THE EMOTION ECONOMY: Why Selling Feelings Beats Selling Products (Ep. 011)

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What happens when pumpkin spice, reality TV, and psychographics collide? This episode dishes out spicy takes on positioning, brand triggers, and why authenticity converts faster than any “perfect” product launch.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to use seasonal or cultural triggers (like pumpkin spice) to drive product demand
• Why psychographics beat demographics when building a brand that converts
• The role of authenticity and reality TV energy in creating trust and audience growth
  
  

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction
 02:15 – Pumpkin spice as a marketing masterclass
 06:45 – Caramel macchiato & the power of positioning
 10:20 – Using external triggers to fuel sales
 15:30 – Selling emotion vs. selling the product
 18:40 – Psychographics vs. demographics in funnels
 28:10 – Reality TV & influencer branding lessons
 33:45 – Kevin Ashton, TikTok sorority chef & authenticity in content
 41:20 – Building in public vs. perfectionism in marketing

References & Resources:

• Starbucks
• Love Island (reality TV)
• Kardashians / Keeping Up with the Kardashians
• Lisa Vanderpump (Vanderpump Rules, Wolf restaurant)
• Kevin Ashton (TikTok sorority chef)
• ManyChat
  
  

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📩 Michelle: hello@michellepualani.com
🌐 Joanna: millennialmktr.com

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Transcript

011 Click Tease

Joanna Newton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of the Click Tease podcast, where each week we break down our marketing hot takes and updates that are gonna help you grow your business and your personal brand. Today we are. in and talking about pumpkin spice and why it's something that marketing makes us want each and every year. We also break down psychographics and how to position your offers in a way that are really gonna get attention and connect with your audience. Hi, my name is Joanna. I'm the co-founder of Millennial Marketer and Agency that helps creators build their own digital products, programs, and services. 

Michelle Pulani: And I'm Michelle Pulani, Houston, founder and visionary of, to be Honest Beverage Company. We're a non-alcoholic functional spirit brand as well as business coach, mentor, and consultant to entrepreneurs looking to clarify their messaging and improve their marketing in digital spaces through personal development.

Let's dive in.

Joanna Newton: So today my beverage that I'm gonna drink while we chat about all things marketing sort of my [00:01:00] normal oat milk latte thing, but with a slight twist because it's fall and it's fall season. I have pumpkin spice espresso because I have to.

Michelle Pulani: It has begun.

Joanna Newton: It has begun. I would

Michelle Pulani: Take notes September 9th.

Joanna Newton: such a fall.

Michelle Pulani: Pumpkin spice has already entered the, the picture

Joanna Newton: Yes, it's here, but my trick. To make it extra, extra good and tasty is, I actually put, um, like a little shake pumpkin pie spice the coffee. So it really is like spicy, like not spicy, is not, not spicy like hot, spicy, but it's got like the cardamom and the clove and the

Michelle Pulani: spices.

Joanna Newton: in it. Exactly.

And I, instead of like buying like a pumpkin spice syrup, because that makes the coffee like so, so sweet. I just add the spices to the coffee and it's like.

Michelle Pulani: Ugh, I love it. Yes, I'm actually ready for fall too. There's a little bit of [00:02:00] crisp. In the air here in San Louis in California, and we've had super warm days. Trust me, we're like seventies, eighties, like it's been beautiful beach time, bonfires the whole deal. But we can start to feel like a, a hint of the change.

And I used to actually hate the change in seasons, like I really suffered from seasonal affect disorder. And so heading into fall and especially winter, was really hard for me when I was like beach, sun warmth. Like that was where all my energy was. So I used to really struggle with that, but now I ki I welcome it and I've grown into really appreciating the change in colors and the difference in schedule and routines and rituals and, you know, having different options.

I'm not like a pumpkin spice latte person 'cause I don't drink coffee. Right. But

Joanna Newton: Yeah,

Michelle Pulani: I do love

Joanna Newton: you could make pumpkin spice mushroom tea.

Michelle Pulani: exactly. Oh, I should make that. Okay, I'll have to make that. Yeah. But any pumpkin spice, like tea or [00:03:00] chai option, and today I have a Yorba latte latte, and so I've steamed some, let's see. I have soy milk and yorba latte for a little bit of natural caffeine kick and then honey, and so that's what I'm drinking today.

Mm-hmm.

Joanna Newton: Nice. A little cinnamon. A little clove.

Michelle Pulani: Well, cinnamon, I do love cardamom, cardamom and cardamom and coffee like, hmm. It's delicious. Again, I don't drink it, but I know it is so good when I used to.

Joanna Newton: Starbucks one fall made. It was called a vanilla spice latte, and they only made it one year, and it was essentially a vanilla and cardamom latte. And it was so, so good. But it did not last very long. 'cause I think it's, it can be a little bit of a acquired taste, I think.

