Strategies for Building and Growing Brands

Jim James 0:01

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Unnoticed Entrepreneur . This is the show for business owners and entrepreneurs who deserve to get more recognition than they currently do . So what we're going to do is talk about real world strategies . We're talking with entrepreneurs who are building brands and helping others to build brands . So today I'm delighted to go to Cleveland , ohio , with you , and we're going to meet Jackie Bebenroth , who is the co-founder and CEO of a company called Muse . Jackie , welcome to the show .

Jackie Bebenroth 0:30

Thanks for having me , Jim .

Jim James 0:32

It's my pleasure because we've got a lot to talk about . You are an entrepreneur , you've had your business I think you mentioned for over 20 years over there , and we're going to talk about some aspects , for example , of going from general to specialization when it comes to marketing , and talk about how entrepreneurs are too busy and too trapped inside the jar of their own business to read the label and that ultimately stops them getting the clients . And I'm really excited because later on we're going to talk about how you've been building your own personal brand alongside the brand of Muse , and that's something I'm particularly interested in for founders . So , jackie , tell us about you and tell us about Muse and what you do .

Jackie Bebenroth 1:13

Certainly so . I started in advertising a little over 25 years ago and I started as a copywriter working on messaging , sales , messaging for clients . I climbed the ladder and grew through the ranks . I became a creative director and then , about halfway through my career , I shifted over to strategy and I started working on brand positioning , and that's what I do currently through my company .

Jim James 1:41

And through Muse , which is Muse headquarterscom , by the way , and we'll put that in the show notes . You say on your website that you help brands reach their full potential with clear , confident communication . Tell us , how do you do that , because isn't everybody communicating in a clear and confident way ?

Jackie Bebenroth 2:05

Not our clients when they first come to see us , and I'll tell you . The test for this is , I'll say to a prospect tell me about your business and if they talk for about 20 minutes about this , that and the other thing , I know they're an ideal candidate for our services . He helped brands define their brand narrative , so that means we help them understand what they sell , how they provide value and , ultimately , why they do what they do , so that they can go out into the world and communicate more clearly and with confidence .

Jim James 2:42

I have a question , Jackie Founders , start businesses as you've done . I can't believe it's over 25 years ago . That's incredible Congratulations , by the way . Keeping a business going for so long . How do entrepreneurs not know what they're selling or not know what customers are buying from them , which isn't always quite the same thing , is it ?

Jackie Bebenroth 3:06

You know , what I've found in working with entrepreneurs in particular is that one of two things .

Jackie Bebenroth 3:13

Number one they're so passionate about the business that they believe everyone else shares their passion , and that's simply not true .

Jackie Bebenroth 3:24

You know , you have to earn someone's attention when you're talking to them , so a lot of times we'll help cut through that passion with what's important in connecting with the people that they want to sell to . The other side of that coin is perhaps the entrepreneur has grown the business in an organic way over time and they're simply not communicating at the stage of the life cycle that they're in . You know , when we think about I like to compare this to personal growth the way that I showed up in the world when I was a teenager , the way that I spoke , was very different than the way that I show up now in the world as a professional and as a more mature individual right , and I find sometimes that business owners don't make that natural evolution . They might want to show up in the world and garner the price points of a more mature business , but their brand is still speaking like a teenager and they haven't really made that correlation . So we help them see that and remedy that .

Jim James 4:31

I love that and that's , I think , the best explanation I've ever heard that as the company grows , the founder doesn't necessarily mature at the same rate or their self-perception or their abilities right To grow the brand along with the business itself . Jackie , how do you help a company or an entrepreneur then to become in alignment between what the business is now in terms of serving and what it is perceived as by the market ? How do you help with that ?

