Why Connection Matters More Than Marketing

We explore human-centered branding with Anne Gillespie, digging into why clarity comes before campaigns. We share tools to pause, delegate, and lead with courage so teams align and customers finally get what you do.

• brand therapy as the path to purpose and voice
• branding as daily behavior, not just visuals
• skipping the why and wasting marketing budgets
• collaboration unlocked by sharing fear
• quarterly focus and two-priority planning
• delegation to fight quiet depletion
• branding vs marketing demystified
• one action: rewrite your website’s first sentence
• aligning your digital footprint for consistency
• outcomes of rebranding: better fit clients and team relief

A simple starting point: the first sentence on your website

Anne’s “Share Your Fear” leadership tool and why it builds trust fast

Start here (Anne’s quick homework):

Go to your website and read the first sentence.
Does it clearly say who you are, what you do, and who you help?
If not, that’s your first fix.

Connect with Anne Gillaspie:

Website: https://fixandform.com/

Speaker site: https://theannegillaspie.com/

Podcast: https://www.onlyfounderspodcast.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annegillaspie/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annegillaspie

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fixandform

Transcript

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Welcome And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the Delay the Binge Podcast, a space to slow down, get curious, and explore what's underneath the habits that keep pulling at us. I'm your host, Pam Dwyer. Enjoy the show. Hey friends, welcome back to the Delay the Binge Podcast. I'm your host, Pam Dwyer, and today's episode is one I've really been looking forward to. I'm joined by Anne Gillespie, founder of Fix and Forum. She works with founders and teams to clarify how their brand shows up. Not just visually, but in the way people experience it day to day. We're talking about brand alignment and what it really looks like to show up intentionally in your business. And welcome. I'm so glad you're here today.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Hi, Pam. Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Oh my goodness. Well, can you tell us, take a moment first, before we get all into branding and everything, tell us a little bit about you and what you're doing these days.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Yeah.

Anne’s Story And Human-Centered Lens

SPEAKER_01 1:03

I live in Colorado. I am a native to Denver. Grew up here, born and raised. I went to Colorado State University. I love the following hobbies, and they have re-entered my life in fierce ways in my 40s. I love to dance. I'm a dancer and I attend classes at a studio when I can. I love to snowboard and hike. I love to play poker and blackjack. And I love board games and really fun, deep conversation and laughter that happens around games. I've been with my husband for 17 years, and we have three kids, six, eight, and 10. And one of the most favorite things that we do as a family is play games around the dinner table. It's just so bonding. And currently I am working on building my speaking business. So I'm doing more facilitation of workshops and keynotes, as well as guesting on podcasts. Um, but I'm also really passionate about human-centric work and what that means. And we'll get into that with fixed informs can apply human-centric attributes to their business to really connect more with relationships because businesses are grown through relationships. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

We need to hang out. Absolutely. I mean my family and I, we love board games too. That's how we we spend time together, is with all these board games.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

But I love that.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

What's your favorite board game? Oh my gosh. It's um, oh gosh, there's so many. I mean, we have different ages too. I have grandchildren that are 11 and 6. And so you can imagine the difference of board games. But their favorite, I guess, is and I can't remember the name of it right now. It's the where you have to guess who the person is that gets the card that's the culprit, you know, like the bad guy. And so you have to do all these ends with words, and I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it, but yeah, they love that. Oh, chameleon. It's called Chameleon. And cool. That's a new one. Well, all the age, different ages can play it. So I'm gonna look that up.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Mine is I love sequence, sequence for adults, but then they have a sequence for kids. Yeah. The animals, and I love the strategy behind that game. My son, he's eight, he's really good at that game. It's scary. I'm like, I don't want to play you anymore. I just feel like a loser.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

So it's maybe you could explain how he needs to let you in every now and then. Exactly. Exactly.

Why Most Teams Skip The Why

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Well, I want to start here with fix and form, a few fix and form questions. Like, um, so when people first reach out to you, what do you usually notice that they're hoping to understand or clarify? Like, what are they looking for?

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Yeah. Usually they reach out saying, we need a new website, or we need to grow, we need more customers. We just we're not really getting traction with the right people. Or people don't understand what we do. And I don't like the website because it doesn't explain what we do. Um, but I usually get people saying, I am confused about how to tell my story. I have it all in my head, and I don't really understand how to put it on paper in a way that's going to make people want to work with us. So those are usually some common triggers that we hear. And oftentimes the clarity that comes from my personal work with the consulting side of it first, which we call brand therapy, is often what happens as step one with any fix informed client. So brand therapy can be with or without the full branding from transformation of logo, visuals, um, website, and all of that. We actually can do some of those brand therapy sessions, which are 90-minute talk therapy sessions, but for business. Um, and they're really talking about your brand. Now, branding can be internal and external. And so what I teach on is the internal brand is so important. The culture, the people, the processes, how you guys do the work is very important just as much as how that team delivers the external brand, which is the experience that you're hoping to get a five out of five star review on.

unknown 5:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

And that sounds so much about the way what I've been looking for too, we know, with my own branding as of late. But do you ever find that sometimes the the brand of a new client maybe feels off a little bit or or that it needs to be revamped? And and what tends to be underneath that, like their feeling, maybe their why. Have they lost sight of their why? I guess is what I'm asking. Do you see that a lot?

