The Digital Marketing Mentor
Get ready to get human! Digital marketing has a whole “people” side of things, and we’re here to uncover it! Danny Gavin, your Digital Marketing Mentor, explores the meeting point of mentorship and marketing in this captivating podcast featuring interviews with marketing experts and industry leaders. As they chat about their history with mentorship and guiding others, they’ll delve into how these connections have affected their careers, marketing strategies, and lives. Deep conversations on how we’re all human highlight how current marketing trends are influenced, and you’ll come away from each episode with real, actionable marketing strategies and skills to implement.
The Digital Marketing Mentor
085: Branding As a Solution, Not a Service with Chaya Glatt
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In this episode of The Digital Marketing Mentor, Danny speaks with Chaya Glatt, a brand strategist and the founder of Brand Authority, about her journey from special education to branding and marketing.
Chaya shares her thoughts on branding as a solution rather than just a service, offering insights into how businesses can use branding to solve real problems.
The discussion touches on the importance of having a strong foundation in brand strategy and the dedication to gaining a deeper understanding of what branding can do for business growth.
She also gives an honest take on parenting and building a successful career in digital marketing as a working mom.
Episode Highlights:
- Chaya shares how her unexpected journey from special education to branding led to her successful career in brand strategy.
- The discussion makes an argument for branding as a solution to business problems, defines it as more than just logos and visuals, and highlights the importance of creating messages that resonate with customers’ true needs.
- Chaya shares actionable advice for startups and small businesses, placing emphasis on the importance of clear messaging and focus on client outreach before worrying about complex branding.
- She discusses the role of AI in branding and explains how it can assist with execution but will never replace the human-driven strategy behind strong brand development.
- Chaya encourages women to embrace their value and lean into the perspective and strengths that come with being a working mom.
Episode Links:
🔗 LinkedIn: /in/chayaglatt
🔗 Website: Chaya Glatt
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Welcome to the Digital Marketing Mentor. I'm your host, danny Gavin, and, together with industry leaders and marketing experts, we'll explore the meeting point of mentorship and marketing. We'll discover how these connections have affected careers, marketing strategies and lives. Now get ready to get human. Hello everyone, I'm Danny Gavin, founder of Optige, marketing Professor and the host of the Digital Marketing Mentor. Get ready to get human. Unlock the true potential of their brands With a no-nonsense approach to branding. Chaya believes it's not just about pretty words or sleek designs. It's about creating solutions that help businesses stand out and develop trust with their customers and clients. If you've ever felt like your branding isn't pulling its weight, you're in for a treat. Get ready to rethink everything you know about branding as we dive into this conversation with Chaya. Today, we're going to talk about what branding is, not what branding is, and, of course, mentorship. How are you doing, chaya?
Speaker 2I'm great, I'm very excited to be here.
Speaker 1Yes, me too. I wanted you on the podcast for a while, and I'm so glad that we're actually here today, so let's jump right in. Where did you go to school and what did you study?
Speaker 2I went to Mercy College, I studied to be a literacy specialist and I did work in special education for a while and that was kind of how I segued into copywriting and marketing. Because at one point there was I was working for an early intervention agency and the supervisor who wrote their blog left the company and I thought you know, I'm a writer, I bet I can do this. So I pitched the owner and said you know, can I start writing the blog? And he was like sure, and we did that for a little while. And then he opened a sensory gym and he's like we need someone to write the brochure. So he connected me as the writer with the designer and I wrote the copy for the brochure and the designer was like wow, this is great, do you write copy? And I'm like yeah, I wasn't even sure what she was talking about. I'd never even heard of a copywriter, I didn't know that was a thing. But I was like I like doing this, so why not? And it kind of took off from there.
Speaker 1So obviously, eventually, your path led you down to branding and marketing. Why did you think about going into, like the literary educational world in the beginning?
Speaker 2I had never dreamed of being a marketer, I think as a younger person. I was very sincere. I like people, I'm a people person, so I naturally gravitated toward teaching and you know, special education is more lucrative than teaching. I know I wanted to be able to support my family, so that was kind of the default path that I took and I always thought of marketers as these like weird, creative, cool people and like also kind of slimy and manipulative people and unfortunately, there's probably a good reason why markers have that reputation.
