Brand Personalities with Jill Felty

I feel, after that conversation about, like, how I helped you get here, I feel like I have helped in some sort of way, create this podcast. I'm very proud. You're welcome. I won't take credit for it, but

Welcome to the Marketing Team in One podcast, where we have conversations about the issues one person marketing teams face when trying to meet their goals with limited time and budgets. We got Jill Felty here and, um, Jill, could you introduce yourself and tell us what you do and what you're all about? I am a.

It's copywriter and story brand certified guide. I write personality based copy that makes customers choose you. I've, I've been really excited to talk to you because especially here on the podcast, I've talked to you many times outside of that, but like, I, I think you're, you're really good when you talked about that brand personality thing.

I think that, um, I think you have a lot to say and a lot to help out, um, a lot of ways to help out. people in our audience, you know, who are really trying to do it all themselves and want to have, want to inject some personality into their brand, but might not know how or might, um, might struggle with it a little bit.

So, uh, I'm excited to talk through some of that and things. I mean, uh, I'd love to know from you, like, starting out, like, what, what, what drew you to copywriting? What, is there something that really kind of, like, a formative moment? There's, there's always those kids who like, oh, I'm going to write a book or whatever.

And there was all, that was always the back of my mind, um, a little bit of writing a book. At one point, I really wanted to direct film and go to film school and that didn't happen. Um, but like, there's all these really big ideas of like, okay, The common thread here is story. Mm hmm. So, uh, I got a job at a nationwide non profit, um, kind of worked there for a while, and in that time, wrote a lot of fundraising copy.

Okay. Um, and that was where I really, like, started liking it. Like, this is really fun. Um, specifically, I'd write these, these, uh, newsletter type things to our monthly donors who would mail in checks. And there's like all of these kind of generally older audience who would mail in checks. Yeah. You know, this is like 2000, gosh, 15, 16.

So, oh my God. So a lot of the world had moved on from checks at this point. That's all I'm saying is like, people aren't really mailing in check, but. Uh, we would, and so along with that, we'd have this like note from the CEO and that was me writing it, which I thought as a new college graduate, I wasn't even graduated at that point.

Actually, I was a junior in college working at this nonprofit writing as the CEO. I'm, you know, 20 something years old. And I'm like, I'm writing as this old white man who is You know, I don't even talk to the guy. I never interviewed him. Like I would. Unbelievable. Really? I would never. No, I would just make something up.

Would it go back to the CEO to like read and review or anything? Or, uh, wow. And this is like a big nonprofit too. Like someone should have been reading. If we're being totally honest. I mean, I did have my direct like supervisor who was reading them and And saying like, yeah, you know, and he's, you know, fine.

He probably knows enough. He, I'm sure he talked to the CEO, I hope, but I was writing these from scratch and now that I look back and now that we're talking about it, I think how funny that is that, like, I'm writing these, they're super short. How many people actually read them? Probably very few. And. It's, you know, the older generation who would totally believe it.

That this CEO was, you know, writing these heartfelt letters. Asking for a monthly donation, and that was really where I got my start in like, just kind of storytelling. And it's so silly and so little, but Um, yeah, now that I look back, I'm like, well, that is really weird. It's almost like you had to almost, uh, instinctually try and capture the voice of that CEO and write as that, like right, right out of the gate.

And absolutely knowing nothing, um, I'll say it was a radio station. So every once in a while, the CEO would talk on the radio. Um, and so that, but that was the only real interaction that I had with him was, um, uh, That's what I would hear him say on the radio. Wow. Um, and so, I think, um, the voice was just so generic, it was probably, if I read them now, I'd probably be so mortified that I wrote these things, but, like, it was just kind of like pie in the sky, like, oh, thanks for your donation, and the seasons, it was always the seasons, the seasons are changing!

Oh, nice, nice, okay, so you had, you had some little things you could pull from, and, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, but, um, that was really where I started. And then at some point I was just kind of like, I'm kind of done writing these monthly letters. Um, I had written, uh, a few, um, fundraising, like our bigger fundraising, uh, letters and we would, we would raise, you know, 25, 000 like big things.

And I was like, wow, I, you know, I could really be doing something. different. Doing something more, making a bigger impact. And yeah, this thing is really cool that I'm doing right now, but I think my time here is up. I decided that if I could, if I can make this big of a difference in a non profit, a big non profit, if I could take that same, you know, not the same scale, but the same skills and the same intention that I had writing all of these other things that would raise a lot of money.

Like what if I could take that and apply it to a small business? Kind of spreading it wider, right? And so it's a real, real big depth with the one nonprofit that you could kind of sprinkle it out and go wider with people, right? Yeah. At the time when I left, I thought, Oh, this is going to be social media.

I'm going to do this in social media. Yeah. And so. When I started my business, it was all about social media, social media management. And then, you know, a year later after my business has been running for a while, I realized I hate social media. I hate managing it. None of the clients are wanting to pay for someone to manage it.

Everybody is. Bringing in their cousin's son. The nephew. The nephews. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. To manage it for them. Yeah, maybe that was me not, you know, providing enough value to them. But, but either way, it was not for me. It's so, it's so hard because I, I think we could start our own anti social fan club.

Antisocial social media fan club. Yeah. Yeah. Like, um, I think it's probably really hard. Right. And you saw it firsthand, right? You're, you're mostly working with small businesses, right? That in there, they're like, I think it was a conversation we had had before where there's to, to intimately know what, It's going on in that business.

Yeah. And to have it, it, it's, it takes a lot. Yes. And so like the, it just, the economics don't work out. Right. Like you, the, you being the copywriter need to get a certain amount of, to make it worth your time. And you have to hope that that is, it's worth that much to Mm-Hmm. the business owner. Yeah. To pay that.

