How To Define Your Brand And Scale To The Next Figure

How To Define Your Brand and Scale to The Next Figure

Marketing and branding are part of the nucleus of who you are as an organization and the expression you give about your product or service. Without addressing all the aspects of brand success, we can’t reach our full potential or become the right person that businesses need

My guest today is Nicole Philip. Nicole is the CEO of Ministry Event marketing and creator of Behind the Brand, helping leaders create luxury brands that inspire their target audience. She has helped dozens of individuals define their brands and scale to the next figure. Nicole works with churches and organizations that have base programs and is the author of Behind the Brand and Single, Saved, and Bitter.

Nicole's Journey in the Corporate and Her Transition to Entrepreneurship

At 9:03, we start with Nicole sharing her journey in corporate America and how she transitioned to entrepreneurship. She started as a college student at the University of South Florida, interning for the Fortune 500 company. After graduation, Nicole went straight to the 40-hour work week, climbed the corporate ladder, and went up to management but was later laid off. Nico always had a passion for entrepreneurship, and when she was in corporate, she ran her side business based on events and marketing. To her, her layoff was a blessing in disguise, even though it didn’t feel that way at the beginning, but it allowed her to go into entrepreneurship full-time. She did it for a year, focused on her business, previously known as coco entertainment events, before going back to corporate and resigning one year later. It has now been five years in full-time entrepreneurship, specializing in branding and marketing, and Nicole is not going back.

Why Nicole Made a Decision Not to Go Back to Corporate

Most of us are too creative and innovative to be stifled into a box, and Nicole’s experience is not different. Nicole shares that a client invited her to a vendor opportunity to help them promote their brand. She took three days off and went to Orlando, Florida, and while she was there, she didn’t want to leave the connections behind or put them in a box to go back to her job. After returning, what motivated her to take action was the 1% rise she got in her salary after getting more review points as a manager. Nicole knew the impact she had made on the company, and it dawned on her that she was allowing the company to determine her worth and put a 1% increase on that. That day, she decided to type her resignation letter, go into entrepreneurship and start writing her own checks. To hear more, tune in at 15:58

Working in a Ministry Event marketing and why Nicole chose this niche

At 23:19, Nicole shares that faith is a big part of who she is, and early on, she started working with churches doing branding and graphics and developed relationships within the faith-based community. As she was building her brand, Nicole also noticed that there were entrepreneurs who had faith components in their core values, personal beliefs, and how they do business. So, she decided to niche down to hone on those individuals who wanted to wear their hearts on their sleeve, speak their language, and brand their story around their mission. According to Nicole, we’ve so many brand strategies that service big business, and it’s important to serve these groups because most of the time, they’re often overlooked or have a hard time connecting with other companies because there is a language and culture to their ministry. Understanding that dynamic and bringing the brand strategy was Nicole’s way of making a difference and providing value.

How Nicole Wraps the Language Barrier to Help Ministries in Marketing

Nicole explains that ministry branding and marketing are based on faith or biblical principles. She often shares with groups that it is their duty. Marketing is not an extra as most organizations often perceive. It is part of them being able to share a message, a product, or a service with an individual who didn’t know them. Marketing and branding are part of the nucleus of who you are as an organization and the expression you give about your faith, product, or service. In Ministry Event marketing, Nicole uses biblical principles to merge the gap and get them on board to help them scale and reach more people. To hear more about ministry branding, go to 08:05

How Nicole Does Branding and Marketing for Big Organizations

There are a lot of misconceptions about branding going around that often make it hard for companies to create a customer-based branding experience. At 09:55, Nicole shares that they also work with big corporate brands, and their goal is to help them create an experience that inspires their target audience. According to her, most companies don’t know how to create inspiration and emotional connections, and their mission is to help them build a strategy and work with them to get the best results.

Putting Your Business Out There Using the Four Pillars of the Brand Success

At 11:25, Nicole shares that their business has been built on word of mouth. They use a lot of tips-based strategies on different aspects of branding, such as how to reach your ideal clients and hone in your niche, and bring value to bring. Whenever they talk about these aspects, many people become their customers because they want to scale up and serve more people and can’t do it by just adding new products or services. Nicole also shares about the program, Behind The Brand, that was born from their annual retreat, Refresh Retreat, for entrepreneurs and leaders to come to a location where they can plan, refresh, prepare and work on the core of their business. When planning the retreat with the pandemic in line, they got to see what was going in on the inside and came up with the program based on the four aspects of the brand success, belief, being, business, and bank. Nicole believes that without addressing all the aspects, we can’t reach our full potential or become the right person that our team and businesses need.

Beliefs and How You Can Create a Successful Transformation to Thrive

Beliefs are all about who you believe you are and your value. Nicole shares that even if you don’t subscribe to God as your foundation, there is a foundation of who you are and what you bring to the table, and every day, you have to renew that mindset. According to Nicole, a lot of time, we go through the day, we’re in the heat of the moment, the hustle of our business, and we don’t know that our thoughts are preventing us from achieving what we desire. From childhood, what we believe about money, how we spend, how we do business, and how we connect with people create our beliefs, and most of the time, the person that we learn and grow to become is not the person we need to reach the next phase of life. So we need to recognize and lay down our limiting beliefs and be open to change to transform and grow. To learn more about beliefs and transformation, go to 45:05

How Nicole Gets Up, Dresses Up, and Shows to Transform Her Mind.

At 18:07, we learn about Nicole’s morning routine, which is based on, prayer, affirmation, exercise, and diet. Nicole shares that the first principle is prayer and affirmations. Always pray with the belief that it’s already done. Believing it is already done allows you to receive it because it’s God’s will for your life. Another part of Nicole’s routine is exercise. She shares that it is hard, but it has to be done. It’s important for energy. Last but not least is diet; Nicole has been working on developing a healthy diet routine. She listens to audiobooks and motivational messages that help her correct her diet and create change.

YOUTUBE KEY NUGGETS

[01:23] Nicole’s journey in the corporate and her transition to entrepreneurship

[03:30] Why Nicole Made a decision not to go back to corporate

[05:36] Working in a Ministry Event marketing and why Nicole chose this niche

[08:05] How Nicole Wraps the language barrier to help Ministries in marketing

[09:55] How Nicole does branding and marketing for big organizations

[11:25] Putting your business out there using the four pillars of the brand success

[14:19] Beliefs and how you can create a successful transformation to thrive

[18:07] How Nicole gets up, dresses up, and shows to transform her mind