Marketing Root Work Podcast - Guest Reme Mancera - Your Story is Your Brand

In this podcast I talk with Reme Mancera,  a strategist who specializes in helping her clients create "Personal Brand Stories."

In today's noisy, cluttered marketplace it can feel daunting to create a brand identity that is distinctive let alone one that authentically reflects who you are. Reme uses a specific framework to lead clients through their stories then helps them turn these stories into brands and offers.

Reme combines her warm and creativity with practical, strategic, smart business practices. She is a delight to be with!

If you find the Marketing Root Work podcast valuable, please become a subscriber! My mission is to change the way small business owners market themselves and it’s very important to me that I reach as many people as possible.

Transcript

08.27.24 Marketing Root Work Podcast - Guest Rene Mancera

Okay, here we go. Okay. hello, everybody. This is Judy Murdoch and welcome to the marketing root work podcast. Today, my guest is Rene Mancea

Reme  is a strategist who specializes in personal brand story. She can help you strategically share your story, to build trust with cold audiences, and connect deeply with your existing community.

Reme has developed the Story Connectors Framework to identify 10 moments in someone's journey that highlight 10 key factors of their offerings.

She guides her clients to the confidence to articulate their stories and the clarity to know how to use them strategically.

Remi is the host of Who Cares About My Story, a podcast on sharing your personal brand story, on how your personal brand story can impact your business.

I have listened to that, Remi, and it's terrific. It's a great podcast.

@6:55 - Reme Mancera | Personal Brand Story (Reme Mancera)

So welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. I am delighted to have this conversation around all things, personal brand story, and all that stuff.

@7:07 - Judy Murdoch (judymurdoch.com)

Yes, yeah, my pleasure. offer something that I think is really unique and extremely useful for a lot of businesses.

So the first question I have for you is just tell me a little bit about your background and what kind of way what led you to this idea of using storytelling as part of branding and marketing.

@7:32 - Reme Mancera | Personal Brand Story (Reme Mancera)

Yes, sure. So first I started my online business because I wanted to go out of a windowless office. And so I quit the job, I get into, OK, I am going to do.

And I became a virtual assistant for course creators. That was my first part of my business. And soon I realized what I enjoy most was the

@8:00 - Judy Murdoch (judymurdoch.com)

designing strategies.

@8:02 - Reme Mancera | Personal Brand Story (Reme Mancera)

So I took back my background from the university on communication, marketing and PR and things like that and then get new training on personal branding, digital strategies.

And there I became a personal brand strategies. Through the work with clients, where I get fascinated with personal brand story and how, because you know each of us we have a different life path and one of the main things of personal brand is highlighting what makes you different.

So it makes total paths that you use your story in a strategic way and make that as a tool for creating relationships with people.

New audiences, people from your community. it that are already around you and what you have for them and then through that providing context of who you are, why you got into that path and providing connection and lastly providing contrast.

So you are showcasing how you are someone unique, you are someone relatable and you are someone trustworthy through stories.

@9:25 - Judy Murdoch (judymurdoch.com)

Yeah, no, that's great. As you know, I really love storytelling and it was great. What a great idea you have really.

It's the other thing I love about storytelling is that you give people sort of points of connection, like you give people by sharing your story, you will also uncover all sorts of points in your life that other people will be able to connect to.

Yeah, that's that's surprisingly important. I think it's another it's another way that differentiates you and it also gives people some really powerful ways to sort of feel like they know you already.

@10:14 - Reme Mancera | Personal Brand Story (Reme Mancera)

Yeah, exactly and one of the things and that's why also I started to develop my own framework was that at the beginning of my own journey in business.

I get a lot of messages just with this idea of using storytelling in your business and it was overwhelmed by the idea.

I was just thinking I don't have an epic story and I was just thinking how how I make it this relevant for my audience and through the work with clients and realize that this was not just me there is there were a lot of people having the same feeling of okay why this is relevant and

It's also why the name of my podcast, because that's a concern for some people. And through the work with that, I realized that instead of having one big story, maybe it will be easier to find 10 little moments of your story.