Michelle Pulani: Yeah.

Joanna Newton: But it's so good. It is so tasty.

Michelle Pulani: Cardamom is definitely one of those flavors that you either like it or you don't sort of thing. And so I think for a lot of people, if they're not exposed to it as often or as aren't familiar, don't like it. But talk [00:04:00] about marketing, pumpkin spice. All marketing. All marketing. It is so interesting for me to see certain trends.

This actually takes me back. So I was thinking about, so with my drink, I call this a yerba mate latte. If you were to go anywhere, it'd be like a Tea Olay or a tea latte or something like that. Right? Where I have like half steamed milk, half tea, when I was my, one of my first jobs, actually, I'm pretty sure it was my first official like.

Employed paying jobs was at a cafe in Santa Barbara. It's called Santa Barbara Roasting Company. It was huge, very popular, very busy, and there were managers there when I was, uh, working. I was only like 15 at the time and just starting in the workforce and the world. But at the time, I would say, like if you talked about me as a young person, I was very anti trendy, anti like.

Joanna Newton: can see that?

Michelle Pulani: You can see that, right? Like I was a little bit more of a rebel. Didn't do like the traditional school path, didn't like [00:05:00] traditional things. I was a little bit more tomboy, like liked skating, didn't really like get dressed up, wear makeup, that kind of thing. Things have evolved and changed over time, but at the time, I don't know if you remember Beyonce's Bootylicious song.

Okay.

Joanna Newton: of course.

Michelle Pulani: doesn't? Of course. So in any case, at around that time that had come out, so the managers working there, we pulled the latte through our espresso machine. So if you've ever worked as a barista or in a cafe setting or seen how it works, you tamp the espresso, you put it in. Um, a porta filter. It goes in the thing and then it pulls the hot water pressure like hot water through right, for your espresso.

So we would do that with our mate, and we would make these mate drinks. And so they ended up doing latte honey steamed milk, literally just what other people do. But they started calling it a year malicious. And so it went on the menu as [00:06:00] year malicious. And now mind you, this was around the time that a.

Macchiato. It was like a caramel macchiato came out at Starbucks marketing because a macchiato is espresso and a little dollop of steamed foam. That's what a traditional macchiato is. Now, the caramel macchiato from Starbucks is essentially, it's not a freaking macchiato, and I will die on this hill because as someone who worked in coffee back in the day, 20 years ago, at this point.

I was so frustrated because we would have these people come in and they would order a macchiato, caramel macchiato, and without realizing it, we would make a normal macchiato because we hadn't had this discussion yet. Didn't know Starbucks was marketing, which was basically like a caramel either latte or like frothy drink, full drink.

Or if it was blended as a caramel macchiato, it was like a Frappuccino type deal, right? [00:07:00] And so it caused these issues in our cafe. 'cause people were ordering caramel macchiatos. We would make them this tiny little cup of espresso with some actual caramel syrup and a doll of foam. And they'd be like, what is this?

And we're like, it's a caramel macchiato. And they're like, no, it's not. And so all of this needs this to say with the Y dalicious, the caramel macchiato. It is marketing, it is positioning all of it, the popularity, the interest, the understanding, even the language. So when you think about pumpkin spice, when you think about, uh, caramel macchiato, when you think about these things, it's all marketing and positioning and it's so, so important to understand these things. If you're in business, if you're creating content to be able to position things the way that you want people to interpret them, because there are two.

Two different perspectives here. Your expression of something and their reception of something. And what happens in between is the communication. And I think where so many business owners get this wrong, and where I feel like I've gotten it wrong for years is thinking that [00:08:00] my perspective and the way that I.

Express is what's going to be received, but the communication isn't happening because of the way in which I've positioned, I've marketed, I've presented something, and it's not being received in the way that it's meant to be. So, such a great learning lesson, thinking about these trends that we see in our marketing that actually shape our culture, that shape our language, that shape the way that we see things.

Joanna Newton: 100%. And I think something that I hear a lot of time from creators is, you know, they'll come to me because they have like an issue with their marketing and they'll say, I can't get my product to sell. It won't sell. And they think they're. Issue is a product problem and they think, and sometimes it can be, I'm not saying that's never a product problem, but a lot of times it's a positioning and messaging problem.