Speaker 2But I have learned that most of what I do is not slimy. Nothing that I do is slimy, thank goodness, and it really is about helping people. Just like education is about helping people, branding is about helping people and the people that I help. Thank God, I'm so grateful to work with really fantastic clients who are also sincere, value-driven individuals who have something to bring to the world, need somebody to help them get the word out, need somebody to help, you know, make this seem like an appealing offer so that they can, you know, put this product out and also support their families. And it's a great endeavor and I love it and it's so satisfying and I still get to be a people person.
Speaker 1So in our community I would say, a lot of girls go down like the special education path. What would you tell them before going down that path? Like, obviously for some people it's really for them.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1But what would you tell some people to kind of really consider before going down that path and maybe to look at what other options are out there?
Speaker 2So, honestly, I don't regret the path I took. I don't think it would have been a great idea for me to jump immediately into the world of marketing, especially, as you know, a young Base Yakov graduate. There are a lot of challenges in this field, Things like challenges to your sensitivities and teneus and just ethical dilemmas like left and right. Like we said, you know marketing can be a manipulative field where you're using all these psychological tactics to kind of like get people to buy. You know there is a lot of that going on. It's not so, not so simple and it's not necessarily something for the naive. So I don't regret that.
Speaker 2My career trajectory was kind of like, you know, not so direct. So if someone's considering a career in special education, I would say go for it, and that's awesome, and keep your mind open. You know like God has a way of sending you opportunities at the right time, and you know you make your choices, you do the best you can with the information that you have right now and you keep an open mind. You know, just because you're doing this right now doesn't mean you're always going to be doing it, and I think we all need to have that kind of attitude.
Speaker 1Yeah, just because you start something doesn't necessarily mean that's going to be what you're doing for the rest of your life. So, yeah, keep your eyes and ears open, because you never know. So, chaya, how would you define a mentor?
Speaker 2So you can tell me if you agree with this, but I'm just thinking aloud as I'm speaking to you. A mentor is more than just somebody who like is, let's say, a coach or a consultant, who you. There's a transactional relationship like I pay you money and then you help me get better, or whatever it is that I want to get better at. A mentor is more of a personal, invested relationship. The person cares about you, they want to see you, they're going to go a lot further than a coach would go and they help you with a lot of other things other than just the one, let's say, career improvement, that you want to make. They end up becoming more like a friend.
Speaker 1Yeah, so I mean over 70, 80 episodes in we have lots of definitions for mentors.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1So I found it interesting that, obviously that when we reached out to you ahead of time, you said that you didn't have a formal mentor Right. But we've learned that mentors can come in many forms. Like it could be a formal mentorship, it could be lessons learned from colleagues, it could be guidance and form on you know, from podcasts or courses and other materials. So the question is there's got to be some sort of mentorship in your life.
Speaker 2Right. So definitely support from colleagues. I've had for a long time and I still have to this day. I have a small group of friends who are, all you know, at similar stages in our careers and we support one another. I don't know if I would call these people my mentors, any more than I would call myself a mentor to them. You know, like we help each other, we all help each other. To me, in my mind, a mentorship is like this big adult figure who's like helping the child, but it's just, it's a friendship, it's a colleagueship, like we're all here to support one another and I've had that for many years. I'm very, very grateful for it. I've definitely. I've taken courses. I'm a student of life. I learn from everything that happens, the good, the bad, the ugly, so but I would say like, if we're looking at traditional mentorship, my marketer friends would probably be the closest to mentor figures that I have in my life and so so grateful for them.
Speaker 1Can you share how their input has helped guide you?
Speaker 2So a lot of technical stuff, like who knows the software that does this and this? You know? Client dilemmas I need to send this email to my client and I'm not sure if the tone is right. I might sound too defensive and they'll weigh in like just change this one word or put an emoji here. Validation, like am I crazy that I don't want to work with somebody who is promising whatever.
Speaker 2Those things are so important, especially when you're a solopreneur. I mean, at this stage I have a small team, but I'm still, you know, I'm making all the decisions, I'm calling all the shots. Sometimes you just like feel like you're stuck in your own head and you think you know what the right thing is to do, but you also realize that you have this like tunnel vision, right, like I don't really see the whole picture. I'm so subjective here. So I think that's the biggest value is just knowing like there's someone else I can talk to and they'll tell me if I'm crazy, or they'll tell me if I haven't thought of a certain angle, or they'll tell me that I'm on the right track, you know.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think you're very lucky to have those type of people around you, because being a solopreneur can be very hard and you need to have that team or people that you can rely on, right, and I find that in my training as well, where I'm training others, one of the biggest benefits is having that community where they ask each other questions and they get that support, or they can ask me questions and they get support. If they're doing this for a year and I'm doing this for 10, it's like totally different perspective that I can point out to them. And I think community and support is one of the biggest, like most undervalued, commodities out there. It's very hard to explain to someone you know pay this amount of money because you're going to get people who care about you who answer your questions. It's really hard to see that value, but once you have it, it's enormous.