Right. Yeah. Like in its purest form, do you like social media or is it the doing social media for others that. I love the idea of doing social media. Yeah. The idea, right? So if you go on to Feltico's Instagram, you will see that we have not posted in months. Yeah. And one, I am my own marketing team of one.

Yep. I don't have the time. I also have a, uh, a child under one. And so obviously that. Has not been a priority in this last year. Yeah I've gotten a lot of inspiration for oh, that would be a good post or this or that I just haven't had the time. Yeah, and so that's answering part of your question. Yeah, I love the idea of it The idea of doing it But, um, doing it for other people too, on top of that, was there was, um, I did not build the systems within my business to get the information that I needed in a timely manner, and this is like kind of on me, but from the organization.

Also, The organizations that were my clients that were attracted to doing business with me and me with them, um, they were not set up. They were not prepared to hire someone to outsource it. One, they didn't have the money to, to outsource it to someone who really knew what they were doing because I was not charging that much.

Um, but they also didn't, they didn't really know what that entailed. Yeah. Um, one specifically was an e commerce brand who was making good money doing this. They should have had the systems in place. I like using the word could in a lot of those instances. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they could have, but they just decided not to, they, they're something else.

Yeah, they, they, I mean, they, they could have. But, um, I think they had a marketing team of one. Yeah. Um, who that was not a priority. They were running so many promotions and this is when I decided no more e commerce. This is not my thing. They had, they were constantly running new promotions, constantly running new, like, things that, and launching new products and, and new versions of different products.

That their marketing team of one, like, only had so much capacity. And so, while photo shoots and, um, designing graphics and all of these things were, could have been a priority and really should have been a priority for an e commerce brand. They didn't have new photo shoots regularly. They didn't have new content.

And so I was constantly trying to reuse content. There's so many ways you can. Yeah, do that, right? Yeah, so pulling from this photo from the the the bank of photos that they had So this is just one example of like they just weren't set up. They didn't have the systems and I didn't have the systems Set up to, to, to help them understand what they needed.

Um, and after they were like, Hey, we're bringing this in house. I was like, great. Please, please take it in house. Yes, this is, you know, half of my income right now, but I need, I need a change. Yeah. And so that was ultimately to come back to your original question. Yeah. That was ultimately when I was like, okay, I am, I have this story brand certification.

Jen. I'm going to build this playground and not a prison in my business, and what am I really good at is writing. Going back to just writing, because the captions, they're fun, they're fine, but There's so much more that I could be writing. And I just felt like my potential was just untapped and I'm not a project manager.

I'm not a social media manager. This does not come naturally to me where I thought it really did before. So I changed. And so, so now it's, uh, I mean, is it mostly writing content for websites, blogs, websites, and, and such? Most of my clients come for website wireframe copywriting. Um, those are, those are the biggest projects that we have.

Uh, and then just below that is brain messaging. They, they don't know what it is and then they learn what it is and they know that they immediately need it. It's such a funny thing. It's not something that. Most people aren't gonna, when they need it, well, one, they don't know they need it. Yeah. To their they're not gonna Google it like how like it's a weird thing to try and sell.

Yeah, it's I did want to look back because you mentioned being a story brand certified guide and we've mentioned Story brand and a couple other episodes, but I think I don't think we've ever really covered some of the what it's about and everything I think you'd be great to hear from you. Like what is story around?

How does that help with that? How does that help them? big and enigmatic thing that's out there. Yeah. Yeah. StoryBrand is that seven part story framework for, uh, for marketing. So ultimately you're taking your, your overall message and you're putting it into the perspective of, a story framework. So your customer who's the hero of the story has a problem.

Then they meet a guide or your business. Uh, that guide has a plan, gives them a plan, calls them to action. And that ends in success or failure. So what's at stake in the story. If any of those pieces don't exist, uh, you kind of miss the whole story in and of itself. When you invite your customer into a story, it becomes really engaging.

People are more likely to listen because if you just talk about your business, well, why should somebody care? Um, when we put your customer as the hero of this, this story, um, you're essentially telling them that. It matters. Because you're important. So when we frame it by saying, you know, customer first and using a customer first mentality, you can communicate a lot more and, and why your business matters outside of just, Hey, we sell heating and air.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I've, I want, the more I think about the story around framework and everything, I think one of the most ingenious parts of it is, and it's very right there in the very beginning is that businesses. For a long time, if they just talk about, Hey, look at how great we are and everything, that's, that's a very common thing that a lot of, you know, people build their brand about.

It was like, Hey, how awesome we are. Right? The, the big trick with StoryBrand is like that. Is this like, no, if you're talking about yourself the whole time, no, one's going to want to listen. Right? So like, if you can switch it, so you're putting Putting the focus on somebody else. Yes. And in this case the customer it's gonna There's a lot of other things that come from that.

So it's like that first switch really helps unlock a lot of other Messaging details. I'm laughing because You to say like oh talk about how great we are When in business it blows my mind that businesses are still doing that. So yeah, there is a radio commercial And I don't know if you've heard it, right?

A local radio commercial. Um, and I don't listen to the radio all that often, but every once in a while I'm in the car and this commercial comes on, and it grates on my nerves because it is doing just that. It is positioning this company as heroes in history. Oh gosh. Okay. So they're comparing their company to Um, to Abraham Lincoln, to, uh, I think I've heard this.

I couldn't, it's, it's scratching something in the back of my mind here. Like, I think I've heard it and it is so bad. Yeah, and it grates on my nerves and it makes me laugh every time because it's like, I think that you're trying to make your customer the hero. I think, but I don't know. Yeah, but this is really bad.