I know you've been talking a lot about this on your social media, Michelle, is that a lot of times you don't have to change the product, you have to change the [00:09:00] positioning the way you're selling it in the sales tactic. One thing I've been thinking a lot about lately. feel like I haven't used a lot of it in my marketing that I want to start using is the use of triggers and actually pumpkin spice. Is a great example of that because pumpkin spice is something that people associate with fall. That's a trigger, right? Fall comes along. Something external that just happens to us makes us go, Ooh, I want pumpkin spice. And that's because of the work of Starbucks and other coffee shops and other baked

Michelle Pulani: Candle companies.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, at candle companies associating pumpkin spice and cinnamon and pumpkin with the fall. So now we have this external trigger that fall comes. We say, oh, I've gotta go to bath and Body Works to get that fall candle. I've gotta go to Starbucks to get my pumpkin spice drink. I've got to go to my [00:10:00] favorite little small bakery because they have the most delicious pumpkin scones, right?

They've connected. A product of theirs with an external cyclical trigger that promotes sales. So when you can do that, when you can take your product and associate it with something outside of your business and even outside of like your niche, and connect what you're doing with those things, then people think. Oh, it's fall. I need pumpkin spice or a hundred other things. Oh, it's, you know, maybe one thing I'm playing with language-wise, one thing I'm playing with language-wise with, with my products is having people associate us with, when you that feeling when you like sit down at a computer and you're relieved when a client call cancels. Right. Like, so every time you think of that, that's a [00:11:00] sign that you need to scale with digital products, right? And if I can get that messaging out there, then now if someone sees that ad or sees that post and then they sit down and that happens to them, because that happens to business. I mean, I, you're a business owner.

I'm a business owner. Sometimes you're really happy when a client call cancels because you have time back in your day. Right? So if you can associate that trigger, then. Time that happens to someone. Every time someone looks at their calendar and there's seven too many calls, they're gonna think about me and my products, programs, and services.

If I can get that.

Michelle Pulani: Absolutely. And when you think about marketing, and when I think about marketing, especially with content creation, you're thinking along the lines of your ideal client, your avatar, the customer that you're speaking to, that you wanna draw into. One, your audience, and then of course your products, your programs, your offers, right through conversion.

And so when you're thinking about how you're presenting your marketing, you're typically speaking to. Fears, desires, struggles, pain [00:12:00] points, the transformation that they want at this time, the benefits and the outcome of whatever it is that you are selling. But you notice that you're typically not often selling the thing.

Right. And one of my business mentors and the one of my main coaches that I look to for support in the business space, he talks about. The vehicle. So the vehicle is the thing that's going to get the person from where they are to where they want to go. But your product, your program, your course, your offer is not the vehicle.

It's just kind of like the packaging that the vehicle comes in. So. If someone's selling pumpkin spice, which is related to a season, which is ultimately selling a feeling and an emotion, right? Because as we transition into fall, what do we want? We want cozy, we want safety. We want comfort. We want warmth.

We want these things associated and affiliated with a season that are going to elicit certain emotions. And so you'll [00:13:00] notice that. When Starbucks is positioning themselves to sell something, pumpkin spice, they're not selling a drink. Pumpkin si. Spice is the almost like vehicle, like you want pumpkin spice.

Pumpkin spice is gonna give you warmth, it's gonna give you comfort, it's gonna give you those cozy vibes. And then our latte has pumpkin spice in it. So you're gonna wanna buy our latte. But do you see how it's different than approaching not you, but as you're listening, I know you see the difference. Do

Joanna Newton: hear

Michelle Pulani: you hear it?

Are you aware of this, Joanna? No. But as you're listening, do you hear the difference Instead of, Hey, buy my latte. Oh, and by the way, it has pumpkin spice in it, and if you get pumpkin spice, it's gonna taste slightly spicy and like a pie, and it's a hot drink and it's frothy. It's like, okay, cool. That sounds nice, but how about.

Cozy, warm, inviting, curl [00:14:00] up with a book. Like you're selling the emotion, you're selling the lifestyle. You're selling what someone wants to buy into, and it's, it's something that, again, I feel like we, as marketers and as business owners, content creators, we fully have to. Learn and just embody and be able to actually turn that around.

So you're right. I have been trying to focus on that more in my content creation because I think it's actually a problem that I've struggled with for years. 'cause I have definitely been that expert, that authority, that successful individual who's really good at what they do When it came to coaching, fitness, teaching instruction, health and wellbeing.

And I feel like I could knock that at the out of the park. But when it came to actually getting online, when it came to creating content, when it came to doing my marketing, I would speak as the expert and I would speak in terms of, these are the classes that you're getting and this is what the classes are gonna help you [00:15:00] accomplish.

And you're gonna get this many modules and. It's going to have these things in it. And I got so used to speaking from like, okay, well we're gonna focus on your form. And what's so important about that is, and it just became bland and it wasn't the thing that people were looking for instead of speaking to again, the outcome and the desire.

So say I was marketing to bribe. Instead of reaching out to brides and saying, Hey, do you wanna get fit for your wedding? Is like, okay, cool. Yeah, of course I wanna get fit for my wedding. But more inclined is, imagine yourself walking down the aisle, you've just slipped into your dress and it. Fits perfectly on your body, and as you're walking down the aisle, you feel comfortable.