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Yeah, Pam, I wouldn't even say lost sight of the why. I said they never even took the time and quiet to find the why. There's so many business owners that just go. You have an idea, you have an opportunity, there's someone that came to you with a product or service idea. You guys were, you know, talking over

Brand Therapy And Agency Partnerships

SPEAKER_01 6:01

drinks. This is often how businesses are started, and you're like, oh, that's gonna be great. Let's do that. And then you start this business. And often what happens is the branding element of it is skipped, the step one. And so what actually makes our work really tick is marketing agencies. We're not a marketing agency, we're a branding firm and we don't do marketing. And so we collaborate best. I have really great referral partnerships with marketing agencies because the marketing agency is where people think to go when they need help and they need to grow and they don't feel like they're getting the kind of leads that they want. But the problem is the marketing dollars won't be effective and that marketing firm won't look successful in the eyes of the client without proper branding. So we always try to network with marketing agencies because we make their best partner. Because when you spy the website that doesn't make sense or you're trying to do a lead generation program, but you go back to the why, the concept, the story of the brand, the foundation. And that marketing agency says, I have no idea what this company really does. This is actually my most common referral, is from a marketing or a digital um marketing or creative agency. And they say, And we have this client, and I couldn't tell you what they do. I've been on three discovery calls with them. My team has all developed copy copy for this campaign. We've gone through their website and I can't tell you what they do. And they are terrible at telling their own story, and I'm so lost. Can you help them? And so they often bring me in, either just me as a white-labeled consultant as their brand strategist or that marketing firm. And maybe we just need to go through the brand therapy sessions and finesse the content and the story, the copy, and find the why, because that step is often skipped. And then their marketing dollars will convert because the leads that you're communicating, that lead flow will actually bring them back to something that makes sense, which is a brand story, which is explaining who you are, what you're selling, and why it would help them. Now, if that step is missed, there is no why. So there's no connection. So those marketing dollars are wasted.

Branding In Everyday Moments

unknown 8:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Well, a lot of branding advice I noticed focuses on what we put out into the world. So what I'm curious about is how how how brand shows up in everyday moments, you know, the things people actually experience.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Yeah, this is so important. So every piece of contact and communication that a business engages in incorporates branding, right? If you think about it, a brand is going to hire from a cultural perspective a person who's a cultural fit, right? So we hire for energy, alignment, values, vibe, and the skill sets can come, right? So then you think about that person and their behavior and how they engage in work every day, internally with colleagues and coworkers and externally with consumers and customers. And all of that tone of voice, all of that energy, all of their behavior choices are a part of the brand. It's a reflection. And then you're thinking about emails, social media posts, phone calls, text messages, marketing campaigns, digital banner ads, all of that has words. And the words all have a tone of voice to them. And all of those words need to come back to a succinct brand strategy. And if that brand voice has never been developed and found because the why was never established or it's changed and you haven't actually checked in to see how it's evolved, those words can sound confusing. So, for example, on LinkedIn, your bio could read something that was outdated five years ago of what your business is doing, but then someone goes to your TikTok and it's all the new, refreshed, purpose-driven bio that makes sense. But now you're going, uh oh, there's an alignment, which one is true? And it looks like you're not paying attention to detail because you're not having a cohesive voice for that brand online. So when the why is skipped, when we say at the top, the CEOs, the executives, the leadership says, this is why we're in business. Okay, well, then you can actually formulate the voice, the persona, and all of the content and the storytelling that actually expresses who you are. And this is most important, which is why I tell everybody hire someone outside to help you with branding. I've even done this, I've rebranded fix and form three times. And every time I have someone outside as a sounding board, even though I'm doing my own work, because it's impossible to get out of your own head by yourself. So soundboarding is so important for any type of strategy work, which is why hiring an outside facilitator. I mean, heck, I'm even hired to come in for two-hour meetings with executives as an outside mediator. Law firm, I just did this. They did a two-hour strategy session with all the partners. And I was there to listen, to capture, to ideate, and to strategize as someone outside of drinking the Kool-Aid, which is so helpful for leadership because getting inside of our head and doing brand speak, it really doesn't resonate. You have to think about it, A, from