It is a textbook example of what not to do, right? Of what not to do in my opinion. I mean, maybe some other professional marketers out there would be like, no, this is really good. And maybe it sparks some sort of like inspiration in their customer and maybe they found that research, but I would venture to say that they have not done that much research.

They just love this. They love doing it. It does. It kind of reeks of the CEO having some inspiration. Big grand epiphany one like yes, and that nope. I want this. This is what needs to happen. Yeah, not Listening to a marketing book like any recent marketing book. It doesn't have to be like they all Everything is predicated about meeting your customer where they're at.

Yes. Yes It absolutely reeks of the CEO having a grand idea interesting I wanted to talk about like brand personality and like tricks that that you've kind of learned over the years. Like in, um, you know, we worked with you on our, on our website for page design, and I think you had some great tips. fun questions that you asked us up front and everything too.

But like, I w I'd love to know what you think about how you think about personality when it comes to copy and how you interject that into, into your work. I want to preface this answer by saying that I have learned really valuable lessons about personality and copywriting in general from really wonderful copywriters that I've worked with and for.

Um, Obviously, these aren't new things that, that are out there. Anybody can kind of find these things, but I wouldn't have the, the ability that I have today without Jesse Congleton, Katie Lantik and Angie Schultz. They're wonderful. And so a lot of these things that I'll talk about, I've learned directly from them.

That's great. Yeah. Um, I mean, everybody's short standing on the shoulders of giants. And so I definitely don't want to stand here and be like, I came up with these things. This is my, my idea, my idea alone of how to do this. Yeah. So, but those are the three wonderful copywriters that I constantly like look to for just awesome copy and inspiration.

So, um, so back to your question. starting to add personality. I think the questions that I asked you guys, um, kind of had to do with like, well, who is this person? If page design was a person, who are they? Um, so like not just personality traits that they might have if we put a name to them. Um, but like, If, if you had a, uh, a celebrity spokesperson, who would that person be?

Who would be a really good representative of your brand? Did you have one where like, if you were an actor, which actor would you be? I, for a long time was getting Ryan Reynolds a lot. Oh yeah. Everybody wants, I mean, I, I want to be Ryan Reynolds. And so I had this like really irreverent kind of like, um, just, pocketbook of like a bunch of content that I was like pulling from Anytime I'd saw a new mint mobile ad or a new like Aviation gin ad I would just throw it into a doc.

Okay, and then any any time some you know specifically some car auto detailer in Texas came to me and said, I want to sound like Ryan Reynolds. That's what we did. Um, so, so that is probably the most telling question that I asked. Um, just because there's so, when we, when we apply a brand to like a celebrity, we can, there, there's tons and tons of information on the internet, tons of videos of these celebrities that we can watch and say like, okay, okay.

When you say this, when you say you want to sound like Ryan Reynolds, what does that actually mean? Like, which bits of it, which bits of his schtick do you want to incorporate? And so, sometimes it's, you know, well, I, I don't really, um, love the self deprecation, but I really love the sarcasm. Like, okay, how do we do that?

So, we can go on and we can keep going. Type into YouTube, whatever we're looking for and find thousands of hours of interviews with this one person who you want to, who you want to sound like. And so that's kind of how I've started. Interesting. Um, yeah, so that's, that part's a lot of fun. And then we have like the very like pie in the sky type of thing.

Like if you're, if you had an office, like an ideal office building, what would it look like? What kind of decorations would be in there? Um, So there's the you know questions like that that kind of give some sort of idea into the feel of your copy It's not always necessarily like which words are we gonna say but how do you want to how do you want your customer to feel?

Yeah So those are the the probably my easiest questions to ask totally And then we can get into deeper kind of thoughts about what your brand is and how to develop, um, a voice to it with. Things like core values. What do you care about as a business? What do you deeply care about? What is your business built on that makes you different than, you know, you might have five other competitors and one in Five square miles.

Yeah. Like what, what differentiates you? Yeah. In there. Yeah. And it's, and it's like, Oh, we, you know, sometimes it's, we offer a hundred percent refunds within a hundred days or whatever of service, which is great. And why do you do that? You know, like there has to be some sort of why behind everything. It's like a little kid, like, Oh, but why, why, why, why?

And you really do want to keep digging because there's a core value in that. Um, and ultimately, that core value is going to shape how you say something, what you say. Cause you can say like, we do, you know, we'll give you a full refund within 100 days if, if X, Y, Z. Um, you can say that 100 different ways. If you get down to the Y, then you can be Ultra specific and that's gonna I think really bring out a lot of personality that that other people won't have You're not gonna get a good personality if you're skating across the surface, right?

Yeah, there's so much depth that's required Yes to really unearth that you're you almost have to be a little bit of an archaeologist when you're working with different different clients right because you have to be able to like an archaeologist Or a therapist. A little bit of both, right? Right? Yes. Yes.

There's absolutely a, a, a, a, a tone of some sort of therapy that, that has to happen. Yeah. Because, you know, you're, you're digging into that, like, what is the purpose of this? What why does it matter? Yeah, I'm guessing a lot of these people maybe haven't been challenged in that way, too You're confronting people with new things that they haven't had to think about.

Well, I send that initial questionnaire that I sent you guys And some of which has those questions when they when they type it into questionnaire They're trying to get it done as fast as possible You get it off to me And so when we have our our kickoff call and we're really like trying to mine into that You Like, again, what does it matter?

I think a lot of the times it's like, well, we do it because our competitor does it. Yeah. Because we have to, it's industry standard. Yeah. And it's like, That doesn't give me much to work with. Right. Okay. But why is it important? And are your competitors talking about why it's important? Yeah. Um, Because ultimately why it's important is what's going to set you apart.