You feel confident. Your arms are toned, you're standing tall, and you're heading towards that groom like fully knowing that you love your body and you cannot wait for the end of the day [00:16:00] when you get to take that dress off again and show it off. And. Painting that picture and leaning into that emotion and the desire and the outcome and the transformation that your ideal client wants is marketing, is positioning and the product.

The program never changed, and that's one thing that I used to get in my head so much about is thinking that it was a product and program. Issue. Like, something's wrong with me, something's wrong with my product. Something's wrong with, oh, I get, I gotta change this. I gotta adjust the backend. I gotta do these things.

I gotta add more. I've gotta be able to offer more. No, no, no, no. It's positioning, it's marketing.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. And when you, you go in that direction, I think it actually, um. Opens up opportunities in your funnel at the awareness stage and the conversion stage. Because say we take the bride example for a second, and you are painting this picture of someone who wants to [00:17:00] like, feel and look amazing on their wedding day, right?

So you're not already saying you're not targeting people, brides who are trying to get fit. And because that's a much more narrow niche, you are targeting brides who wanna look and feel their their best on their wedding day. Right? You can get sort of a bigger group on the funnel. And sometimes when we talk about niching down, it scares people because they're like, oh. You start thinking, I need brides age 20 to 25 in Southern California. Who ha And, and that's like crazy. But instead it's brides who wanna look and feel their best on their wedding day. You are niching a little bit by demographics, but mostly by psychographics, right? Like it's

Michelle Pulani: Ding, ding.

Joanna Newton: different concept. at the other end of it, of your funnel. You can have multiple modalities to achieve that goal that might fit different personas. Now, to start, you just probably won. Don't, [00:18:00] don't go crazy, but say you have this going, you could offer a. program in multiple ways. One-on-one coaching, group coaching, completely asynchronous, an ebook, all different price points that are gonna fit a different person.

Someone's gonna come into it and say, I don't have time for one-on-one coaching or group coaching, but if you gave me a program and I knew I had 15 minutes a day, it needs to be more than 15 minutes, but say it

Michelle Pulani: people, I've done programs that are five minutes of

Joanna Newton: Right, exactly. Like whatever that program is. Then I can say, oh cool, this one's not for me, but she's got a 20 minute a day program that I can do at my house. I'm gonna pick that one and then you can. Then on the product end, think about maybe some of the different objections and have different versions of the same product. You don't even have to build to complete. You can probably use pieces that you have over and over and over again in slightly different ways that appeal to different people.

It's kind of how pumpkin [00:19:00] spice works, right? You're selling cozy vibes, right? When someone goes to Starbucks, there's not just a pumpkin spice latte. There's a pumpkin chai. Tea, there's a muffin, there's a this, there's a that, and maybe you wanna try it all, so you keep going back and buying it all. Or maybe you're not a coffee person, so the pumpkin, ginger, chai is the one for you, right? But you're selling the vibes and then getting the products. It's not the other. It's not, here's the products to get the vibes. It's like the other way.

Michelle Pulani: Absolutely. This is one of the main things I actually wanted to chat about today is people, so much focus. And I have to admit, like I've been doing this for a long time. I've listened to a lot of people. I've had a lot of mastermind groups and courses and like things like that. And so now when everyone, anyone's like, oh my God, I had the greatest idea for a product.

I have the greatest idea for a program, I will admit. I'm a little jaded and I'm like, okay, cool, that's awesome. [00:20:00] Like products, dime a dozen products, programs dime a dozen. Um, and you can create, like I, you, I have the same mindset as you is where you can take anything from an expertise, from a skill, from, um, a profession and turn it into any.

Type of product, like the opportunities are endless of how you could deliver and actually get someone to go through the value add, the education, the training, whatever it is that you wanna be able to offer to monetize, right? And so what I focus on now and what I try to help people and encourage people to see.

Is, how can you go from idea to sale as fast as possible? How can you have an MVP and what that looks like is not taking six months to create the product, the program, the course, not taking a year to think through, should I do a membership? Should I offer four weeks? Should I do six weeks? Should I do a mastermind?

What, [00:21:00] like, what is the product program offer gonna look like? It's important to consider. But it is so much more important to build the audience and the traction. And Joanna, for millennial, like you guys really typically work with people who have already traction an audience and then you help and support them through the product and program creation, delivery launch, and people get hung up on the actual thing, even in the physical product space.

I see a lot of people go wrong by focusing so much on the product and optimizing the product, the thing before they even build or traction a potential audience for the sale. And so as quickly as you possibly can. Start an interim count, start a TikTok. Start creating content around the pain points, the struggles, the desires, the outcomes, the benefits, all of those things that your ideal client is looking for.