Evolving Brands Without Losing Sanity

SPEAKER_01 11:20

the consumer's perspective and what they want and what they need and what they'll think of to even find you.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

I can really relate to that so much because um just personally, just in the past year, it seems like my brand has evolved into different, and it just is constantly evolving. So, as the creative in the situation, you know, my mind's full of all these ideas and strat what I think is strategy. But um, what's happening is the brand just keeps evolving into something differently. So, how do you help help people with that, you know, when the growth or change or just the pressure of rebranding affects affects them mentally, you know?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah. This is especially true with solopreneurs, where we change our mind often, right? Because we are experimenting and we're testing. And when we get new information, we might pivot the direction that we're going. Now it's really important to talk through this and have a list, right? I have a list actually that says future ideas, maybe not now, and then ideas I want to implement now. And for me, I feel like I've done the work long enough to where I can separate the two. But with other founders, with other solopreneurs, it's very important what you talked about. It's a mental health piece because it's input, it's validating your value in that input as the business leader. And so if you ignore those thoughts or you lose them and don't write them down, you are teaching yourself to distrust the process of thinking. And so when you allow yourself the space or the tools to trust the process of thinking and ideating, documenting them and then sorting out where they belong now or in the future, and then you can share that with someone else as an outside sounding board, that develops that trust of ideating. So you're going to further validate your opinions. So I do think this is very powerful for mental health as a business owner to write down your thoughts, but you could have thoughts that say, is this distraction and noise from my goal for right now? Or is this going to help add value to achieving this goal, which is why it's very important to goal set for your year. We're now we're only in February. I don't know when this is going to air, but I'll say it's the beginning of the year. It's a beautiful Q1. You have all of this time, it's not too late, to start setting some goals for even this quarter. If the whole year feels huge, just looking right in front of you and saying, I want to do that. And so in December, I'm guilty of doing way too many things. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I own three companies. I have a podcast. It's a lot, right? And I have a lot of different projects and ideas. And I'm co-founding this networking group that's starting up here in Colorado because I love people and I love connecting and people go, and you do way too much. I'm like, yes, I do. So I don't go crazy. I've really tried to practice the skill set in the last six months of two things. Two things out of everything on my plate, I can't give my energy to everything. What are two things that

Goals, Focus, And Saying No

SPEAKER_01 14:20

I want right now? And so in December, I said, I want to book one speaking engagement in Q1. So I really just dwindled it down to simplicity. And I want to sell one of my brand therapy packages, those strategy sessions, which is like three, five. It depends on the need of the outcome. Um, and that's it, right? And so everything else that I'm working on, everything else can kind of flow in the background and I'll do it, right? It's it's not like I'm not doing any work in those other areas. It's almost like how we pick a target audience. It's like the same thing. I have a lot of clients that say, well, we're not just working with 30 to 40 year olds who are females. I said, I know, but you have to have a target who's gonna resonate with what you're doing the most. And then that doesn't mean that you're not gonna capture everybody else, but you can't pay for and put energy behind marketing to everyone, even though your product could help everyone. The primary first person who's gonna benefit is that, right? So we have targets just like we do with goals. So just because it's not in one of those two goals, it doesn't mean that I'm not putting some energy to everything else and I won't receive things everywhere else. It's just I am focused on that day. Will this conversation lead me to one of those two goals? And if other noise and activity exists outside of that, great, because those are all things I've created that are a part of my world. And I've had momentum from the past that I've been networking and talking about and pitching all these other things. So they're naturally going to flow. But where I'm generating the most impact and energy and dollars are those two goals for right now. And I can change my mind. The power to change your mind is huge as an entrepreneur. You have to be able to give grace and say, oops, that was wrong. We're gonna do it this way.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

And that's okay. Man, you are the epitome of every message we have on this show. We have a plus one theory, which is doing your very best plus one more in small incremental steps, right? Just taking a little bit at a time, you know. And we've all established with the new year that we're not looking at our our annual goals, we just look at quarterly goals. And it seems I love that. Yeah, because then if it changes, it changes and it's okay. You know, we can there's something about the year that feels heavy, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Like the year, it feels really permanent. And it it feels more like handcuffs to that goal. You're absolutely right. When you say a year, you you're less likely to feel the flexibility to change your mind. Whereas the quarter, we only have a month and a half, two months left in this quarter, we can see how that feels, and then we can change our mind.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Right. Just take a brief moment to assess the first quarter and then determine what you need to do going into the second quarter. You know, and that's structure too. I'm terrible at structure. That's my my weakest link, I think. And so when hiring a team or uh help, that's what I have them do for me.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