If you're communicating why it's important and all your competitors are just saying we do this, like that, that's going to stand apart because you're going to, it's going to make it more relatable to their customers. They're, they're not all customers. There might not be some that relate to that one reason why, but those that do are going to feel a deeper connection.

And they're going to stick with you. Yeah. Because, oh, they, there was transparency there where other places there wasn't. And transparency, it's like, okay, I get, I get, we could have an entire podcast episode of just on transparency in, in today's day and age. Yeah. Um, and the importance of that. Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about the rise of AI and especially as it gets applied to copywriting, I think copywriting has become one of the things that people think like, oh, I, I don't need a copywriter.

AI can write things for me, but I think you're missing out on transparency is one of those things that robots aren't going to give you that transparency and everything. How do you feel about AI? And, and like, is it a tool that you can make use of? I often compare it to like a project management system for people who are like, I don't want to do this.

Or, um, the project management system is going to, is going to give you a tool that will allow you to work better, more efficient. And I think that AI is in that same vein, like it's going to allow you to work more efficient and it may write better than you if you're not a writer. Um, but there isn't, It's, it's not going to produce a worthy product.

And maybe at one point, it will. But, as it stands today, you are going to get the amalgamation of all of the things that it has already been fed. Mm hmm. And so therefore, you are going to get the information that's already readily available out there. Maybe written a little bit differently. Mm hmm. but it's not going to be for your business.

Yeah. It is going to be written fine, maybe, but it's not going to be for your business. Yeah. You hear it all the time. Like, it's only as good as the prompts that you serve it. And yeah, that's true. But then you're also serving it, the things that it will learn from for everyone else. Yeah. I think that the ease of use on there and there's, there's, there's, Literally no barrier to entry to having people just crank out things.

So that's where it's even more important that you can Put your own. Mm-Hmm. Something that's unique to you, right? Mm-Hmm. . And I guess transparency is one of those things that you could add into that, right? Yeah. Like, and a voice and a personality. Mm-Hmm. To it, right? Mm-Hmm. . Those are the, that's the special sauce.

Yeah. So you can't, you can't put like, what are my core values into ai? Like add, these are a, these are a few things that are important to me. I'm gonna put them into AI and get it. I'd love to try that. I want to, I would love to see what it spits out. It is, I would also. Love to see, but we care about our customers.

Um, we do good work. I'm just trying to think of the, you know, the cliches. Yeah, absolutely. And so it's like, okay. Anybody can say that. Like, what does it matter? Again, again, we're coming back to what does it matter? Like, people, it's that old adage, like, oh, people don't know how much, don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

I think that AI, while a really valuable tool, is, is not going to get you something that will really set you apart in the marketplace and will be actually really valuable to you down the road. Yeah. It's going to sound like everybody else. And, and how many times have you gotten, not, have you jumped onto a blog, jumped onto social media and, and, and can see right away, this has been written by AI.

I think so many people are attuned to it. Now, people who spend a lot of their day. online are completely tuned to it. One of my favorite things is to look at Reddit threads and when somebody tries to be helpful by putting that question into AI and then AI answer, like to answer somebody and then the, the thread of comments of all these people going, thanks AI, thanks robot, you know, like they, they're every, there is a, There's a filter that people are getting more and more tuned to.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And, and anything that says, In today's digital world, In today's ever changing society, In today's, like, it's like, Oh my g Can AI not come, come up with anything more creative than in today's ever changing world? You hit a, you hit a gusher here. Um, and that I've, uh, one of our other episodes, we talk about, um, overused buzzwords and phrases and everything.

And that, that one in particular was one that we, we hit on, but I'd love to know, are there others that you, uh, any overused phrases that you see a lot, um, that really kind of, you know, You, you're just over, or, I think that's, that's the biggest one right now because it, it just, I saw it so much just this morning when I was writing as I was like, you know, getting a very crappy first draft from AI for an email that I'm writing for a client.

Um. I saw that the tool that I use spits out three different versions of something. So, um, not ChadGBT, but, um, and in every, in each version of that email written completely differently, there was one phrase of, in today's ever changing market, In today's constantly evolving landscape. It's like, good God.

It's yeah. How, how are we not seeing through this immediately? I also think, I also think like the overuse of adjectives is like crazy. Yeah. We don't need 50 adjectives. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Like what could, yeah. Like brevity is not brevity. is not AI's thing. You're not gonna get down to that soul of it.

And I don't care how many times you put write this in a pithy voice. I think they might have struck the word pithy from the vocabulary there. Like, I don't know if they know what that means or anything like that. Yeah. And that's one thing that like, I'm constantly working on on myself is like, how many words can I cut out of this sentence that I wrote?

Yeah. And brevity and like, I love how Short and sweet. I can write things in as few words as possible. How do we, how do we communicate this idea? And I think that that's really important, but yeah, you can't get that from AI. No, just can't. That reminds me of, you've probably seen that meme where they talk about how all through school that are telling you how to write more, write more, you have to write eight pages and now I've got to figure out how to write this in one sentence, you know, and that it is, it's a huge challenge, like to convey that message and not.

Be overly verbose and lose people, especially when you're talking about marketing copy. Yeah, absolutely. Distill it down. I think that's the hardest thing. Look at Apple's, any of Apple's ads. Yep. Um, I saw one today that had no adjectives at all, just shot on iPhone 17, whatever. Like, that's all it said. And it was the cover of Rolling Stone.

It's like, that's, that's it. That's the ad. Like a thousand percent. It's boiled down to what, how many words, five. I guess you could say they're coasting a little bit too. They've got such a brand recognition and everyone there's, there's no, nothing to overcome in there that they can just, they could say something so simple.