And the most important for me is that choosing them strategically. So if you have a reason why you are telling that story, it makes it easier for you to share in my opinion.

That's why each of those moments are connected to one specific key factor. That way is in your mind when you are sharing the story, you know the reason why, because it's like, yeah, I am telling this part of my story, because that way my audience will understand why it's important for me to work with them, or why this value is important and how in other moments I'm

on journey, there is a story, there is a moment, is something I can share, and they can understand a bit better about who I am, why this is important to me, most importantly as a business owner, which is my approach to work, what makes my approach different from others, because that's going to have them also to decide if what I have for them is the right fit for them, or if it's not, and it's okay, we want them to have the possibility to take the decision.

@12:38 - Judy Murdoch (judymurdoch.com)

Okay, thanks, that's very helpful. if somebody were coming to you and you were explaining to them, like this kind of story framework, do you give them specific prompts, like it sounds like you were talking about values, or like what types of, excuse me,

give people for these 10 stories, because it sounds like then what you want to do is you want to sort of trigger memories and a narrative.

@13:09 - Reme Mancera | Personal Brand Story (Reme Mancera)

Yes, so as I said, the basic foundation of this framework is that you don't go for one big story but just in 10 moments.

So each of story connected to one element of what you offer, that story connects or is there is 10 categories of them, 10 types.

@13:38 - Judy Murdoch (judymurdoch.com)

So tell them like give me an example of a time where you overcame adversity, is that sort of like how you prompt people?

@13:48 - Reme Mancera | Personal Brand Story (Reme Mancera)

Yeah, so in the actual service, in the one-on-one service that they provide. What I do, I provide them with a questioner where I have

I've been to kind of refresh all the memories related to back past work experience, academic background, lifestyle, all general with our specific prong just to have them.

Like all these memories are there and in a way later in the session because I have a session with them, I can ask them about specific episodes and at specific moments, let's say a work experience that they have, how that could be connected to this specific offer that you have.

So they have this questionnaire as a way to refresh their memories and think about that. I always like to make the parallel like when you were going to ask for a job and you need.

to remember your CV and have clarity on your experience. So you get ready for that.

@15:08 - Reme Mancera | Personal Brand Story (Reme Mancera)

Kind of that situation where, okay, where you have been thinking about all this, your past experience. So it's easier for us in the conversation to get to the prompts.

And there, I am specifically because I always like to connect the story, your personal brand story is connected to your audience and your own friend.

Okay. That's super important because it needs to be Yes, yes.

@15:42 - Judy Murdoch (judymurdoch.com)

Exactly. That was exactly what I was thinking. was like a very, like I I like how everything you're asking people is like you keep bringing them back to their offer, their business, their brand, which is really smart.

really, really smart. I really like that, Rami.

@16:02 - Reme Mancera | Personal Brand Story (Reme Mancera)

Thank you. And this base on the experience of with clients, because I've seen, I have been as a not a teacher, but yeah, as an instructor helping other communities that they were helping around on personal brand in Canada.

And there I have seen a lot of people how they get stuck when they needed to share their stories, because they didn't see the connection and they didn't see the value.

And there I was thinking how to make it clear for them that is relevant. And to me, the point that was missing in that moment was the connection with their offering.

Because for them was like, how is sharing about my whole life make plans for my audience? Because yes, you are sharing specifically things that make sense.

and because it's like it can be something unrelated and I love that because it's like you have the opportunity to create unique samples and unique metaphors and I can give you an example if you want.

@17:17 - Judy Murdoch (judymurdoch.com)

I would guess that would be really awesome.

@17:20 - Reme Mancera | Personal Brand Story (Reme Mancera)

So one of the categories of the story connectors is a story connector that is related to your past work experience.

So I have a client, she's a transformational coach and one of the ideas that are really important to her is to make her clients question things and so just having this approach where you just don't get things for granted, you question things and you think about your own way of doing things.