That makes sense. I too in my creative flow. Yes, I I'm not great with structure. I need to have more of those ops VA support people around me, the people who love schedules and spreadsheets. And I just um linked up with these, this amazing group to do. So I did actually, because I narrowed down my goals, I reached both of them already. And I have three speaking engagements booked in Q1 because I only set out to do one. So I will tell you, it is proving me and it's

Strengths, Structure, And Hiring Support

SPEAKER_01 18:10

it's establishing trust with me to honor the goal and just focus on the one goal, and then more will come. But I'm working with this amazing group to um put this women's event together at the end of this month. And one of us, okay, so there's three of us, and I loved it. We just had a meeting to firm up everything yesterday. And she comes in, Pam, she has a two-page printed agenda and outline of what we're gonna. And I'm like, well, we are so not the same person, and I love you for loving structure and outlines and spreadsheets. Oh my gosh. I come to the meeting with my otter co-pilot recordings. I slap that on the table, and I'm like, all right, let's just all talk. And then my creative juices and ideating are flowing, and I form this entire year of annual women's events every quarter by theme, by location. We talk about what and they're like, this is great. I'm like, but you're capturing it in all of the structure, which keeps me sane and focused. And then uh this other one over here, and then he's really coming in with like the big high-level view from the CEO soapbox, and then I'm just this ideator speaker and I'm the keynote at all of them, right? And so I'm formulating all of it into a workshop series. And it and it's fulfilling all of our buckets because we're all have you ever read Working Geniuses?

SPEAKER_00 19:32

No, but I've heard of it. I think a couple of podcasts ago, someone suggested that I read it's six or nine or something.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

I this is where the details and me, we're not we're not friends, but it's working genius. And I listened to it and I loved it because we all have our areas of work where we are thriving and we maybe excel and then we can do. There's like two or three, and all the rest are a dumpster fire. You should not touch those. And I look at operations and structure, and my one of my best friends is in finance and accounting, and she loves spreadsheets. And I said, God bless you, because I do not. And so the fact that you love a pivot table, I'm like, that is why we're friends, because you are the yin to me, my young, my yang. I just don't, I don't get it. And so I think that's how we hire the best teams too, as entrepreneurs, which we usually fail at. I'm terrible at asking for help. I'm the the independent woman who's healing. I'm also a recovering people pleaser. And so I'm trying to not do everything, but hiring people when you do, when you do find that magic and you find someone that does stuff with your ideas, and then they evolve it into work. You go, whoa, that's really cool. And I'm like, well, you've thought of it. I'm like, yeah, but I don't know how to execute it like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

So it's really powerful. That's a lot of we're we are researching a lot on what we call quiet depletion. And it it affects everyone, but uh mostly women that are doing so much. We all do, and we're we're high achievers, right? And we check all the boxes off, but we we're forgetting to look in, for we're forgetting to, we lose our identity in the whole process because we're just so busy, you know, getting it all done. But the one number one thing is to delegate. You know, we we find that delegating um different strengths around you is what's going to help you allow you to have time to look in and to focus on yourself and your own growth.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Absolutely. Well, I think an example of that is in motherhood, you know, I think that I was trying to break a cycle of modeling the parents doing everything, the mom doing everything on hyperdrive. And, you know, when we slow down, when we stop and we lead at home through motherhood and we finally learn to delegate to our children and give them tasks and chores and they want to help. And last night, my

Delegation, Pause, And Leadership At Home

SPEAKER_01 22:00

10-year-old was like, Mama, I what else can I do? I want to help with dinner. And I got irritated because that's my trigger, that's my natural response from how I was raised, of someone kind of stepping in because I'm going to do it. And I realized, no, no, the more I learn how to delegate, they want to help, they want to be helpful. And it's a really powerful tool to raise children. And so I said, okay, let's do this. And then let's do that. Let's do that. And then I didn't have to do it. And the the thought has to shift from autopilot to I'm going to go do this to stop, pause, think about how you would explain what you need done and do that instead. And then you've relieved yourself from everything that follows.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

That is perfection. That is that is perfection for our our whole show is the pause. You know, we call it the powerful pause or the purposeful pause because you have to give your brain time to adjust from the old pattern to the new pattern you're trying to build. Absolutely. It's amazing how it works. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