Yeah. But knowing it and not forcing it to go too far beyond. That's where there's true, um, true expertise is in that. Right. And you, but you can see it through all their ads, you know, it's not just the iPhone ads, like any Apple ad, anytime you log onto their website, anytime they've launched a new product, it's four words or less often.

Yeah, like it that's in their head. That's always amazed me and like I Personally, I strive to be able to do that and it that feels well I really hard I remember the ad was light period Ning fast and it's like you're communicating in that statement You're competing weight of the product. Yep, easy to tote around For a college student and it's a super fast, it's not slow.

It's not bogged down with anything. It is exactly what you need. Like it is. And that's such a pure ad. Like it's, it's really, yeah, it's chef's kiss, right? Like the more you look, the more you peel it back and a lot of people might not even notice it, but like the word, like when you look at what. A lot of other people put out there and try and put out there for these things.

It's like, it's yeah, it's expertise. I had, I had a client say like, Oh, I want, I want that. I want Apple. And in my mind I'm like, you have to pay me a lot more money. There's so much, you know, how many, you know how many people are working on that? You know how many iterations of that that they had? I, I, I mean, I want to think that they have some genius that just like, here, here's a big old light bulb and here the things, but these, these things don't just come to people.

It's not a Don Draper moment. No, no. If life was only like that, then, you know, like the, that, You could, that there was a Don Draper at every company that could do that. One thing I want to talk to you about, you've done something on your website that I, that I've, well, as a fan of comedy and like in well done comedies, I think you've done such a, Interesting job of like relating specific shows to different parts of like of brand message and a lot of like story brand stuff.

Just like you talked about Ryan Reynolds earlier. I think he's, he's been an expert in, at humor and marketing and mixing those together. But I think you've done a really fun job with that on your website. I'd love to just hear where it kind of came from. I am so proud of this. Laughter. I love television.

I think that episodic shows are just so fun because they, I mean, they, they take these things and they go on for seasons. It's more than just a couple of hours. Like you're, you're taking this us on the story of, of years and, um, It's just really fun to like do life alongside these characters in a way, which seems so silly in some ways because you're like, they're not real, but you, you become like the office is a prime example.

People mark their, their life with like specific episodes of the office. Um, and there's this choke hold that the office has on. Every, every, every fan. Um, and so, I think that, that I have done a lot of watching of television. Yeah, right. Period. Um. Which is again why we kind of talked about Mad Men. Yep, exactly.

I love Mad Men. I just think the stories are awesome. Awesome stories. But I love The Office. I love just short little sitcom comedies and I love, I love to laugh. And so I was thinking about how do I, how do I communicate the story brand framework in a different way than That's true to me. That would also help people understand what it would be like to work with me.

I'm not a serious person. And while I have very serious. I would like them to know up front that, um, your calls with me are going to be a delight. I think you've checked that off big time in this approach that you put there. Yeah. So, so I thought if I were to do something like this, These TV shows, how would I apply it to the story brand framework?

And so that was kind of like how I came up with these things. And, um, one of the ones that I'm most proud of is what do Jan's problems in the office have to do with your business? Yeah. Can you tease people a little bit about that and make them like what? What would they want to read out? Like if you're going to say, give people a little, so for, for specifically the Jan episode, if you know the office, you know, that Jan talks a lot about her problems.

Um, and so what it has to do with your business is that you should also talk about the, not your problems, but the problems of your customers. Um, and so go read it. And so I'm very proud of it. Like the, the takeaway would be like, find the Jan. Yes. That you're helping in your business. Yeah. And mine, Jan, for all of the, all of the problems that you can.

Yes. And then talk about those problems. Yeah. And talk about how you solve those problems. Right. Offer solutions. That's the number one. Offer the solutions that you have. Yeah. Because if you just talk about the problems, that's annoying. All the time. Nobody, yeah, that's why Jan gets a little, a little, uh, wearing on people, right?

Yep. Yep. Yep. Then we also have, you know, what's at stake in your business. So, I mean, again, you can go through the, the, each blog post, but. Each of them has like a very specific theme that ties to a piece of the storybrand framework I think there's a like a golden age of sitcoms that probably got kicked off by The Office and how Oh, absolutely.

And so I think you've captured almost all of the greatest hits in each one of those blog posts. Thank you Yeah, Superstore definitely is along that same theme But he the writer was on The office or the, the team that, that created the office too. So it's like you really see those, like all of the little fingers that have spread and all the careers that really have been made by, by the office.

Like a small few. Yeah. That, yeah, it is, it's kind of fascinating. It's really, really fun. Really fun and like you find yourself. I don't know maybe you don't but I do I find myself rooting for those people like oh my gosh He created this. I'm gonna go watch it. Go check that out Yeah, because it was really good and I I want this to succeed or I want him to succeed or I want her to succeed So it's that we do in our household find ourselves doing that like oh my gosh, they created something else I could go on and on about comedy because I'm just a huge comedy nerd But I do feel like it's kind of fun Tapered off.

I don't know if there's as much as there used to be there. There certainly isn't One well, okay Apple TV, I think has a couple of really good ones Trying is quite good. Um, it's on Apple TV plus, uh, it's very British humor, very dry. Um, and it's about a couple who can't get pregnant. And so it's their journey to adoption.

Um, but it's, it's Really really funny and for me it was really relatable I found it when I was trying to get pregnant and so it was a very personal and yeah Yeah, like this really funny kind of like self deprecating. I'm gonna cry but I'm also gonna laugh I think Apple TV's done a really good job of like stamping like some at least especially on the more comedic stuff Yes, there's a There's a heart.