And see if you can traction that first, that costs $0 and a little bit of your time and some market research and. Then once [00:22:00] you have that, you can start to figure out what it is they want, how you can position it, and how you're gonna launch, make it, do it, whatever. But so many people think the product is the crux.

And I get it when you're like, if you're in the tech space. If you're in the apps development space, if you're in like something that does require a lot of product development research, let's say you're in the pharmaceutical space and you have years of actually developing something. That's a very different situation.

Obviously, we're speaking more to your personal brand, to maybe your e-commerce product or anything else, but even still, a lot of those companies are working off of data points knowing the struggles or pain points that other people have experienced or identifying themselves, right? If you're a software developer, you've been in the software space for 20 years, you notice that this is a gap in the market, and then you go off and launch your own thing, right?

Different approach, different situation, but I think it's so [00:23:00] important for us to establish the audience first as much as humanly possible.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, and I've worked with both people who have zero audience and are building their products, programs, services from scratch, and people who have an audience and then. Come me to like set up that like thing that they can monetize or they've tried to monetize through a course and are looking for improvements for scaling. And I will say like I've worked with probably 300 course creators and the people who are successful focus on audience building first. And the hardest thing for me to do for someone else. Is build their audience. I think it's really hard. Now, once you have an audience, if you're managing that audience, I think you can have someone, um, manage what you've already created and continue to build that up. But if you're starting from scratch. [00:24:00] Thinking you can hire a VA to get you your Instagram following, I think is, is just not realistic. I'm not saying it never happens, just saying I've worked with 300 plus course creators and the people that I see are successful are people who built their audiences. From scratch on their own. Maybe with little design help or video editing help, but they really were talking to people, growing their audience and then say, Hey, now I want a product or program or service for them. The other group that I see successful, 'cause I think sometimes we. We get obsessed with, and it's understandably why we get obsessed with social media growth.

The other group that I see really successful are coaches and creators who've built themselves up as a, as a one-on-one coaching provider. sold through referrals and, um, word of mouth and job boards and cold dms, right? They've built their audience that way. They might not have a huge social following. But they have people, they have [00:25:00] email addresses. They have people who know them and refer them. folks might not have a huge social following, but they're also able to launch like a group coaching cohorts or a digital product or program because they have a. Group of people, a community they built, even if they're not an influencer, have a huge social media following. They have people who, that they can reach out to and say like, Hey, guess what? You know, you did one-on-one with me a year ago. Now I'm offering this group program that I think you'd love.

michelle-pualani--she-her-_3_09-09-2025_114050: Mm-hmm. I think it also makes it so much easier to then transition into the marketing space, right? Because you have demonstrated and shown the type of. Of language that you've been able to use to gain that clientele in the first place, and then you also have the languaging that they're using, which is just fuel for your marketing.

I wanna go back to the psychographics really quickly because I think it's such an important thing to really highlight is that when you are focused on building, it's so, so important to understand the [00:26:00] psychographics of your. Ideal client, your audience members. And I think that influencers actually understand this really, really well because they're working off the sentiment of like, this is what they want.

This is what my followers want to hear, this is what they want me to talk about. They've asked me these questions. I wanna share these type of products. I wanna show them this aspect of my day because they've already shown and engaged with that. And so I think influencers are typically less. Influenced ha ha ha is

Joanna Newton: You're very pun today,

Michelle Pulani: I know. You know, just let it all come out. Um, so they are in the beginning, they're not thinking of their niche in terms of, okay, I wanna talk to mom's age. 40 to 45 who are on their second kid and dah, dah, dah, dah. They're thinking about, okay, [00:27:00] I'm a mom with two kids, and if I were me, I would want to hear about.

Healthy snacks and cleaning protocols and how I manage and balance social media content creation while having kids. So they're thinking about it more from the psychographic side of things already. And then once they actually have the data from their social media content, they can establish, oh, I have predominantly 85% women in my audience.

They're aged 40 to 45 and they're based in the US because we can obviously garner those analytics from our. Content platforms, right? But they're not usually driven by those niche demographics from the beginning and this celebrity presence and influencer status brings me to the other thing I wanted to talk about today, which are you and have you watched Love Island?

Joanna Newton: So I watched like an episode of Love Island and like I get [00:28:00] tiktoks about it, but I don't watch it, but sort of fascinated by it.

Michelle Pulani: So I don't watch it. No judgment for anyone who does. I have just never been a reality TV person. I have seen some clips and I did go down this rabbit hole of this one relationship that I thought was intriguing in the things that people were saying. So same thing like on social media. I was like doing a little.