I know it really is. And when you do it and you see the joy and the validation of your children, your coworkers, your team, your support staff, when you enable them to help with the common mission. This is what makes a great leader is allowing people to show up for you and asking for what you need. And women, I find, have the hardest time of just asking for what we need. And I'm really fascinated by this concept of, you know, who are some men in your life? Because women asking men is like unheard of, but we need to in work. We need to be empowered at work. But women asking women in our networks and women asking men in our networks of one thing they can do for us almost a task, a favor, um, you know, for for the work for the project. There's so many times I've looked back and said, oh my gosh, I had an amazing conversation around that. And I didn't ask for anything. So of course nothing happened out of it. And I leave and go, oh, well, they're not interested, or it's not a good fit, and it must have been me, or what did I say, you know, wrong that didn't sell it? It wasn't the storytelling, it was the ask. There was no ask. And women struggle, myself included. I'm really trying to recover from that this year and say, look, I'm gonna ask. Like if there's a man or a woman sitting in front of me, what I am I'm conscious, I take that pause before the discussion, before the meeting, and I say, what do I want this person to do or give me after our conversation? And if I can't have an answer to that question, I shouldn't be meeting with them because it's a time suck. So what do I want from this person with this person? Or maybe I want to give this person something. What is that? There needs to be a question, right? And we have to be okay asking, even if it's a no, because maybe the no is going to evolve us into something even better.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Asking is not failure. I have we have to constantly remind a lot of our community that asking for help is not failure at all. You know, it's just more clarity and being intentional and also giving other people a moment to shine in what their their lane is, what the what their strength is.

Share Your Fear: Leading With Honesty

SPEAKER_00 25:15

And I noticed that a lot about you. I was looking at your podcast and, you know, just doing a little research on you so I could ask you the questions you would most enjoy. And uh I noticed how curious you are. You are very curious, which that helps. I notice it helps a lot for you to figure out what's going on beneath the surface because you never think about businesses needing brand therapy. I love that y'all call it that. But a lot of times, I'm sure you go into a new client's staff meeting or when you first introduce yourself, and there's all this personal stuff in the way. It's like a wall, I'm sure. Like you can't get the work done that you need to get done because of all the issues, personal mental health issues in there.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Pam, you're touching on something I'm really deeply passionate about, and it's a part of my speaking this year. It's talking about the whole person. It's talking about work-life balance. There's no work life. It's work life. It's one, it's one word. We're a whole person. So we're not going to show up at work differently than we show up at home. The habits, the triggers, the behaviors, the cycles that we have in both places will exist. And so if we're going to be an integrated leader, both at work and at home, especially if we have kids, we have to incorporate some of these skill sets that take us out of the noise. Like you're saying, there's so much noise in front of us. For example, you go into a meeting, let's say there's 20 members of your staff there and you're the CEO. Okay. And you are afraid of delivering this meeting because you don't have the solution. A lot of CEOs think they have to go into a meeting with the solution and present it to their team for everybody to start to get to work. And what happens is when a leader realizes they don't have the answer, they're missing the most amazing human connection piece of work, which is collaboration. And it's okay to say, and they're they're afraid to look like a failure. They're afraid to show up unprepared, even though being prepared is also being prepared for collaboration. And a great leader would come into that staff meeting and say, Look, guys, I am they this is my whole speaking platform. It's called Share Your Fear. You share your fear to evolve, get curious about it. So you're afraid of looking like a failure in front of your people. You're afraid of looking stupid. Okay, we all are, right? And this is how fear, leadership is often rooted in fear instead of trust. And so when we go into that staff meeting as a leader and an integrated leader, and we've shared our fear and we've said, I fear that if I don't go into this meeting with the answer, I will look stupid and my people won't respect me. And then I'm going to get fired and have no money to provide for my family. It's like this string of fears in our consciousness. So then we say all of that, we share it. And then we say, and

Rebranding Outcomes And Team Alignment

SPEAKER_01 28:10

by going into this meeting without the solution, I'm also not a failure, but I'm actually being prepared to open the floor for discussion and collaboration, which is maybe something I've never done before in my leadership style. And my team might really enjoy that. And I might actually gain some really amazing ideas from that. So you then you go in and you start this the staff meeting and say, we're going to do things different today. I'm not coming at you with a solution like a drill sergeant and then saying everybody what everyone's going to do. I'm coming at you with what I would love for us to achieve, but I don't know how to get there. And I would love your ideas and your input. And let's have a more discussion-based staff meeting instead of me just shouting orders at you. Think of the culture that just shifted by that leader sharing their fear, dumbing down the element of the fear by curiosity and asking it questions and then saying, that actually doesn't exist at all. There's no fear. No one's going to think I'm stupid. Actually, people might respect me more if I invite collaboration on something that I don't have the answer to because I'm not supposed to have all the answers all the time.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

I love that so much. If I look back at my past work life and different corporations, different types, all different types of jobs, the best leaders I've ever worked under are the ones that were human to me. You know, they seemed they were vulnerable, they wanted to connect, and they gave me a voice. And there's only there's very few, there's probably two. But there's two that I remember fondly that that you know empowered their team to be um to be involved in decisions and you know, they were they f we felt respected. And so we performed better, you know? Absolutely. Well, so do you notice, okay, let's go on the uh the external part, like when you're helping a business um transform into this, into all the things into a new maybe rebranding, you know, uh setting them up, getting them uh emotionally and mentally strong, things change. So do you notice that the customer, the the customers, how do how do they feel when they notice these changes? I mean, is there an influx?