Speaker 1Yeah, with my course as well. Having those peers, that peer group, is so important because there's always that level where there's certain questions or certain things people just don't feel comfortable asking and therefore, if they have that peer community, it just makes that more comfortable and so you have a little bit of both. So, yes, most people don't realize how valuable that is, because a lot of people try to sign up and say, yeah, I just want to do one-on-one and I don't need that care and I'm like no, if you really want this to be successful, you have to be in the formal cohort, formal peer group and that's how you're going to get the most value. Cohort formal peer group and that's how you're going to get the most value.
Speaker 2Right, we actually have in our Slack group for Brand Authority. We have a channel called Silly Question Asking, anyway, and I just think just the fact that that channel is there is so validating because, like here, there's no such thing as a silly question. You might think it's silly, just ask it. That's what we're here for.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's great. Like you create that safe space even before right. So like they, they, they know it's okay.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1So, while not exactly mentorship, you're training creatives to become brand strategists. What sort of strategies do you use and what do you find a successful method and kind of pushing people in the right direction?
Practical Branding Solutions for Marketers
Speaker 2Becoming a strategist is a very different skill set than, let's say, becoming a chef. Right, when you want to become a chef, there's a set of skills you have to learn, which I am not dreaming of ever learning. But becoming a strategist is learning how to think, because no two brands are ever going to be the same. Every company is going to come to the strategist with a dilemma that you're going to say oh my gosh, I have never seen this before. I have no idea what to do. It's always going to be that. It's always going to be so.
Speaker 2Learning how to think and having a framework for how to approach branding problems, branding dilemmas, branding goals all these things that businesses want to achieve that's what the training is all about. You'll never just be like applying a template, like the same template to every single brand, but you'll be applying the same thinking framework of okay, so here's the goal, what do I need to do in order to achieve the goal? So that's what I teach in the training program is that framework of how to think and how to approach problems.
Speaker 1So when people come to you with questions, are you the type to answer it or kind of ask them? Questions lead them to finding the answer on their own.
Speaker 2Okay. So I'm working on that, right, because when somebody has a question about a brand, it's so easy for me to jump in and be like, okay, this is a unique selling proposition, because I see it right in front of me, right? Or like, okay, so here's what they need to do. They need to segment their audience. They need to target this group, and then they need to target that group. But what? How am I helping my trainee if I just solve it for them, like, okay, now they know the answer?
Speaker 2So I am working on addressing the question and how to solve the problem rather than answering it for them, and I think I'm improving in that way. So what ends up usually happening is they'll ask a question that's one sentence and then I have to answer them with like three paragraphs, right? So okay, let's analyze this situation, and then here's what you should do next, and here are the questions that you should be asking, and here's the research that you need to do to find the answers to those questions. So I am I'm trying to do that as much as possible, and those are the kinds of conversations that we ended up having in Slack. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1Were you the type of kid in school that would like shout out the answer, or just like raise your hand and go crazy because they just had to give the answer?
Speaker 2No, I hated school. School is the worst. I don't like being told what to do. I don't like being given orders. I don't like rules and like well, I like rules if they like are serving me and like help me do what I need to do, but I don't like when other people impose limitations on me. I was not a school person and I was not like a big like book. Well, I read a lot, but I wasn't like the studious person Like that is really not my style.
Speaker 2And in training also, I really try to keep it practical. Like everything needs to have an example. There's no point in learning theory, there's no point in like understanding things that have no, you know, direct reflection on anything that is going on in your life. So in all the things that I teach in my training, I try to make it real and we have assignments. They have to do this on real brands. You know this is like we're here to learn how to do stuff, not how to know stuff. I'm a big, I'm really into that. We're learning how to do stuff and not know stuff.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's the advantage of taking a course like yours over, let's say, going to a university. Some universities are practicals, but most are not.
Speaker 2Oh, don't even get me started.