There's a, um, there's something there. The Ted Lasso. Yeah. Yeah. The Ted Lasso effect on a think that that's probably the best comedy that's been out there in a while. And I feel like I, I, yeah, absolutely. Which again, I've also referenced in my blog series. Go check it out. Yeah. Back to the personality thing.

I think that was, that was such a good question. You should be proud of what you did there because I think it it totally accomplished exactly what you were looking to do Yeah, right like get some of your personality out there and what better way to do that than use Something that's very relatable to a lot of people Yeah, like everyone like every one of these shows that are good They they they it's a common touchstone for you that and you could set that helps set your personality for everything you do.

And if it's not for you, then we might not be a good fit. Like if, like, if that's like not your flavor, then you're probably not going to choose to work with me. So that's okay. It's mutual. And you can go find somebody who, who really is going to be a better fit for you. Yeah. Especially with what you're doing there.

It, it can and should be fun, right? Like there, it can. Maybe there's some parts of it that are a little bit of a slog, you know, as you're trying to get through but especially when you're talking to People on the front end and you're helping them realize things about their business Like maybe they've been so in deep on it They haven't really seen yeah and being able to have those aha moments with people Yeah, and then to see that excitement and it kind of it can't build on it on itself Oh, yeah, and I start out not being yes It's like it's it's gonna be awful and I will be your ultimate hype girl.

Like I when those Moment, like you said they kind of like build off of each other and they really do like when you have when you figure something Out and I helped you do that. I am freaking so excited and I will sit there and be like You know, and so like I want I want you to be excited and I will be excited with you.

Yeah You And that's just gonna be, that's just who I am. And, but you've done, you've done a great job leading with that. Yeah. I hope so. Everybody, you don't know. I think it's, I think putting it on your sleeve and owning it is a really smart thing. And I don't know that a lot of people do that. I don't think a lot of businesses do that.

I think it's, maybe it's too courageous. Maybe they're trying to play to take it. To too many people. They don't have that thought that there's a tribe for everybody like that There's not everything's gonna be for everybody Yeah, right and like I think if you can accept that and they're like know that you're gonna have much more Meaningful relationships when you have that shared shared ideology or shared shared thoughts or shared outlook on life that you're going to, it's going to be so much better for everybody involved.

And I have clients who have come back time and time again because, um, I feel like I'm bragging on myself, but they say like, I just like being on a call with you. You should like being on the calls with like the people that you're working with. And like, I don't know, life is way too short to be like, and that, and, and, uh, I feel like the need to preface this, not everybody has the privilege to do that.

And I feel very, very grateful to, but if I had to be in somewhere else, like I would, I would want to, I would want to make this fun for someone else. So I hope that if you hate your job, I am at least a little bit of sunshine in your day. If you're at this solo marketer and you feel like there's something that's off or you're having trouble getting some alignment on what your copy is, or more importantly, like your brand messaging, you might not think of as brand messaging off the top, but like, I think it's really important to get some outside perspective in that those types of things, right?

If you're too close to it, you might not make sense. The best decisions or something that's really helpful to have somebody on the outside. How do you, how do you approach this? So what's your process for trying to help them craft their messaging? The first step that we would do, like whatever project that we're doing, it's best to have some sort of brand message.

Baseline. Yep. Um, because ultimately you want some sort of true north that you're going to drive all messaging to. So we'd start with a brand message guide. We're going to build out that seven part framework by, uh, using a questionnaire. We'll send you a questionnaire. Then we have a 90 minute call that can feel like a therapy session.

Like we've said, where we really dig into some of your answers and we ask more questions like why, how? Cool. What does it matter? All the things that we've already talked about. Um, and then I run with it. I take that and I write whatever we're working on. Usually, again, the brand message first. Um, I usually like to deliver it on a live call where we walk through each piece and we go through a couple rounds of feedback.

Um, but that first round is always live because The, the collaboration and the live feedback, the live response from you is so important to me to figure out like, one, the rounds of revision is a lot, goes a lot quicker when we can work together on this rather than going back and forth in an email. But if you can get on a call and really like knock through some of the, that first round of feedback just on a call, which is usually, um, you know, we get.

a good chunk of it done on that, on, you know, six in the 60 minute call. Then they get to sit with it for a while, make sure that everything's right. Everything's sitting right. Um, one more round of feedback if needed. And then we really start implementing everything else from there. And essentially it's just rinse and repeat.

Um, you know, it's not always a 90 minute kickoff call, but any project is going to start with some sort of kickoff. Um, so yeah, it's, I think that. There's so much opportunity for collaboration in, in this process. Like, we are not going to write your brand message just through a little questionnaire. Like, that's just not going to happen.

Um, I need to see you on a call. I need to hear you talk about these things. I need to ask you deeper questions because it's like, you can give me that questionnaire, but that's basically putting it through chat GPT. You're going to get some stale. stiff message because your answers or your prompts, which are going to be the same thing.

It's not going to be as good as, as if you're going to be on a live call interacting with someone who's, who's really taking, taking your business to heart and seeing it from a perspective, from an outside perspective that you never would have, you never have the opportunity. Again, you're too close to it.

If, if you're, if you're just sitting there writing it on your own. I think if you're, if you're, adverse or hesitating to do that live call in that live interaction. The, the phrase that comes to mind is garbage in garbage out, right? Like there's like, you're not going to get the desired result if you're not willing to sit there.

There's so many, I mean, as much as a lot of people out there probably want to think that they're great communicators over, textual communication, whether it's emails or texts or whatever. I don't think they are like, I think it takes, I think there's a very small percentage of people who can communicate what they really feel or what they really mean in an email

And there's so many other cues that you can pick up on when you're interviewing people, right. That you can like body cues, the way they respond to some of your questions, you know, like. You took a deep breath before you, you answered that question. Hmm. Tell me more about why you did. Like literally, it's questions like that, that, that, like, oh, well, you know, we dive in, you dive in deeper that way, like, oh, well, we've been thinking about this for a really long time.