SPEAKER_01 30:31

That's interesting. It's not actually the customers that notice. What I what I hear is once the branding evolves, the team changes. So usually there are clients have some level of support, have some level of team delivering it, even if it's a solopreneur, um, they're going to have uh, even if it's themselves, right, coming back and saying this, which they're their own team, the team of one. Um, it's more of the clarity internally of what you're actually selling that changes. So your customer is changing

What To Ask Before Investing In Branding

SPEAKER_01 31:05

from the branding evolving. And the customer that comes in is going to make you feel more aligned with clarity because your branding and your message is now talking to the right people. And so by rebranding, you actually, with the feedback that you're getting or your team's getting, they go, Oh my gosh, you know, we are just getting the right people. Or I just had the most amazing discovery call and it's exactly who we work with. Or I finally feel like I can proudly guide someone to my website at a networking event and show off my business card instead of shunning from it and saying, please go to our website and look at this page, like specifically, because we developed their website strategically to be a tool to actually build a business. Like how imagine that. Like that's what websites are supposed to do, but so often we neglect them and we we forget that we need to be updating them and evolving them to accurately show the changes that are being made, even if it's fast. So imagine if you're talking to someone and you're a team member for this brand. And before you were, you were like, oh, well, here's our website, but it doesn't really say what we do. Let me send you a one sheet on it. And then you have just created more work for yourself or your team member to go really establish that one sheet of the actual thing that you're doing, because the website isn't working. So I think it's just kind of that breath of fresh air of clarity after we work with clients where they go, Oh my gosh, An, I feel incredible. It's like that's why we call it brand therapy because we work with the whole person. So we're actually kind of evolving, because there's so much self-identity in people in their work, them as a human. So it's self-development. So the brand work is actually helping them clarify and get out of their own head of who am I in this work, right? And what are we doing? And why are we doing it? And why should we be selling this? And then who would be the most benefiting from what we're selling? And when you have that clarity, the people supporting you feel so relieved. And often those referral marketing agencies I was talking about, they come back and say, thank you. Like they'll they'll come back and say, This website is phenomenal, or oh my gosh, I didn't even know they did that. Really? Oh, I didn't know they sold that. And it's the big aha of the uncovering or the revealing. Um, and I think the share your fear tool is like the methodology to radical truth telling, and we call it the revealing. Nothing's broken, it just hasn't been revealed yet. And so in both work and personal life, we we use this process to reveal what's actually been up here the whole time. You go, oh, thank you. I just finished with a client. And they said, you got everything that's been in our heads for years, and two different website revisions and still didn't accurately tell our story. And now we feel that we are being represented. And you know what? It goes back to this most basic human need, Pam, which is to feel seen and heard. Yeah, human being, a baby, once born, they need to be seen and heard. That's it. That's your fundamental need to survive and thrive in this life. And so if we're helping brands and the people behind the brands feel seen and heard, that's the most basic human gift that you can give anyone. And so if you're making their brands do that and they actually show up and feel seen and heard, ugh, it's the most validating gift that you can give.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Man, it truly is. And to feel seen and heard, I know this personally from growing up the way I grew up in an abusive childhood, but you know, we felt you feel invisible when you grow up like that. And then you carry that into adulthood, you know, and that's a real issue. But I think that's why I'm so adamant about kindness, because I think people take that for granted because kindness is not only good to give, makes it makes you feel good to give it, but it also feels good to receive it because you're you're seen, you feel worthy, you are heard, you know, and listening, oh my gosh. I've had to really work on that lately because we're not taught to listen as a skill, right?