Speaker 1So obviously there was this point where you started doing more marketing and doing more branding and then you had the courage and confidence that I'm going to create a course or do these types of things. What said like hey, I know enough, I'm a master that I can go do this. Did you have people pushing you or did you come to this realization yourself? In the same vein, how do you suggest other people who may be masters of their own craft but don't realize that they could actually do this right? Teach others.
Speaker 2This is really my personality. I've always been. I always feel this drive. I need to prove myself. So if I've achieved something, I'm always like, okay, what's the next thing? Like what do I have to do next? That's really just my personality. So that's probably a big part of what went into the decision to create a course. That was just me being me Like act now, think about it later. I need to do this. Another thing was that like I looked around and I see that you know, people create courses and I was like I can do that. You know, if anyone else can do that, I can do that. So again that just I'm sort of just like very driven that way and when it came to the content, it was a no brainer, because I just see that there's a need for this and and the reason I see there's a need for this is because I'm a part of all different communities of marketers, especially in the firm world.
Speaker 2What ends up happening is that people who know very little about branding and marketing are helping lead and guide these big businesses to make big business decisions with very little information. Or, on the flip side, you'll have a startup that has no money. They'll say, oh, we need a logo and a website, right. Then they'll go and they'll spend $20,000 to design the logo and then they have their $20,000 logo and they're like, okay, how do we get customers?
Speaker 2So so to me, the idea of teaching brand strategy to marketers was just like this is a solution to a problem that I see all the time. Let's train the people who are designing the logos, who are writing the websites, who are writing the brochure copy to. Let's train them to think like a business person and actually solve marketing and branding problems for the people who they work with and know how to do that instead of you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys need a high-end logo, right, everybody needs a high-end logo. Well, some brands do and some don't. Some need to get their first 10 customers, like yesterday, so we need to know how to help them do that and advise them to do that. So that was another big factor that went into the decision to create brand authority.
Speaker 1So I think this is a great segue into going deeper into branding. So you say branding is a solution, not a service. Yes, so can you tell me more about that?
Effective Branding Solutions for Businesses
Speaker 2So this is like really the foundation of everything that I train my students in brand authority. Branding is a solution, not a service. If you think about the traditional, I need a logo. Right, that's what most people think when they hear. A branding is a logo and a color palette and a font, right, like the visual aspects kind of pulled together in the branding package. But I like to give the muscle of the fisherman from, let's say, a thousand years ago. Right, he went and he caught fish on the lake early in the morning. He brought them back to his village, he sold them to the village people. He didn't need a logo, okay, he just went and he bought the fish and he sold them.
Speaker 2Now, if you fast forward to today, right, if you're going to buy fish, you're going to go to the supermarket and be inundated with all your different options and all these brands are competing for the same customers, right? And all of a sudden they need a way to stand out on the store shelf and make you want to buy their fish. That's why branding is a solution. It's a solution to a specific problem that businesses have, whether that's, you know, getting customers to buy. Some brands have a problem of like how do we help people understand what we do? Like, people do not understand what we do, especially if we do many different things. Like, how do we explain all the different things right? How do we get people to pay more for our product? Our competitors are selling this for a thousand dollars and we're selling it for 70. Like, what is going on? How do we do that? How do we do what they're doing? You know so brands have these problems and you know my students are trained to solve those things. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1It is cool and it's funny. You use an example about a fisherman, because one of my big SEO examples uses a fisherman as well, oh yeah. So yeah, we must love fishermen.
Speaker 2Something about that Very charming little occupation.
Speaker 1I talk about the difference between catching one big fish or catching many small little fish in keyword research and what you should focus on, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 2That is cool, I like that.
Speaker 1So why do you think so many people misunderstand branding?
Speaker 2I guess a lot of it is because the creatives themselves are motivated by something very different than the business founders, managers, directors of marketing. We, as marketers, are often coming from a creative place. We love beautiful things, we love colors, we love pretty words, we love cool ideas and amazing campaigns. We get excited about that stuff and we think that's what our clients need. And sometimes they do, sometimes that's part of what they need. But the truth is that businesses exist to make money, to turn a profit, to generate revenue and often to keep their customers loyal so that they can continue to grow.