Jackie Bebenroth 5:09

Yeah , so , excuse me , we have positioned over 80 brands and through that work we've identified some common themes with our clients and we've worked to systematize and bring techniques to this evolution and this brand growth . And the main crux of the technique we call productive distancing . And so what we found is that quite often entrepreneurs are too close to their businesses . They're in the weeds , they're doing things daily and they are so close to it . We call it I love this analogy you're inside the jar and you can't read the label . So the productive distancing techniques that we deploy really help the entrepreneur take a step back from the business , see a fresh perspective , read between the lines of the stories that they're telling themselves and ultimately elevate into the position that allows them to achieve their full potential .

Jim James 6:19

And can the founder sometimes be in danger of sort of not moving on with the brand ? Are there times that you find , jackie , that the company outgrows the founder ?

Jackie Bebenroth 6:36

Jim , that is a great question . I have seen that before and I think you know it takes a lot of courage to change and it takes an objective perspective to help you gain the confidence that you're making the right decision . And so half of our work we used to call our service brand therapy , because we would have those types of intimate conversations with the entrepreneur to help them understand you know where do you want to go as a person and how can your business align with that goal . And ultimately , if those two things aren't aligned , that's okay . You know there's an exit strategy to be planned for , right .

Jim James 7:28

Yeah , exactly , jackie . So it's really , really interesting , and I guess there are some entrepreneurs who love to start things and then pass it on to someone else that might grow it and eventually administer it as it becomes more mature . Jackie , you are and , I apologize , you're the founder of the company . I said at beginning co-founder , but I double checked and you're actually the principal , and so even more congratulations to keep your business going for 25 years as an entrepreneur in your own right . How have you been building the muse brand ? Because you yourself have had to mature , haven't you ? Over 25 years , and growing a branding business is a very competitive space , isn't it ? With new generations of people coming in . So how have you have you managed to keep the brand relevant and continue to win clients ?

Jackie Bebenroth 8:23

Yeah . So first of all , I mean I've done my own fair share of personal growth . I've had multiple coaches over the years to help me sort of evolve into breaking through whatever was holding me back Typically fear , you know . But from a business strategy perspective and we see this with our clients as well we as an early stage business for cash flow purposes , you're taking everything you can get . Somebody wants to buy pineapples . We sell pineapples . We also sell strawberries over here , right ?

Jackie Bebenroth 8:58

So there's a natural tendency to be a generalist in your space , and what we've done at Muse and what we look for and support our clients in is this concept of niching in over time .

Jackie Bebenroth 9:14

And the idea is that the more specialized you become whether that's a horizontal specialty , meaning that's an industry specialty or , I'm sorry , the horizontal is more of a service specialty or a vertical specialty , which is more of an industry specialty the idea is , the more specialized you are , the higher the value perception of the business . And so we help clients really sort of slim down their service set and understand what's important to them as they move forward . And so , from use , we went from being a generalist marketing agency To being a brand strategy and content marketing agency . Those are two horizontal specialties and we serve primarily the food and wellness industries . So in doing that we're able to really present ourselves as an expert in those industries and we've been able to build and systematize processes for the services inside our wheelhouse . And all of that has added up to we get paid more for that and we can command a higher price point versus what we were charging 10 years ago . Yeah , jackie , jackie Bebner Roth we're talking to here who's running a company called Muse .

Jim James 10:29

She's made Muse headquarters dot com in Cleveland . Now , the challenge sometimes for entrepreneurs about going into niches is that fear isn't it , that the niche will become a cul-de-sac right , that you're getting to a smaller and smaller market . You end up with a sort of a client mix of one or , in the business which I was in , you'd have a client that would only only allow you to work With them and not another company in the same industry . Microsoft were famous for this . How do you help companies you know not being in a niche that's too small for them and their appetite to grow ?