Yeah. And I don't know how to answer it, but that was the best that I could. Okay. Well, that allows me so much more like space and room to ask more questions to help you. Like, this is why people go to therapy. It absolutely is. Right. Yeah. Like, yeah. Can you imagine just. I know there's probably services out there where you can text for, for therapy, but it's probably not going to be nearly as effective.

And you're going to take way longer sending messages and reading messages back and forth. Longer. The speed with which we can work is way different. And you're going to, yeah, yeah, no. And it's like that. I mean, you're talking about two and a half hours. Of time with you to solve big, big problems with messaging and clearing up a lot of it.

Like, because, um, I'm going to abstract things out of like specific story brand kind of buckets and stuff like that. But you're, you're talking about the customer, like what, who is this customer? What drives them? You know, what do they want? What do they need? What are problems that they solve? Right. What, um, um, What happens at the end?

Like what are, what's, what's some value that they get from working with you and having people describe all of that. Now, correct me if I'm wrong and you can cut this out if you want to, but Our conversations when we were writing the page design brand message, those conversations really helped you go like hard into this.

Our core audience is the marketing team of one. You may have figured it out a little bit beforehand, but I remember having conversations that were like, Oh no, it is the marketing team of one. This is, this is who we're talking to. I think we had an inkling for a while that some of our best clients were these people that Um, that were trying to do it all themselves.

They did have the benefit of knowing that they couldn't do it all themselves. And they had bosses who were allowing people extra budget to be able to help have, get help in the areas and they could strategically apply that where it was needed. But no, I don't think we had fully firmed up that that was exactly who we were messaging to with everything.

Yeah. I think you did help us unlock that. I think there was, there was a lot of conversations where we're like, Oh, well what about this client? What about this client? What about this client? But once you saw that brand message with that, Marketing team of one in writing, it was like, ah, okay, that So many like pointing to something that was written going, yes.

That is it. Yeah, I love this and like I think that that wouldn't have come without the you know Us talking this stuff out and you asking the deep questions about it But now we have this guy this messaging guide that we know very clearly, you know We know who our customer is. We know what their needs are.

We know what their pain points are. And, um, I mean, even, we even talked about words that we didn't want to use all the time and like words we should use and words we don't want to use all the time. And that's so helpful, especially if you're trying to do everything yourself and write things out. And like sometimes just having those things written down and be able to look at it and go, Oh yeah, I was stuck, but this helped me.

Maybe there's just a log jam of rocks in your head. And yeah, removing that one helps everything flow or something. Yeah. And that, yeah, that, that outside perspective, I don't know how to communicate the value of outside perspective when you feel stuck. Yep. There is someone else out there who can help you air out the stale thoughts, work through those, like, Because I think when we talked earlier today, uh, not on this podcast, off, offline, about someone who just helped you see something with so much more clarity.

Yep. Because, He wasn't in it every day. It's yeah in it. I think the if you're the solo marketer in like Building a case pitching to the boss or something like that that that the return on that investment of lead like yes It will cost money. Yes, but that outside perspective is huge and it's gonna pay dividends far longer than if we're middling through In trying to do a lot of these things yourself or repeating the same errors or something like that.

Yeah, that outside perspective is is enormous. There is a And I'm gonna say an onslaught of of interns going back to kind of social media who are providing Stupid social media strategy and I'm gonna I'm gonna quote air quote strategy. Yeah But it's working to all of these companies, uh, because they're these fresh, young people who have ideas and they say like, Hey, I want to try this.

Um, and they're an outside perspective. And I say that they're stupid because they're, they're silly things like, like I'm thinking of one account in particular, it's like a sparkling water brand or something. And her, this intern's entire marketing strategy is just smashing cans and of, of their product, which I think is.

Why would you waste product? Yeah. But the joke is like, Oh, this person, and I don't know if she's an intern, but like, she has brought in this fun, engaging new way to market their product, to get the word out about it. And it's purely, you know, brand awareness. Are people buying it? I don't know. I have not, it has not led to a sale for me, but I've seen them.

She's smashing these cans and all these different ways, weird ways. She's taking. Comments and like saying, okay, yeah, I'm going to do that next. And so it's like a really unique way, but it's, it's this other way, this outside, this way of not getting an outside opinion, but somebody within your own organization who has a seemingly really silly idea and just giving them the space to try something.

Um, and so maybe you as the marketing team of one are the outside perspective in some ways. Um, or maybe it's, you know, hiring an intern. Or maybe just talking to somebody in accounting or something like that, right? Like you might have some gold in the organization already who maybe hasn't had a chance to think about these, but maybe they have some interesting feedback, like customer service, right?

They're talking to customers all the time. Like if you could interview some of the staff there and just get, get a little bit of the outside perspective there, it's gotta, it's gotta help. Yeah. Yeah. Mike Michalowicz has tons of books. just on this. I think fix this next, um, is one that's coming to mind specifically, but like talking to people inside so that you can ultimately make your business better.

Like, what, what do you think are some signs that you've seen or symptoms that people come to you at? Like where they've, they know that they need copy, they need help with copy. Well, let me ask you this. Uh, why did you hire me? I mean, you're not a marketing team of one necessarily because you have an entire team behind you.

Yeah. But why did you hire me? Gosh, that's well, I guess why not. Why did you hire me? But why did you hire a copywriter? It was a big acknowledgement of a weakness, right? Like I Know that I'm not The greatest copywriter, right? So like in like, it's this weird, it's the worst thing from a client. I know it when I see it type thing.