Speaker 2And you know that there's a disconnect between that mindset and the marketer mindset, which is like oh my gosh, it's gorgeous. Right, when marketers talk to each other, there's a lot of that oh my gosh, it's gorgeous. And what happens is that we're kind of like trying to impress each other instead of trying to help our clients make more money. And then the things that we say to clients often mislead them as well. Not intentionally, of course god forbid. But you know, if somebody with like just a little bit of knowledge has a conversation with a client and says like oh, you need to look premium, you need to look beautiful, you need to look impressive. Sometimes that true, sometimes it's not a priority for the brand right now, so that leads to a lot of misunderstanding and probably wasted money.
Speaker 1So you gave some examples before about branding in order to increase how much I sell something or how I stand up from the competitors. Do you have any examples where proper branding effectively solved those pain points?
Speaker 2I'll give you two different examples. One is from an online college that I worked with. We had to revamp their messaging and make sure that it appealed to the target audience, and it was tough because they were limited by a lot of things like what they're allowed to say. There are some industries that are very regulated and that makes our job really hard, but we had to start talking about the things that mattered a lot really hard, but we had to, you know, start talking about the things that mattered a lot to the students and mattered less to us.
Speaker 2So, for example, when I met with the administration of this college, they were really gung-ho about their educational program and the truth is it's a fantastic, high quality program and very you know you will walk out with a great education.
Speaker 2But when you talk to the students, they don't care. They are not concerned about the quality of their college education. They want a diploma as soon as possible, right. So we had to kind of find a way to bridge the divide between this is a better offer and you need to choose it because it's a better education and like what the customer actually cares about, and we worked very hard to develop messaging between this is a better offer and you need to choose it because it's a better education and like what the customer actually cares about, and we work very hard to develop messaging that bridges that divide, and you can actually check them out Woodmont College they are all about getting a competitive degree as quickly as possible because, at the end of the day, everyone wants their degree as quickly as possible, but if you have to make a choice between having a competitive degree or you know another one you definitely want, the competitive degree will help you get ahead in life and that is what this program is all about. So that's one example.
Speaker 1That's really, really great and it just shows you like the I would say, the malady that organizations have, where it's all about us, all about us, right, and it's so, and. But we're so strong and we're so great, but it's so hard to see the perspective of the consumer and you, you obviously were able to say, hey, look at what they're looking at, and then actually craft a message that incorporated both ideas, which is awesome.
Speaker 2I actually have a name for that. It's called entrepreneurial enmeshment syndrome, where you're so close to your business that you can't really see. You know what it looks like from the other side, from the customer's perspective, and I think everybody, we all have it, you have it, I have it, we all have it.
Speaker 1Very much so. What's the second example?
Crafting Effective Brand Differentiation Strategies
Speaker 2This was when we talked about pricing. I worked with a brand called Embell which sells door hardware Really interesting how you know so many different varieties of brands. They were introducing a new product that the price positioning was. You know what this branding was all about. They're introducing a low price product to a premium market, so all the branding had to be premium. Everything had to look and feel expensive, but then the price comes as a surprise at the end that it's still a very, very attainable product. So we developed all the messaging around the quality of the product, the beauty of the product. You can check out their website as well as embellbrandcom, and if you look at it you're like, wow, this is like jewelry. Right, it's like hardware, that's jewelry. And the branding is beautiful. So that's the kind of branding that gets most marketers excited, like, oh, this is gorgeous. So in this case, it was necessary. So that's another example of how we solve a problem with the brand strategy.
Speaker 1Can you share a few steps businesses can take to approach their branding in a way that will help them stand out?
Speaker 2So most of the time you're going to need a third party, like an objective, somebody to help you. This is not a plug to work with me. It's not a plug to work with a brand strategist. It's just a fact of life. It's like you can't do therapy on yourself. You can't do dentistry on yourself. It's difficult to do branding on yourself. It can be done sometimes, but if you have the capacity to bring someone in, then do that. And then what you want to do is three simple areas where you want to research to make sure that you're doing the steps that you need to do. So you want to look at your market. So that's a competitive analysis. So take a look. Some people are like I don't have any competitors. Everybody has competitors, and if it's not someone doing the same thing as you, it's another option that your customer has. Right, they could do it themselves. They could do. They could buy a different product. They could do it themselves. They could buy a different product. They could choose another solution. Almost every single business has competitors. So if you're telling yourself I don't have any competitors, you're probably wrong. Sometimes you're right. Probably wrong.