Jackie Bebenroth 11:17

Oh , jim , I learned this firsthand . So I actually I I nitched in too far when I made the decision to sort of slim down the industries that we served . By the way , we market ourselves as an agency that serves food and wellness , we'll take many different clients and many different industries . We just don't market ourselves that way . So so that kind of helps with the fear like , oh yeah , I can accept a client , maybe we don't put them in our portfolio , but maybe they're great for brand strategy and so they're building in our service wheelhouse . So that's number one . But number two if you niche in too far , too fast , something that looks great on paper , an opportunity that looks great in theory , might not play out that way . And so for us , the biggest lesson we learned and following our own advice , but niching too fast .

Jackie Bebenroth 12:18

We went after the functional medicine market and this was right after the pandemic . We were coming out of the pandemic . I had some PPP funds that I wanted to invest in our new specialization of wellness and I thought this is a core audience and wellness . They touch all these other services and products . Like , if we get in here , this is great beyond that on paper , this industry is growing and growing and growing , so there's nothing but an ocean of opportunity . So I spent a lot of money and a whole lot of our team's time building content , paying for a proprietary report , doing PR , pitching , keynote speeches all of the things that I'm sure you tell your audiences to do when building visibility and we got the word out there . But I'll tell you , we only got , after 18 months , three small clients , none of whom were profitable , and what we found in really interviewing that audience after the fact , they didn't want to buy what we had to sell , they didn't have the budget for it and they felt like they could DIY it themselves Because they're doctors and they can do it Interesting .

Jackie Bebenroth 13:38

So , all that said , I'm out $60,000 to $80,000 , but instead of carrying that through with a sunk cost bias , I decided to cut the cord . We still have the report on our site , we still passively market to this audience , but we're not actively going after that .

Jim James 13:58

Very honest of you to share , and we've all got in our archives things that we've built or done that never see the light of day . So you've kindly shared that story already for me . But you've been building Muse . But one of the things I want to talk with you about was as an entrepreneur . You've been getting business through your own personal brand strategy . So I'd love for you to share with us how you are getting a sort of a dual brand strategy going and how you're experiencing the benefits are maybe the dangers of that for us .

Jackie Bebenroth 14:39

Sure . So within the last 12 months , I've decided to work on my own personal brand . I've never done this before . I've really . My brand is really limited to inside the four walls or the zoom screen and and , as a result , my methodologies and my techniques really they have a limited reach to my client base and I was really opposed to building a personal brand for a long time because , number one , I'm not a narcissist . I'm kind of like I don't want to be boastful and put myself out there . I think there's a fear associated with the feedback loop that I might get on my personal brand .

Jackie Bebenroth 15:33

But I worked with I actually hired a positioning expert who helps high-profile people build their personal brands . So I'm a positioning expert . I hired a positioning expert to help me read my own label and I worked with him for six months and what came out of that was this concept of productive distancing . This is what we do . It's a proprietary set of techniques in a process and that is something that I can really stand on as a platform and help get the word out . So , first and foremost , I can help more entrepreneurs , which is my first intention always . Ten years ago it probably would have been more ego driven and then second to that is you know , every time I stand up on stage I get a new lead .

Jim James 16:23

So there's a lot of Jackie , I love that and they've done a brilliant job . Wonderful , wonderful pictures . And I'm

Personal Branding and Productive Distancing

Jim James 16:31

interested . You think you have to be a narcissist to do personal branding , because everything I'm learning it's an essential part of being an entrepreneur is having a personal brand to support the company brand , because it gives you the opportunity to experiment , doesn't it ? And also with the methodology like productive distancing . If you just keep repeating that inside your own niche , there's only so many times you can repeat that right , but actually you're going to be finding new clients and new niches . Just tell us what is productive distancing . Can you share that with us ? Or is that giving the game away ? We have to hire you as a speaker to get that information .

Jackie Bebenroth 17:07

No , not at all , and in fact I'll be working on 2024 , I'll be working on a book around it and all of the things you know , following our own advice , our own content and all of that . But so productive distancing is the art of asking the right questions , to go deeper into uncovering the true value perception of the brand . And with this technique we start inside the business . I think a lot of brand experts will tell you to look at the market , look at who you're selling to start there . Look at your competitive set , understand how you can be different .