Digging and watching some tiktoks on it, but I get the concept right. Love Island. Now. Love Island is a, is just a good representation of reality television as a whole. And if you think of who is like the most top followed woman, woman, or influencer, like in our, in our time,

Joanna Newton: I don't know who it is.

Michelle Pulani: it's the Kardashians.

Joanna Newton: Oh yeah, it's of course the Kade Kardashians

Michelle Pulani: So where did the Kardashians start in their career?

Joanna Newton: tv.

Michelle Pulani: television. And if you look at a lot of the people, [00:29:00] so I actually was up in Tahoe this last time and they had just, they'd been working on this restaurant in the hotel that we stay at in South Lake Tahoe that is called Wolf. I think it's Wolf now.

I think it's Wolf by Vanderpump. Do you know who Vanderpump is?

Joanna Newton: Rules. I've never seen that show either. But that's a

Michelle Pulani: Okay,

Joanna Newton: a reality show.

Michelle Pulani: this woman created her entire persona. Fame success, financial wealth, off of reality television, and then spun that into a liquor brand and then spun that into these restaurants and spun it into X, X, x, X. Now, when you look at that model, you think like. Well, okay, they just got popular, like being on television and like garnering an audience.

But that is the direction I feel like, of the influence that is being created [00:30:00] in the world. When you look at those big personal brands, not just do they come from reality television, but think about your artists, and we've talked about Taylor Swift a lot, Sabrina Carpenter, all of these people. These people are creating personas that that people are tapped into and tuned into.

What is the other thing that we're seeing about reality television that also taps into the things that we typically talk about on this podcast? And if you're not yet, hit subscribe for the Click Tease podcast. 'cause weekly we have these discussions about how it relates to your business, your personal brand, and how you can pivot and change your marketing to reach your ideal clients.

What is that thing? Authenticity, vulnerability. It. It's literally reality. And now obviously we know that they're staged and all these things, but it's just humans being humans and how many people tune into it and how much money does it garner? And how are people so obsessed? Like every, not every conversation, but so many of the conversations flip back to Love Island, the bachelor [00:31:00] name, other reality television, the Mormon one.

There's a show about Mormon wives,

Joanna Newton: Lives of Mormon

the Secret lives of Mormon wives. What,

Lives

Michelle Pulani: like, again, I've never been a reality TV show person. I'm a little bit off the beaten path with a lot of things, but people are so interested. In other humans, being humans in the context of their lives. It's authenticity, vulnerability, just truth of the life that they're living to some degree.

And that is the exact same thing as influencers. Our social media platforms showing influencers, yes, they're staged, yes, they're formatted. Yes, it's curated, but at the end of the day it's, it's all freaking reality television that we're tuning into.

Joanna Newton: and it's likely personalities and their personas that a lot of these people take on reality TV are likely close to who they are. 

Michelle Pulani: Yeah. 

Joanna Newton: picking and choosing and curating, but it's, it's [00:32:00] real in a way. It's just amplified and manufactured a

Michelle Pulani: I'll point out real quick actually, because I watched so, um. The mom, the Kardashian mom, she has a masterclass on branding in masterclass, you know, the app. And I watched it and she actually said when they were doing, she had sit down, talk to her family, and they decided that if they were gonna do this reality television show thing, they were just gonna be themselves.

They had complete editing rights. Before anything went live and aired, they never took anything out. So everything that they showed from DUIs to pregnancies, to arguments to everything else were legitimate. It was, you know, their family and those their people. And now of course, obviously their brands and everything that they've done has become so much more curated.

But realistically they started from that more like raw, very true to themselves kind of place, you know?

Joanna Newton: One of the interesting [00:33:00] things that I saw this week online was from a TikTok creator. Um, have you heard of Kevin Ashton? Do you know who that is?

Michelle Pulani: Is he the one who has the super intense morning routine that everyone like makes fun of or,

Joanna Newton: no. Oh, I know who that is. But no, he, so he is a sorority chef

Michelle Pulani: okay.

Joanna Newton: cooks at a sorority. Okay. So I started finding his content last year, and I love it. I think part of it is my, my dad was a chef and he worked in like commercial kitchens, not necessarily restaurant chefs. And so I think for me, it just kind of reminds me of my dad and like.

Cooking with him and all of that. I think that's why I love it. But he basically does these videos where he shows what he's cooking for the sorority and they all kind of have like the same hook at the beginning, the same little sign off at the end. But he is just showing what he's cooking at the sorority. And then there's a girl that from the sorority that reviews the videos. So they've got this really cool, like back and forth. Now [00:34:00] Kevin recently hit 5 million on TikTok,

Michelle Pulani: Whoa.

Joanna Newton: so he has, yeah, it's huge. He has 5 million followers on TikTok just sharing these recipes. And when he is home, he sometimes does like home recipes, but it's mostly just videos.