Speaker 2So you want to take a look at your competitors and you're going to look for? What are the norms in my industry? What is everybody else doing? What are some things that I should be doing just because it makes sense to do in this industry? So, for example, if all of my competitors are offering a discount in exchange for their email address and I'm not doing that, then I better ask myself why. Why am I not offering a coupon in exchange for email addresses and then doing email marketing Like everyone else is doing that? Why am I not? I better have a good reason. And then you also want to look for ways to stand out. So, if everybody's doing the same thing, but I have something unique that I can do, let me do that Right. So that's what you want to look at in the market. And then you want to look at your audience as well. This is the MAD formula market audience DMing. So you want to look at in the market and then you want to look at your audience as well. This is the MAD formula market audience DNA. So you want to look at your audience. You want to talk to them. If you can ask some targeted questions, what are you looking for in the product? Um, what's some things that you hate that you've had in the past. If they're your own customer, what can we do better? Did you consider any of my competitors and what made you ultimately decide to choose me? Get inside the mind of your audience, so that you can then incorporate all those pieces of information into your messaging and talk to everybody else out there who's still on the fence and explain why they should come over to your side. And then there's the DNA part of the brand, which is you, who you are, what makes you unique.
Speaker 2Taking the time to sit down and write out like okay, what's unique about our brand and how does that make a difference to our customer? A lot of times, what happens is that your initial answers are almost worthless. Like you're going to say what's unique about our brand is the quality of our customer service. Right, okay, you know when someone says that to me, I say, okay, that's great. So, for example, right, like, tell me what's so good about your customer service. Tell me what happens if I have bad customer service? Like how does that impact my life? Tell me what's good if I have good customer service. How does that impact my life? So, taking the time to develop a strong message about what's unique about you. That actually is something your audience cares about. That would be your third step, and when you do all three things, you end up with some really solid strategy.
Speaker 1I love that recipe and the MAD helps keep track of it as well.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1I'm going to get a little vulnerable now, but you kind of made me laugh. I went to a conference last week and the concept of going to a place where you can have people outside of you, right, and it was basically all about agencies and how you can grow your agency better, it was really really good. So they're going around the room and saying, like what's your unique selling proposition? To kind of show people like they don't really know.
Speaker 2That's so embarrassing.
Speaker 1And I know, tell me about it. So one of the things that I said and this has become really big in my agency is we've started to work with a lot of people who've had a really bad experience with their previous agency and they've come back and we've they've come to us and we've said no, it could actually be good to work with an agency. But I kind of I verbalize that. I'm like you know, why we're different is because we work with people who don't like their old agency and their old agency. And the guy looks at me like I'm nuts and he's like what are you talking about? Everyone switches their agency because they don't like their old agency. So it was like, yeah, good point. I didn't realize. So since then I've pushed myself to figure out what exactly that selling point is. But yeah, it's funny how you could think like you've got the reason why you're different, but then you actually say it out loud and it's like, hmm, that's else.
Speaker 2Right, you got to test it on somebody.
Speaker 1Exactly so I know when startups or companies that don't have a big budget, they're going to ask me you know what should I focus on first? Do I do SEO? Do I do Google ads? You know what should I focus on? Organic social. So when people come to you, they're startups, don't have a lot of money what would you tell them to prioritize from a branding perspective or even a marketing perspective?
Speaker 2honestly, so in order to just get started and get your first few clients, you need some basic messaging in place so you could do some organic marketing. So you need things like. You need to be able to answer these questions who am I for? Why do they need me? Why am I the best choice for them or, preferably, why am I the only choice for them? If you can answer that question, then you get a lot more points. What am I going to do for you?
Speaker 2Nobody wants to hire you unless they know what exactly you're going to do and why should I believe you? So if you can answer all those questions, you have your core messaging in place and then you can go and you could do your cold pitches. You could start. You could start doing your organic social media. You can put together some basic branding. If you're not in a fancy schmancy industry, you don't need fancy schmancy branding. You could start with you know minimum viable visual identity and then take it from there and get your first 10, 15, 20 clients by reaching out to everybody you know and telling them what you do and you know, passing this basic messaging around and then directly pitching to people who are in your ideal client profile.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's sound advice. I think people are scared to pick up the phone and speak to people that they know it's easier said than done. But you're right. Like that's just something you have to do when you're starting a business or looking for new opportunities. We forget about all the people that are around us that can help us and really it's just a matter of letting them know what you're doing.
