Tag Archives: free branding consult

Branding tips for your products/service from New York City!

There’s something about New York…the energy, culture, food…all stuff we’ve heard before, right?

New York has a definite brand. It’s electric or shall I say, electri-CITY…

And then when I add friends, clients, cozy places to stay, trips to Connecticut and Brooklyn to spend a day or two New York becomes a trusted place where I’m inspired and really, truly connected. Not just because of all the traveling I do to NYC for work but because of this extra layer of connection where I’ve managed to make NYC mean more to me than just “fun” and “energy.”

And that’s where I want to start today…from that word: connection. Below I leave you with some tips on how to inject more of your particular brand of happiness into you brand but connection is really where it starts.

Where could you be more connected in your work? Your products/services? Where could you feel more connected? This is all so important in branding yourself in a way that creates major traction.

This is what your clients need and want from you and guess what? It’s what branding, when done right, does for you too. It creates a level of intimacy because it does the work of injecting emotion into your business. This is one definition or “act” of branding I don’t hear discussed very often.

We need to infuse emotion into our products and services, for example, so they MEAN more to our clients. This is what makes clients or prospects share what we have to offer and come back to invest with our company again and again…

If it’s true that clients buy YOU long before they buy your products and services (and it is) then do…go deeper, get into the layers and create from this very connected place, deal?

Here are some things that my client Angela Jia Kim, owner and founder of Savor the Success in NYC, covered this last week in our second branding session (love working with this powerhouse! If you haven’t checked out her site, please do: www.savorthesuccess.com):

1. What product of all your products/services makes you the most happy? And what product is the one others are willing to invest the most time and money in? Invest more time here.

2.What is the brand personality of that ONE product? What does it look like, talk like and dress like?

3. What will you have to let go of to focus on this one particular area more?

Remember that in branding your business, depth and connection will always brings you a more consistent stream of connected clients. Connected clients, connected business, products…all lead to one thing: a connected life.

Enjoy your business, enjoy your life!

Behind the scenes…

I love behind the scenes footage (in anything!). Bloopers, a behind the scenes look into movies, documentaries…love it all. So, I decided to have my team help me create a behind the scenes video to share the fun we had with the recent MGI brand shoot. Take a peek at the vision turned reality…

And soon I’ll have more to share as we will be launching a new look to the MGI brand with a new site, videos etc. But the most important thing to note here is that with this new launch there will be even more available to help you create the brand you know yourself to be…brand elements like YOUR very own company commercial and support around creating photography that WOWs will all be part of the work Michelle Ghilotti International branding + coaching + empowerment agency offers. So stay tuned. And we will keep you posted.

SO pumped to share all the goodies with you.

Enjoy your business, enjoy your life!

What legacy do you want to leave behind?

(This post inspired my three coaching calls yesterday with fabulous, ‘charged with a cause’ women)

What legacy do you want to leave behind?

More and more, we’re hearing about this topic of authenticity and to those that say it’s a bit much or that it’s losing its meaning I say we should over-use it. My mission is to make it commonplace. Fashionable, even.

Because it is.

And it even goes beyond fashion; it’s classic and part of the trail we leave behind as women in business for other women in business ~ to do and be more of who they (we) really are. To find joy again. More consistent joy. It’s part of the path we are paving, let us not forget, too, for our daughters, our friends’ daughters, our nieces and baby sisters. Let it not be daring to be ourselves but the right and very thing we need to do to be in with the “times”.

And all from a Starbucks in Holland…

Wow, I feel like I just found the fossils of a dinosaur…ceramic cups at Starbucks.

Four ceramic cups (and more to the left and right of me) here in Holland.

In the US, hurry, has been the mainstay for quite awhile, do you agree? Maybe this is why I had to take a photo of this little scene and devote an entire post to it.

Here in Holland ceramic mugs are the mainstay…it’s assumed you’ll sit for the ENTIRE experience vs take it away in a paper cup as is assumed in the US. Here, unless otherwise told, it’s assumed that you will watch the world go by vs take the “experience” away with you while you continue to text and toil away.

Having lived in Europe now three times (not counting these two months), this shouldn’t have been such a surprise but it was. “Americans live to work and Europeans work to live” ~ I had completely forgotten that phrase until yesterday when I saw this and I do believe there’s some truth in it; you?

Being a nation of DOers is an awesome thing. After all, this is how we stay successfully employed and rockin’ as entrepreneurs, right? But I don’t think we need to be in action 150% of the time. We can’t afford to be.

To DO and BE in action after what we want and what we know we can have (essentially a GREAT, creative and purpose-driven life) > until you look at the details. We’re exhausted, our adrenals are shot, our hips, back and necks ache and we can’t sleep (all of this, by the way…even the part about the hips is and can be due to stress and pushing when we need to pull back [this last fact brought to you by the me that is also a certified yoga teacher]). Read my guest post on www.tinybuddha.com around my personal story with this.

In Europe and definitely here in Amsterdam the day’s about working, living, working, living…taking five minutes, ten minutes, maybe even an hour (gasp) between work episodes to watch the world go by (or boats). And that’s what I’ve been doing. I have the same amount of work with my branding and coaching as well as my book yet I feel more connected and more conscious of the minutes that go by and how to spend them so that the whole me is taken care of.

In the US it’s work, work, work, little bit of *guilty* living, more working…

But when we realize we can still DO and be IN action toward what we want in life and also take care of ourselves, our nervous systems and those of our our colleagues, employees and family this is when we hit yet another level of success (awareness) as business-owners and entrepreneurs.

We can have what we want and we can also take our time to get it. And it really is true ~ proven, in fact ~ that taking minutes to watch the world go by only helps our productivity and increases our quality of life. The success I experienced in running my business here for four years was in large part due to the time I took to be…happy. To take time. I loved biking to and fro my studio/office and most of all, loved taking more time to work ON the business rather than just IN the business.

I felt like I was an inspiration bomb and so efficient, and, as a result my clients were also getting the goods. They were getting the best of me.

I think we can all agree that we must take time to nurture so success can become our nature. In a recent Ted talk by a neuroscientist from Brown University, happiness was confirmed, yet again, as a habit we can gain. Or as I like to say an ability we gain when we give ourselves permission to BE happy.

Here’s a down and dirty time-table for daily success (growth of a business AND happiness in life):

1. Tit for Tat. For every hour of work, take ten minutes to breathe at your computer (this also comes from the me that’s a certified yoga teacher). Or, get WILD and go outside, take a walk and watch the world go by. Then come back and continue being in bad a** action. We need both.

2. Eat the frog. Do that thing you least want to do first-thing in the morning. It will increase your confidence and well-being for the rest of the day and will move the needle on what you want to come into your business sooner rather than later. Not to mention, you will be that much more able to take the time for you, for your family or for your body (hello, gym and/or yoga studio). Eat the ugliest frog first-thing…enjoy the rest of the day.

3. Avoid interruptions. Turn off anything and everything that beeps while you’re eating the ugliest fronts. It takes something crazy like 4 or 5x the effort to re-start where you were if you are interrupted by email/phone calls/facebook…focus. Pretend you’re a yogi and keep your gaze or drishti on one marker.

extra credit: Let go. It may not get all done TODAY. Welcome to entrepreneurship.

As always, enjoy your business, enjoy your life.