Like, here's what I made at the sorority today. It's chicken piccata and then like making chicken piccata, right? And. One of the things he said, 'cause he was, they recently did a piece on him, like the New York Times food blog. And so it's a video interview and they're showing his, um, like showing hi that behind the scenes and all of that. one of the things he said that really stuck with me is he said he, you know, was filming videos all of the time. He's been doing this for about five years. Um, he got to about 300,000, which is. Huge on TikTok, but still not like, not massive. Right. Um, when he started growing, it was when he started talking about his. Personal [00:35:00] struggle dealing with a cancer diagnosis. So he does. He has, he has cancer. He's being treated for it. He started, he doesn't like talk about it like crazy, but he started mentioning it and sharing it and that's when he started getting like way bigger results, way more following and be starting to share some of his personality and his personal life and not just recipes is what got him to that. That level. And I think sometimes, you know, I think we're both a little bit in the perfectionist club like I think it can be for me to wanna share the real life things that make me, me, struggles, the things that I'm dealing with, the messiness. And it's very easy to wanna show, like put together, curated Joanna who has all of her shit together, For this creator, he's now at 5 million status. He says his [00:36:00] actual sorority job isn't what pays his bills. Like he gets paid something, but it's not much. It's like TikTok and his TikTok views and his partnership and things like that, that are what make him money. And he did that by sharing his life, know, and he didn't do it in a way that was like a sob story.

It, I think he did it in a way that was authentic to him to share what he's going through. But he is really like, inspired people by sharing his life and people love his content and watch it and wait for it and wanna watch the reviews and it's a whole thing. Um, and what made the difference from him, you know, from being a micro influencer to a influencer was sharing his personal life.

Michelle Pulani: I get stuck on that, and you're absolutely right from this perfectionist mentality. So I don't know if you've seen or heard or read, I've been seeing a lot of stuff about building in public versus building in private.

Joanna Newton: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Michelle Pulani: I, you know, it's funny, I don't know, like. I would love data and analytics on the [00:37:00] source of like trends and concepts.

I've actually thought about this before even just understanding, you know, if we see trends on social media that are like either lip-syncing trends or sounds to certain types of movement and things that are happening. It's like, where did the trend come from? Like who is the original person who actually put this together?

You know, because the time you see it, it's been filtered, filtered, filtered, and you have no idea where it came from. Even if you check the original audio, it's not always where it was sourced. Right? Or where the idea came from. So that to me is incredibly interesting. But this idea and concept has recently lifted.

I'll see that, right? Like you'll see content creators talking about similar topics around the same time, or they're bringing certain ideas to the forefront and it's hard to tell, you know, if they saw something and that inspired them or whether it's kind of like in the collective consciousness coming up.

But this idea of building in private versus building in public. And so there is a challenge to [00:38:00] building in public, right? Because. You're left open to vulnerability, scrutiny, criticism, you're, you know, sharing your failures along with your successes. But if you're trying to build a place of sitting in authority, it can be really challenging to want to do exactly what you said is like share relatable things.

So from my perspective, right. I really struggled this when I was doing her healthy habits because I felt like I always needed to be on top of my game, whether it was nutrition, fitness, sleep, lifestyle, meditation, all of the things that I felt like I preached, I needed to practice and not just like. At a normal level, but like a high performance level.

And then when I feel like I didn't, I felt guilty and shameful. Which is funny because of course what I was preaching was to acknowledge that if something doesn't go to plan, you don't actually fulfill the habit. That's okay. It's more important that you just get back to it. Like you shouldn't feel the shame and guilt, guilt, [00:39:00] embarrassment.

But I was doing the exact opposite of obviously what I was. Teaching now, move on to personal development. Same thing. It's like I'm going through these massive bouts of growth and personal development and reflection and philosophy in life, but then I would get into these holes and then I would feel like a terrible person because who am I to sit in this place of authority and be able to preach these things when I myself am actually struggling?

Same thing with marketing and business. It can feel really daunting to have to pitch. You and I have talked about this a lot is when you're on sales calls, and I know that you're at a different place confidence wise, but in the past it's like no matter how much you've demonstrated success for yourself, no matter how much you've demonstrated success with clients, no matter how much you've been able to do and share, it feels like.

Who am I to be doing this? Like, who am I to be sharing this? Can I actually teach? Am I an authority? Am I an expert? And so I know that I have struggled with that to a big degree. And [00:40:00] then also deciding what do I share on show social media? How candid should I be? How should I present myself online? Should I always be.

Put together, especially for women like makeup, hair, everything good to go. I know there are a lot of people who have different versions of themselves that they present at different times, but are those just the influencers and content creators? And then are those not like the coaches and the experts?