Defining Branding vs Marketing

SPEAKER_00 35:15

We're taught to pay attention, but we're really not truly listening. And, you know, to do a podcast, you really do have to tune in and listen to what the person's saying. And so I've really been working on that. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Absolutely. I think listening and effective listening is probably one of the best skill sets you can have to be successful. And it's about being exactly yeah, and I think listening with also a level of emotional intelligence where you've evolved and you've done the self-development, you've been emotionally regulated. I too grew up in an abusive home. And I think that that I celebrate it now because I'm healed, I've forgiven, and I recovered. And so I'm not coming at it from a broken heart, I'm coming at it from a whole heart saying, thank you, Lord, for giving me that experience in that home, because it made me who I am now, which I am hyper-aware and hyper-tuned in to empathy, to listening, and to fulfilling that basic human need of feeling seen and heard and helping others heal with it, because the world needs healing. And from one tragic story to the other comes a rebirth and a beautiful transformation.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Well, and we've covered this a little bit, but I'm just going to re-ask it again because it's a question a lot of my listeners want it. I always tell them who I'll be speaking, you know, visiting with, and ask them if they have any questions. But this question uh came out a lot. So when someone is thinking about investing in brand work, what questions do you think are helpful for them to ask themselves first?

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Yeah. So first is you want to see the process of branding granularly, like in a visual way laid out for you. So, for example, our timeline is three to four months, right? First comes the brand therapy sessions. How long does that take to understand the work involved? Then we transfer into the logo redesign and the visual brand with icons, fonts, colors. Then we go into writing the website copy, and then we go into creating that beautiful brand video work because human-centered, we believe every every human brand should have video because that's very um the most human form of content you can have. Um, and then we go into designing the actual website, and that's another month. And then we should be on goal to deliver a uh website with a sound SEO technically um audited website, which all of our fix and form websites have that initial SEO foundation to them. Um, and what I would say is with that process, branding is like a mystical unicorn. I've always said this. A lot of times we say branding, but you think it's a logo or you think it's social media or you think it's marketing. And I have to say, more times than not in my career that I'm not a marketer. They say, oh, well, you do marketing. No, no, I used to do a

One Action: Fix Your Website Hook

SPEAKER_01 38:10

marketing degree. I own a branding firm and we do branding. And how is branding different? So you have to constantly ask these questions if you're looking to invest in branding, clarify how that service provider view branding as well? And is it the branding that you're thinking of? Because branding needs to be defined at every moment. So if you are looking for branding, meaning I need a new logo, well, then maybe you just need a logo designer and that's it. You need to refresh your logo. If you think of branding as I need social media work, well, then you need to say specifically, not branding, but I am looking to enhance my brand presence on social media. So that's a social media manager, which is a function of marketing. And so you have to really understand what it is that you're asking for, but you also have to ask that company to walk you through the literal project timeline of the work that they deliver and when in the process they deliver it. And the most important question to ask if you're looking for brand work is what is expected of you and your time in their process? Because my clients often get fatigued. Branding work is heavy, it's inundating, it's hard, it's therapy for a reason because we come at your brain and you're like, oh my gosh, these questions and finding your wife and these deep, you know, I have I have clients share drug addictions and grandma problems and being an orphan and all these things come out in brand therapy has nothing to do with business, but it does because business is personal. And when you are a human-centric business, you are the people that are going to come out in that business. And so your stories matter. And also, that is great background for me to tell your story of elements that may impact the way you do business and why. So it helps establish the why because you were an orphan and your grandma raised you on drugs or whatever the situation was, right? And so oftentimes people say, Well, you probably don't need to know this, but but they were moved to tell me that story for a reason because I needed to listen. So with brand work, it can become long. You can get fatigued, you can be on month six and just feel so heavy with it. And then you don't want to waste all of that work because expectations weren't clear in the beginning. So if you are a client looking for brand work, you ask, what time commitment is expected from me and how much homework or work outside of our meetings and our time together will I need to do? Because that is the real kicker of what slows an agency down. My timeline always extends on a client project because the client doesn't get back to us in a reasonable amount of time with review and input and changing direction. So, hey, so and so, here is your your um brand guidebook. Please go through and edit the document with changes you want to see. Hey, here is the first round of logos. We have three. Please pick your favorite. It's the, oh, I'm so sorry. A week has gone by. We are so busy, it's really hard to work on your brand when you're working in it. So understanding too, the way that partner will show up for you and help make it easier. Or will they check in and probe you to do the work, which we often do? Hey, so-and-so,

Where To Find Anne & Closing Invite

SPEAKER_01 41:30

it's been two days. We need to hear back from you. People need to be led through branding. And so that is really important as the client to know that you need a good leader, a partner who's gonna lead you through because some of these things can be really hard and you can get stuck, and that can add weeks to months on finishing, and then that's where you get fatigued.

unknown 41:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

So clarity. Clarity is critical. And and I am a by trade, I am a web designer. That's what I did in my past before I did all the things that I'm doing now. Okay. And and I would find that most people knew what they did not want as far, you know, as design. They didn't they knew what they didn't want, but they didn't know what they wanted. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