Speaker 2Absolutely. I think that a lot of business mistakes are made and a lot of money is wasted out of fear of putting ourselves out there. Entrepreneurs who are starting up startups tend to waste time on the things that matter least, that are going to make the least difference. You know setting up the fancy software and getting the fancy branding, and you know all of that when right now you need to make phone calls and get clients, and if you don't have the courage to do that, then it's not going to help to spend a whole lot on all these other things. Your business is not going to be sustainable unless you can get clients, so put all your hustle there. That's what I would tell founders.
Speaker 1Do you have any examples like branding mistakes, like big things that like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I actually did that?
Speaker 2I've seen a lot of branding mistakes. Unfortunately, like I told you the story about the $20,000 logo, there's another story about a brand who they spent a lot of time and money on strategy and visual design but then failed on the execution, like they didn't do the hustling, they didn't reach out, they didn't network, they didn't do paid advertising, didn't do any kind of advertising organic or paid and they kind of got stuck in that identity stage. Oh, what is our unique selling proposition? It's okay, you have something that's good enough. Don't worry about perfecting it, just go out there and tell it to people. Like this was already, you know, weeks and weeks after we'd developed the brand identity and they were still overthinking, and you know that business never really took off, because you can't do that forever, you can't be working on your identity forever. So that's a mistake.
Speaker 1So, yes, you need to have a logo, you need to have right branding, but then you actually have to go do something with it, right, do something Right. Don't just sit back. You're like, oh we.
Speaker 2Right, you're not done. You're not done. This was just the first step.
Speaker 1So how do you see the role of branding evolving in the next few years, especially with the rise of AI?
Speaker 2I see that AI is a great tool for implementation, right, once you know all your messaging, you know what you're trying to say, you know what you're trying to do. You can use AI sort of as a junior copywriter, right, you like, plug in the voice guide, you plug in the format, so you give a few examples of these other kinds of things that our brand does say, doesn't say now, write a product description. So AI is fantastic at that. Well, I won't say fantastic, that's a stretch.
Speaker 1Don't give it too much credit.
Parenting, Working Women, and Pets
Speaker 2AI is okay at that. It can do that for you. If you give it like really solid prompts, it can do that. But AI is terrible at strategy. But AI is terrible at strategy. So that's why I say you know, AI is not taking over the strategy job anytime soon. If people have a problem that needs solving, you really are going to need a human brain. I mean, AI will write an answer to your question, but it'll be like, okay, it will say differentiate from your competitors and you'll be like, okay, but how, Like that was helpful. I see the role of the strategist definitely emerging as somebody who helps brands to use AI as a tool.
Speaker 1Yeah, I agree and I think and that's what's good that your course is branded as strategy. Right, you know, it's not. It's not how do you create the branding, but it's more how to become the strategist to actually figure the whole picture out, and then the branding will follow.
Speaker 2Right, right.
Speaker 1Very cool, All right. So it's time for our top three. So today we're gonna do a little bit differently. I'd love to hear a top tip when it comes to one of these categories that you would give to to others. So the first one would be regarding parenting.
Speaker 2Become more humble. I have found I have five kids, thank God I found that parenting has made me more humble and that's like the best thing that could have happened to me as a parent. I think we come into parenthood with these ideas of like yeah, I know exactly how it's supposed to be done, and if I do A, then my kid's going to do B. But then you go ahead and do A and your kid does not do B. And I think it's so important for our kids and for ourselves to stay humble as parents and obviously, when we discipline them, we have to have confidence. We have to know you know what our boundaries are.
Speaker 2Not I'm not saying to be a doormat to your kids Don't want anyone to misunderstand me but to realize that our kids were given to us to test us. Like God doesn't give us kids to make us happy, you know, hopefully they will and I wish on everyone that their kids will make them happy. But our kids were given to us because there's something in us that we need to change and if we see them that way and we see ourselves that way, then it just it changes the whole journey and the whole experience, and I see that for myself. You know like being a parent is tough, but staying humble as a parent and realizing this is not about me in what I want and getting what I want. This is about me in growing and changing, and whatever my kid is presenting me with, it's because I need to grow and change in this area. That would be my, my top tip and probably the toughest to incorporate into your life.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's super profound. I think I'm going through some things with my kids where I need to remember that, so that's really good. I appreciate it All right. Next topic would be working women validation.