Jackie Bebenroth 17:52

But really the true value of the business on an established business is inside the organization . And so we work with our clients to ask a series of perception-based questions of the executive set and of the employees . And once we have those answers , we evaluate the common themes and discrepancies , pull that out and then align them with sort of customer surveys . And therein lies that overlap , that alignment between internal and external perception . That is almost always the strength and the value of the organization and entrepreneurs don't see it if they're not asking those questions . So productive distancing is really nothing more than a set of very strategic questions and sometimes we find that people don't want to really hear the answers .

Jim James 18:42

Why would they not want to hear the answers ? Do you think ?

Jackie Bebenroth 18:47

Because the answers are often different than their own perception of the company , and that is a scary thing . It's a very uncomfortable thing to shift your own mindset around the company . Very , very interesting .

Jim James 19:03

We could definitely dive into this in more detail but , as you know , unfortunately we've only got sort of 20 minutes on this show . But we will be including Jackie Beben Ross details in the show notes , of course , as always . Jackie , I do like to ask successful entrepreneurs like yourself what does move the needle , if you like , in terms of getting noticed ? What would you say over 25 years , or it sounds like you've been kind of regenerating and rejuvenating your own personal relationship with the company as well over the years . In your experience , what helps to get you noticed ? And my fellow entrepreneurs can take away from you some guidance .

Jackie Bebenroth 19:46

You have to stand for something . It doesn't have to be a purpose-based cause , but when your name whether it's your personal brand or your company brand comes up , there's a first thing that comes to mind in someone's brain Someone , like . They immediately have a feeling or a thought . One of the questions that we ask in productive distancing is what are the first three words to come to mind when thinking of this organization ? The ultimate goal is for those three words to be common across all of the audiences that you ask . If you're doing it right , then that will be true and that's what you can stand on , whether that's a topic , an emotion or just a set of things . Like you want to be a go-to . That's going to help with recall when someone needs you or your product or service , because if you're just a generalist who doesn't stand for anything , you're unforgettable .

Jim James 20:58

You're forgettable . I know I thought you might be bursting into some friends and not the singing for us there , but I am unforgettable .

Jackie Bebenroth 21:12

If you stand for something , you're unforgettable . If you don't , you're forgettable .

Jim James 21:15

I love that . Now you've been memorable . I'm going to avoid getting into forgettables and unforgettables , Jackie Beiber . I'm going to say you've been memorable . How would people find you , jackie , to continue the conversation and find out more about productive distancing , for example ?

Jackie Bebenroth 21:30

Sure . My company website is musedheadquarters . com . My personal brand website is jackiebebenrothcom . You can always find me on LinkedIn . Our company is on Instagram . I do have a personal Instagram , but I'm not good at posting that .

Jim James 21:49

Look , I think we've got Frendy there with the company and the personal site . Jackie , thank you so much for joining us . We could have talked for ages , because branding and the things you're working on are so valuable for entrepreneurs , but I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut it short . Thank you for sharing . We've come into the office today when everyone else is working from home , so thanks for going to the office solo today for me .

Jackie Bebenroth 22:11

Thank you , sir . I appreciate the conversation , it's been wonderful .

Getting Noticed

Jim James 22:14

We've been with Jackie Beiber Roth in Cleveland Ohio , so I will , of course , put her details in the show notes . If you've enjoyed this , please do leave a review on the website or in the show notes on your player and share it with a fellow , a fellow unnoticed entrepreneur , Because if you have anything that you'd like to ask any of our guests that are coming up and we have them every Tuesday and Thursday please just drop me a note . You can do that at theunnoticedcc , where we've got a page where you can even leave a voice note . So once again , thank you for joining me , Jim James , here All my guests seem to be in more exotic locations than me , but thanks for joining me on that tour around the world to learn about getting noticed . Be well .