They weren't clear. And we use that tool a lot to find what we want. I actually asked the question in the negative. What do you not want to see on your about page? What kind of pictures do you not want to see? What colors do you not want to see? It actually narrows it down.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

I mean, that's the that's something I really appreciate about your approach is that um you put an emphasis on on understanding, you know, and it's not just about delivering, say, a website or a logo. It's not uh just throwing it out there guessing. I mean, you you get a an exact, I mean you help them realize what they're looking for, what they do want. I like that a lot. Thank you. Um so why does shared understanding inside a business matter so much when it when it comes to branding? I love how you're you're how it's distinct, it's different than marketing. I never really looked at it like that. Branding and marketing being separate. So for someone listening right now who wants to strengthen how they show up, what's um what's one small place they could start with paying attention? I mean, it's overwhelming. There's so much, right? So where can they start with preparing themselves?

SPEAKER_01 43:30

One thing, one thing to start in this whole process right now go to your own website. What is the first sentence that you see on the website? Regardless of the pictures and the header and the image and the navigation, what is the first thing that your eye reads? That is the most important. That's the hook. That's the most important information on a website. It needs to say who the heck you are. Are and what you're going to do. Right. So we say breathing life into businesses with human-centered brand design, or forget what our exact one is because it changes, but um, you know, you know, offer our new website, because we're actually in the middle of rebranding fixed informed. So our new website's going live very soon. Um, and we're eliminating all marketing. So I don't want the word marketing on our site at all. I've I've just cut that side of the business. We're just a branding firm. So um, you know, offering uh human-centric brand design transformations to Colorado businesses. It's you have to say exactly who you are and what you do. We are a branding firm, right? So we offer branding, but you have to say exactly what you do and for who in that first sentence. That's that's what I think, in my opinion, a website, that's the first place to start. So if you go to your website and the first thing you see on landing is not who you are and what you do, change it. I don't care what tool you use, chat GPT, AI tools of your choosing, Gemini, throw it in there and and throw your website in there, throw your URL in there and say, after reviewing this website in one sentence, what would you say this company does? That's it. And see all of the different options, and maybe that'll start helping you probe some ideas and really get a succinct sentence on there of exactly that. So if all the other content and all the other pages are bogus, it's not actually what you do. You have some work to do. Yes. But the very first thing you can do on your brand is look at that. And then that one sentence that you define that you would say, if there's one thing I want them to know about this business, who it is and what it does, then that file line, that tagline needs to go on every other place you show up. We call it your digital footprint. Your digital footprint is all your social pages, your directory listings, your referral partners, your LinkedIn page, everywhere else that you're showing up online, just Google yourself. Google your name, Google your business, see just all the places you show up. If you have editing rights, and a lot of times you don't, and sometimes you have to go contact people to change the way you're showing up on their site. Um, but make sure that that bio line, that tagline, is now accompanied with your business name everywhere. And that's a good place to start.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

Man, it's just a lot, right? And so, but you make it sound so it's almost simplified, you know.

SPEAKER_02 46:31

Very much.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

Oh, and so um, well, before we go, can you tell us how we can find you?

SPEAKER_01 46:37

How we can Pam. Thanks for this discussion, Pam. I appreciate your your preparedness and your questions. I I loved talking about this today. So I knew that you knew what you were doing because you were asking me the right questions that I would love to talk about, which is great.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

Well, I I learned, I have to tell you, you know, I research people before my guests, and I learned so much by looking into all of the things that you do. I mean, I was joting down notes.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

What a gift! That's so amazing. So that that fulfills my mission. My personal mission in life is hope, help one person every day. So anything that I'm doing, anywhere I'm showing up, helps one person every day. I am living my purpose. So where you can find me, uh, my personal website for speaking is angillespie.com, but it's with an A. So it's like an A-N-N-E Gillespie.com. Um, you can also find my ventures off of that site, but of course it's fix and form. It's 10 to launch, which is another startup endeavor I'm forming. And my podcast is called OnlyFounders, one word, and that's real talk between founders, like you're a fly on the wall of conversations that we should be having in public. And I think that's it on all the social channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. You can find me by my name Ann Gillespie.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

And we'll be sure and link all we're gonna put all of that in the show notes, everybody, so don't panic. Thank you. But we'll put it all in the show notes. And man, thank you so much, Ann, because I appreciate the clarity and the care and the and the listening that you do to bring this work to people and to help them grow and understand their why.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

Thank you. It's very, very meaningful. I love helping people. If you are trying to find your why and needing that clarity, I would recommend my brand therapy sessions. They are wonderful. We really get some really, really good revealing in those, and I am happy to help. All right. Well, thank you, Ann. Thanks again for being here. Thanks, Pam.