I am a creative, I have mastered my field, or I'm in the process of mastering my field and I'm recognizing that I'm developing a solution that does not exist in the marketplace. And so how do I bring this to the marketplace in a way that doesn't confuse people, or how do I establish myself as that authority in this domain so people come to me ready to buy, or people can genuinely see the value that I have? And so I've kind of shifted even away from saying that all I do is messaging, and it's really creative mentorship and the program that I have right now, which is set up in a way that is unscalable, you know, and I say that with pride.
Speaker 1:Unscalable because I take on a handful of individuals and really help them develop what are the concepts that they want to become known for, how do they position themselves? How do they start thinking about their content, how do they start thinking about you know the problem that they solve and who the ideal person is that they want to reach. And yes, of course there's many marketing and strategic. You know branding and positioning and copywriting tactics that I still teach within that.
Speaker 1:But much of my work has evolved now into taking aspiring thought leaders or people who want to establish, you know, movement-based brands and how do I help them convey their ideas in the most practical, digestible ways. So that's kind of where I'm at right now and I'm perfectly fine with the way that things are at. I'm consistently developing my own frameworks and coming up with new resources and new solutions for my clients and as long as I have the freedom and the flexibility to do that at my own pace, without the pressure of needing to scale and needing to sell and needing to have more people in my world and all of that, I'm pretty good with where things are at, I think my next step would be writing a book.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, please. I don't know when that's coming out, but I would love to read that. Has this always been the case, by the way, that you just wanted to kind of maintain your, you know, just making yourself happy and comfortable in a way? Or you used to have aspirations of becoming a bigger brand or world domination?
Speaker 1:No, so I mean, even just going back to the beginning of this conversation, I started my business because I just simply wanted to have the freedom to focus on school and not have a boss tell me what to do and when to come into work and and all of that.
Speaker 1:And I think for a short while in my early 20s I did get caught up with the you know what if I'm thinking too small?
Speaker 1:What if I in a lack mindset or thinking small and I need to overcome these money blocks and I need to overcome my fears of getting big and my fears of success is when I realized that, whether I'm making 200K a year, 500k a year or 2 million a year, my day-to-day and how I want to spend each and every present moment in that experience is not going to change. And as long as I can maintain a balance or a harmony between me being able to create and show up for my clients in a very sustainable way and also having time to be human behind the scenes, that's all that matters. And so can I create courses that you know gets into the hands of the masses, and can I come up with scalable offers and can I do X Y, z to grow my business right now. I absolutely can, and I've done it for other people, so I know exactly what I would need to do. But currently I don't necessarily see a need for it at all.
Speaker 2:But currently I don't necessarily see a need for it at all. I love that. And just to finish up our episode, what's the status on your current container? Do you accept more people? Is it open? Is it closed? Because I think you said behind the scenes that you want to make it a one-year thing as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah. So when I originally started Neuromessage, which is a three pillar program focused on helping you establish your brand identity, so what it is that you want to become known for, what is your unique idea, your framework, your concept, your story? And getting really clear on that, because I find the majority of the time people will come to me because they want to establish more authority in their presence or they want to have more clear messaging and better content, but they forget that without having that clearly established brand identity, none of the other stuff is going to stick. And so the first pillar we focus on really developing your brand identity. Once we do that, then we finally move into messaging and it gets into all the nitty gritty details of how do you make your message more tangible, relatable, specific, how do you make sure that you're speaking to the desires of your audience, how do you speak to pain points in an ethical way? So it's much more about like the copywriting, from Parmesa's standpoint, and then we get into establishing your presence. So how do you now show up, now that you have a solid brand identity, now that you know how to communicate with your audience? How do you show up with what types of content, on what platforms, with what frequency, in a way that makes you feel good and in a way that also evokes or elicits a desire from your audience to want to come into your world, so that you're not constantly adding calls to action and pitching and launching, but it just naturally attracts people into your world.
Speaker 1:So, because of the complexity of developing all of this and there's a lot more of a bespoke approach with me and each client in that program I originally set out to have it for six months and that was working fine until I realized that the stage where people are coming up with their brand identity is not something that just happens overnight.
Speaker 1:It's actually something that takes some time, some iteration, some experimentation to develop, and I would much prefer people come into my program and not be rushed to have to have all that figure out before they can get their messaging and their presence well.
Speaker 1:So I've decided to actually extend it to currently I've extended it to nine months and I'm thinking to extend it to a whole year and, instead of just seeing this as a messaging program that you come in there and you learn how to upgrade your content or increase your conversions, it's more of a thought leadership or a creative mentorship that allows you the time and the space and the support to develop your ideas, to get more grounded in your authority, to really understand what makes you different in the space. So that's kind of the trajectory of that and because of the level of intimacy in the group, I do keep it limited to a certain amount, so I had closed it off all winter because we were pretty much at max capacity. I will be opening up for enrollments in May and once again there's only maybe spots for a few more people to come into this world because I do want to maintain the integrity of being able to have that one-on-one interaction with every person in the program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that, and I know that you're very diligent in selecting the type of entrepreneurs that you want to work with.
Speaker 1:Can you?
Speaker 2:just walk me through, like who are those people that are, you know, perfect fit for the program.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amazing. So there's a couple of criteria that I have, and my criteria has very little to do with demographics or you know what level you're at in your business. How much are you earning? Like I don't really care to look at that. What I'm looking at first is do you have a validated area of expertise that you feel good in? Because many people who are looking to just simply scale their programs or build their programs or market themselves are forgetting completely that, before you do all of that, you need to have a validated offer, you need to have a validated solution, or you need to at least have a good grasp of what is the problem that people are willing to pay to solve. And so the first thing I look at is do you actually have expertise or mastery of the domain and do you have a validated solution that you know people are looking for and are willing to pay to solve?
Speaker 1:The second thing that I look at is that you really need to come into this mentorship from not a transactional standpoint of now I need to create more content to get clients, or I need to learn how to fix my messaging so that I can get more clients and instead, like I said, it's much more of a creative developmental space to help you think better about the problem that you solve or think more differently about how you show up in the online space.
Speaker 1:So if you're coming into the program just looking for you know how long until I make my investment back, or you know how long before I can sign my first 10 clients, that's not the mentality that really kind of works with this. And very lastly is that we need to be able to conversate and have fun Meaning if you come into the program and, knock on wood, I've never had this happen but if you come into the program and you're very resistant to my ways of showing up, or if we just don't have the same values, or if we just don't share the same ideologies about the marketing space, then there's very little of the strategic things that will actually stick with you. Because, again, that level of intimacy, that level of familiarity and the alignment of values for me is really important.
Speaker 2:Love that. Well. Thank you so much, parmese, for your time and just sharing all your wisdom. Wow, there's so many just nuggets there that you just shared with us. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me. This was great.