Like I, I identify with that when it comes to copy or, and so I, I know there's a thing there. I know there's an ideal to hit. I don't know the path to get there. Right. So that's one part of it. Like just not having the, um, um, repetitions, like going back to your experience, you know, at the nonprofit, right?

You had a lot of reps writing everything. And like, and that's not my background. I've come upon it more recently, the importance of copy. We just looked around and it was like, you know what we need, we need some skill. I think the, the outside perspective. Was another huge thing to like for me personally I can overthink things a lot I can think about the deeper connections between a bunch of things and I can get kind of like Stuck in there so having the therapist side of it like to be able to talk to somebody and sit and Get all that stuff out there and then I mean that's what another skill that has to be there you have to be able to separate out all that like rambling in the light ADHD distractions that might happen in the conversation, pull on what's important and, and ask the right questions.

Those were like more functional things that brought us to it. I think ultimately we tried to write stuff ourselves. We looked at it. It just wasn't hitting the mark. Saw across the water, across the river, that it, we could be close, but we don't know how to build a bridge. And so that's, I think that was one of the big things.

And I would say that that is extremely common. Like that is probably 90%, if not 100 percent of the people that come to me. They say, I've tried to do this, but I'm too close to it. I don't think that it's very good. I know that I'm a good, I'm a decent writer. Most of them say, like, I'm a decent writer. I don't know why I can't do this.

I think people tend to want to write all of the information they want to be able to. include everything, but that doesn't lead to good copy. Like we've already said, brevity is really, really a huge piece of this. Typically they come to me because they've already tried it themselves or they've already put it through chat GPT.

Then they pick up story brand. Um, typically they find story brand. They say, Oh, this is what I've been missing is this thing that, um, okay, I'm going to try to do it. They try to do it. It's, really bad. They know that it's really bad because they've, they, they know what's good. They can see it. They'd start, they start in the search because it's like, I've, I've, I'm come to the end of my rope.

I can't, I can't keep, I can't keep spending hours upon hours on writing and rewriting and, and staring at a blank page and like, ugh, writing is a slog. Even if you like, even if you say that like, I'm a good writer, it's, it's a slog. If, if you. Know that it's not good. Like it's not great. Yeah, or it's not what it could be.

It's so interesting And I think maybe people lump together The data, especially if you're working a computer all day, right? Like and if you are if you're spending most of your day Emailing people messaging people you are you're writing all day. Yeah, but that's not the same as copywriting. Yes Yeah. But like I think a lot of people could make, they're like, Oh, I write all day.

I can. Yeah. I write all day. Like. And I'm a good writer. I'm a good writer. Yeah. It's, it's. Not it's, I am not saying that you're not, you're just not a copywriter and that's okay. It might be a little humbling for a lot of people to hear. Right. Yeah. Um, in your, in your job, do you feel like you are the one working with a lot of these marketing teams and one, and it may be, it's just a business owner who is, is purely the, that they're doing that on top of all the other things.

Yes. I am often talking to the, the business owner, uh, owner operator who is, who is. in the trenches. Um, and they're, they're wearing all of the hats. So, so any, every, every moment that they're taking, trying to do this themselves is taking them away from making another sale, helping get their HR things in order.

And I would say that a lot of the time they, they, they don't see the value in it. Because they don't, they don't value their own time in the same way or they don't see their time as dollars all the time. Yeah, it's such a funny thing. It is. It's a really interesting concept that everything you do is You can place a dollar amount on that.

Yeah, it's gonna be an investment. Yeah, but you're gonna make that back If you spend ten hours of this 10 hours on this, which you're probably going to spend a lot more than that if you keep rewriting and rewriting and rewriting it. At what point was it worth it? I would be willing to bet a lot of people, we see it on some things too, like people have Struggled for so long.

They've jumped on Canva. They've tried died all the different things, right? They're probably like and they're just that's me. I'm sitting there. I know that it's bad. I know that this is bad I think there's a weird mental block when you get to people trying to talk about themselves And promote themselves like I feel it Very much so.

Like, like in, I don't know if it's because of working with different clients where it's, it seems way easier to like, like on the, as an outsider, like distill down that person. That's not me. I can, I can make very snap decisions about, and, but turn it in, look at the mirror and try and do those same things here that I guess there's so many other entanglements there of like, and Laurie, Considerations.

I think a lot of people have that like weird block up into that back to the whole thing. Getting that outside perspective. It's gonna help reduce you spinning your wheels and like banging your head against the wall. Yeah, absolutely. I've really enjoyed our conversation. Um, is there anything like how can people get ahold of you?

How can they people when they need brand messaging help when you reach out to you when you realize That you have written yourself into a hole so many times, go to felty, F E L T Y dot co, C O, And send me a message. You can also send me a message on Instagram, I will check it. I just won't always promise that the content is totally up to date, so.

Because I have a child. Yeah. A young child. Yep. Yep. Which, you know, priorities. Yes. This is a season. Yeah. As they say, yeah, it's a season. My, my wife has a sticker on her Tumblr that my girl got for her. It says, in my mom era. In I am in my mom era is absolutely, which is, and she proudly, proudly walks around with that.

So that's me. Yeah, hit me up. Yeah and read all the articles on on sitcom the the marriage of sitcom and brand messaging together and one is just fantastic. If you're a fan of The Good Place Ted Lasso The Office All those you will like and have some sort of interest in brand messaging, then it's going to be for you.

And I think you're going to like it. And if you have any other questions, again, hit me up. Thanks for coming, Jill. This has been great. Thanks so much for having me. Love it.

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