Speaker 2Okay, working women validation yes, working women, you are awesome and everything that you are doing is a lot. You're doing a lot and it's very easy to compare yourself, maybe, to people who work less than you or who are not the breadwinners in their families or have a lot of financial assistance from other sources, or whatever it is. Don't have to work so much, so don't don't compare yourself to others in that situation and just remind yourself that what you're doing is good, is good enough and is better than good enough. And if your kids are eating the same thing for dinner every day, that's because that's what you need to be doing right now, and they're happy and healthy and it's fine. And you're not in a magazine and it's not a culinary contest, so it's all good. As long as you are happy and healthy and your kids are happy and healthy, then what you're doing is more than amazing. Don't compare yourself to others and speak to yourself kindly and compliment yourself frequently and generously on the work that you do at work and the work that you do at home.
Speaker 1It's hard for women out there, especially the ones who are working and have to manage. People don't realize. Even I right, a man we don't really know what it's like. And therefore, yes, women who are working we got to give a lot of kudos to and a lot of support. So, yes, they have to realize themselves the great job that they're doing, but it doesn't hurt for others to let them and remind them that they're doing a good job as well. Last topic so people would imagine, with five kids, chaya doesn't really have any pets, but back in the day she was a pet person. So we'd love to know what's your tip regarding pets.
Speaker 2Okay, so I used to love animals. I guess deep down I still love animals. I was a middle child and I was right between two sets of twins, so I was the only one in my family without a twin. So I was like I really wanted a pet, I really wanted a dog. I never got a dog. I really wanted a cat I never got a cat. I did have a guinea pig and we had birds at some point. And then recently one of my kids, who's the middle child, wanted a pet. So we made the mistake of getting a rabbit Not recommended Really, apparently.
Speaker 2Rabbits are not supposed to stay in their cage all the time because they need exercise, so we had to just let it room the house and it was. It ate everything. It ate the furniture, it ate Shabbos shoes, it ate pants. It ate library books. We paid like hundreds of dollars at a library in fines Like they'd show up with these books and like they were eaten by the rabbit. It was an interesting experience, so wouldn't necessarily recommend it to others. But if your kid wants a pet and will make them happy and you can stretch a little bit to make it happen, then that would be lovely.
Speaker 1Yeah, I was not expecting the rabbit tip, but I think it's very valuable.
Speaker 2Love it. It's so bad.
Speaker 1Chai. What's your next big project? What's your next big thing that you're working on?
Speaker 2Ooh, I actually am working on something big.
Speaker 1Can you tell us?
Speaker 2Yeah, I am rebranding my own brand, which was a very intimidating project to do. We actually just finished the redesign and we are going to be also redesigning our website, so really excited about that. It's going to be the same URL, Hayaglatcom, but we updated our visuals, we modernized them. My brand until now was very personality driven. There was a lot of mad kind of theme in there mad scientists, mad strategists, the mad formula, which I still love, the mad formula and use it all the time. But I'm moving the brand away from that very fun personality-driven brand to a more authoritative and serious brand, simply because that's what's happened as time has gone by and thank God, I've worked on really serious projects and I have wonderful results and case studies to show it just makes sense to evolve, evolve the brand as well. So I'm really, really excited about that.
Speaker 1Yeah, that is exciting and I'm sure there's a part of you that's like you know. It's sad to say goodbye to that, but knowing you and where you're at, it makes sense to upgrade.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I kind of feel like the brand's growing up. You know, it's not too sad to say goodbye to the old branding.
Speaker 1So where can listeners learn more about you and your business and just follow you in general?
Speaker 2So I'm on LinkedIn. I post pretty consistently on LinkedIn, so you could find me there. I'm on LinkedIn. I post pretty consistently on LinkedIn, so you could find me there. And you can visit chayaglatcom. That's my website. When it's updated, you will see all the updates there, and I also have a bunch of free courses and free resources for creatives, for freelancers, for entrepreneurs. I'm happy to share the link to that page with you, danny, so you can share it with everyone.
Speaker 1Super. We'll do that, for sure.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1All right. Well, chai, this was so great. Thank you for being a guest on the Digital Marketing Mentor and thank you, listeners, for tuning into the Digital Marketing Mentor. We'll speak with you next time. Thank you for listening to the Digital Marketing Mentor podcast. Be sure to check us out online at thedmmentorcom and at thedmmentor on Instagram, and don't forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts for more marketing mentor magic. See you next time.