So this is one idea that she has. Okay, before you. being a coach, to work as a biologist in a...

@18:05 - Judy Murdoch (judymurdoch.com)

Wow, interesting. That is a very... That took a really different background for our coach, most of the time they come out of more like teaching or some kind of a service profession.

@18:22 - Reme Mancera | Personal Brand Story (Reme Mancera)

This is very interesting. Yeah, she has these different backgrounds and what are the stories that I was asking her.

do you have a moment in that when you were working as a biologist? Do you have some story around a moment where you question things and they're digging into her, exploring into her story?

She shared with me a moment where she changed her protocol because I quickly, I planned you. She had to

make quality control to the scales that she used in her experiments and what's the protocol that every day she needs to make that control even if she didn't use that scale and for her was like what a waste of time if I am not using this every morning I need to spend time just making the quality control of this scale doesn't make sense but so she was questioning how to change that how to make things different and at the end she gets to with her with the team and and she gets to them change the protocol so she needed to do the quality control just when she was going to use the scale just yeah right much more sense yeah but you know how it is sometimes there is a protocol you follow these these are the rules yeah totally but how she is in life how she her approach

to work with the lab but also now as a coach is I need to question things I need to find ways where things make sense and I don't take the status quo as the only thing possible here.

So now choose that story for make their clients understand and their audience understand that and there are more that could be more people having that angle of questioning things but I agree there are no one else with that same life path and also Chica Muse the lab samples and even in the naming of the services Chica Muse all her background I really like that and it's a way to make her brand her personal brand memorable right yeah yeah totally that's like no that's that's a great example thanks for sharing that I um I really like in particular

@21:01 - Judy Murdoch (judymurdoch.com)

the idea that she can like use metaphors from her past work as a way to sort of brand herself and like make herself more distinctive because I think certainly my experience has been that marketing can become really abstract and we can really get kind of like stuck in our heads and sort of these like intellectual I don't even know what to call them exactly but like we kind of set up these these questions for ourselves about like what makes me distinct or how can I come up with either a program name or a company name that kind of like helps me stand out you know from all the other coaches because there's a lot of coaches and in truth I know that each coach really does bring something unique to their to their business and to their relationship with their clients I mean I know that.

But it can feel, when you kind of get up into this sort of abstraction, it can feel very, it can feel daunting.

And you, you quite often, either we will sort of lapse into trying, like kind of like going for something we've seen someone else do, right?

It's not really ours, but we're taking, like we're kind of borrowing something from what we've seen, because it just kind of like sounds good, maybe it sounds kind of impressive and, you know, like that sort of a thing.

Or people just get stuck, I mean people just get stuck, and they just, they don't know where to go from there.

So I really, really like all of the above, Remy, really, yeah, really cool, very, very cool ideas. So question for you, if, for people listening,

what how can people find you? Because I have no doubt. I hope that some people will want to get in touch with you.

Subscribe to your podcast, all that good stuff.

@23:09 - Reme Mancera | Personal Brand Story (Reme Mancera)

Oh, yeah. So my website is rememancera.com. And also on the social media, they can find me on Instagram and LinkedIn.

@23:22 - Judy Murdoch (judymurdoch.com)

Those are two channels.

@23:27 - Reme Mancera | Personal Brand Story (Reme Mancera)

yeah, and for people that want to see more examples of the story connectors, I share a series of examples in my content.

And they can reach out to me. So I can hand pick a set that makes sense for the specific needs.

So that's also a way. And I am always open to have, like, clarity calls where they can ask me about a specific question about how it's working with me.

things like that of course.

@24:02 - Judy Murdoch (judymurdoch.com)

That's so great. So what I will do for people listening is all of this will be in the podcast notes and it will also be on my on my website so people can like if you want to go to the links and such you can it will be easy for you to do that.

Okay so Remy thank you again for being such a great guest this was really fun.

@24:21 - Reme Mancera | Personal Brand Story (Reme Mancera)

Oh thank you very much it was super fun.