And the creators? So I think there's a lot of. Confusion when it comes to those things is where do we sit? Where do we land? How much do we share, and how do we present ourselves for our personal brand? Being professional, but also being candid.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, and I, I think one of the things, and this is something I am like, I've really been digging into this year for myself with my content and figuring out how to do that, because I think we've talked about this before in the podcast, but like, I feel like when I get someone one-on-one. And I'm working with them. They have [00:41:00] so much, or even like on a discovery call, so much trust for me, wanna work with me, all of that. But when I, I, I can't infuse that into my content. Like I struggle with that. what I've been trying to think about is like a. Actually figure out like what am I an expert in? And really sit in that, like really sit in what is the thing that I actually am better at than other people.

That I am an expert at it. And what's funny is it's not marketing for me. Like I'm good at marketing. I know marketing, marketing happens to be the vehicle for what I do. It's what I've spent time doing. I do know a lot about it, but my, my personal differentiating factor are two things. It's. Systems and creating systems to get shit done. And it's being able to figure things out. Like I don't know anyone who knows how to figure out things better than me. I'm sure they exist, but like I could figure out just about anything, right? [00:42:00] I happen to be in marketing. I could do that in probably a lot of different areas in my life. And so if I boil down and start to actually think what am I, what am I an expert in? And then how do I show that? My content, and I was actually thinking about this this week. I have two clients who are launching right now. We're like mid-launch. We're the pre-launch phase, which means they're running some events and we're trying to get as many people to 'em as possible. And I was helping someone with something on Many Chat and I'm looking at, I'm poking around many Chat, and I found this feature I never even knew was in ManyChat, Old me would've been. So embarrassed that there was something in ManyChat I didn't know about, Like I would've almost been so embarrassed I didn't know about it and think of it in advance that I would've never told my client it existed. ' cause I would've been like, how did I not know this? Right? Knew me, just says, oh my gosh, I was clicking around ManyChat and I found [00:43:00] this thing you could use. Let me see if I can set it up. And I showed them and set it up with them. Right, because I saw it, I was like, I know we can use this feature and what this feature is. As a side note, for anyone who has ManyChat, I had no idea you could do this. is known as being like the comment to DM automation where you can say, comment, flow, send this. You can actually make sequences in ManyChat that you can blast out to anyone who's a contact on your list, like an email sequence. Mind blown, because I, I'm looking, I'm like, what is this thing? Maybe it's new.

I don't know. I'm like, what is this thing? And I start poking around, which is gonna totally maximize their launches. If they can just send a dm, Hey, I'm running a thing. Do you wanna come? Yes, click yes. Great. Here's the link. Sign up with With a blast. Be a dm. We all know email is oversaturated, right? We know email.

Yes, we're gonna have emails, but now we have this whole other vehicle. Old Joanna who didn't know what I'm best [00:44:00] at is. Figuring shit out would've been like, I can't tell them this. 'cause I'm gonna show that I'm not perfect. And I don't know anything. Knew me, said, Hey, we've got this cool thing. Let's try it.

Let's test it. Let's see if it works.

Michelle Pulani: Yeah, and that's a part of, you know, our growth and that's a part of our businesses evolving and changing, and our personal brands as we start to find new skills. Get into things that we like. We don't like establish passions. So I am still in that same phase of really developing what do I want my personal brand to look like?

I know I love personal development, I know I love business and marketing, but those are all super broad. So what is that focus? What is that niche? What is that specific thing that I'm uniquely qualified to do and to offer? And I think it evolves. And it changes, right? And I think that's so important for us to keep in mind is know that what we choose right now is not gonna be our forever thing.

That it's okay if we change next year. It's okay if we pivot in five years. It's [00:45:00] okay to do something different. And recognize that establishing what that clarity looks like, what that niche looks like, what those psychographics looks like for our ideal client avatar is. What we're focused on now, that it doesn't have to be the same in 10 years.

So taking time to reflect on that, taking time to really establish those things. So if you are not yet, go to the link in our show notes. It's for our substack. Every single week we have these same discussions about what's happening, what's relevant. What pop culture is talking about, but how it relates to you, your business, your brand, and your marketing overall.

And in the substack, we actually extract the biggest takeaways and lessons and then give you tactical, tangible action items. So you can take what we talked about more generally as concepts, ideas, and then I'm apply them in your business, in your content creation, in your marketing. So go, uh, subscribe, and we send out those emails every [00:46:00] single week as a follow up. 

Joanna Newton: Thank you so much for listening to this episode today. We talked all about how to grow your brand using authenticity, sharing yourself really understanding what it is you offer and how to attract people based on psychographics instead of just normal demographics like looking at age and gender and locations and things like that, and how when you really focus on selling that outcome over the. Product over the specific thing. You can really grow your business in a new and dynamic way. So thank you so much for listening. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend and subscribe so you can watch the next one.