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Having a relationship with your audience creates a bigger impact on your brand more than you think. That’s why delivering your core message is crucial. This video is all about what core message is and why you should care about it. Tune in and discover why it is important for your and your business.
So, if you’re watching this video then you have the same question of what is a core message? And why do I care? So, whether that’s the language you use they’re not of calling it a core message this really is an important topic if you want to succeed in business. So, definitely stick around for this one. Michelle McCullough. Good friend, expert speaker, author. How do you define a core message? -Well, if you’re looking at it from a business standpoint, your core message is what do you want to be crystal clear to your audience about who you are as an organization and what you do. And the best way to get clear on that is to think through how you want people to describe you. So, how would you want someone to describe your business? How would you want to someone to describe your product or service? -Sounds a lot like we’re talking about brand here. -It is a lot of your brand and some people will consider their brand to just be their logo or their colors or their design. But really, your brand is your promise. It’s your commitment. It’s the things that you offer. And the ways that people know how you can solve a problem for them. -By talking about it in terms of a core message, it takes the conversation of logo or brand to where it really needs to be to kind of be an impactful or to be a real a real brand. -Sometimes people will think about a core message being a mission statement. That can be part of your core message. But chances are people aren’t going to describe your business with your mission statement. Now. your mission statement is probably really valuable for your team. It’s good for the your employees, people who that you work with so that they know the kind of traits and values that you want them to display. But I also think that it’s really important to go beyond your mission statement and think about things about how you want customers to feel when they come into your store. How do you want customers to feel when they interact with you or how do you want them to feel as a result of your product or service. While feeling words can seem like not very valuable. At the end of the day, people make decisions to buy based off of feelings. And so, you have to help them understand what kinds of things you want them to feel. And almost adjust your logo or your colors based off of your core message and your foundational messaging as an organization. -Okay. So, can we jump into some examples? -Sure. -I mean maybe we’ll pick some big, prominent, well-known companies. What would you say Apple’s core message is? -This is like a quiz. Uh-huh. Apple’s core message is simple, chic technology. So it doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be difficult. It doesn’t have to be detailed but it’s simple but it’s cool and they want to be known for innovative technology that is… -I definite think innovation is it… Yeah. Okay. what’s the… What about Nike? -Just do it is their tagline, right? But at the core of that is going in and accomplishing the things that you really want. Like, if exercise is important for you, get past all of the crap in your head and just do it and hopefully use their products to do it. -So, how does a small business owner or a solopreneur really defined their core message.
-So, I think one of the best gifts you can give your business every single year is sitting down at the end of the year and asking yourself, “What worked? What didn’t work? And what needs to change?” So you do a little bit of evaluation. You see, you check your messages, you look at your social media. Look at your blog posts and see if you feel like those messages matched what your core messages as a business. And in most cases, you’re going to look at it and say, “It didn’t. It didn’t really match what I want.” And maybe you haven’t really thought about your core message this strategic in this way. So, now, as it after you’ve asked yourself those three questions, you say, “Okay, what do I want to be known for? How do I want people to describe me?” And the trick is you only can pick about 7 things. So, the mind can only remember 7 things but the reality is is that your audience will probably only remember you for one. But it gives you the opportunity as a business to list 7 things so that you can share different messages in each of those places. So for example, I have a collision company that is a good friend of mine it was a previous client. They’re local in Utah. Obviously, their messaging isn’t going to go far. But their tagline is getting a car in a car accident could be traumatic. Getting your car fixed shouldn’t be. And that’s one of their core messages that while you might have had this traumatic experience and we’re going to take care of you. And we’re going to make getting your car fixed to be super easy. And we’re going to make you feel cared about in the process. And I think that’s really great messaging. They also have a tagline that they use that is exceptional care collision repair. But again, it kind of goes back to that core message that we’re going to fix your car but we care about customer service. Or not just gearheads who are going to be punking out your car and passing you the keys. We really care about the service part of that. And so, I like the way that they thought through even on that small level, how do they want people to feel working with them. And they put taglines out there that supported those messages. And so at the end of the day, when people are describing robear’s collision, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, those people were so nice. They took really good care of me.” And that’s what they want people to know. And to come back to. So, think about those core messages, think about 6 or 7 things that you can put out into the world that hopefully people would use to describe you. And then give yourself 12 months. Give yourself 12 months to put out there the messages that you really care about and see if you start to get the kind of feedback that you want. And that people are describing you in the ways that you care about. -So, I have a thought that I want to get your take on. Once a core message is established, whether intentionally or unintentionally, it seems that that’s a hard thing to change. There’s one brand of car that is known for safety. -Sure. -And yet… And this was put in… This was not my research. This was somebody else’s research that I saw presentation. But it comes to my mind that this car that’s known for safety, they then started doing some marketing as a luxury car. And it just seemed a little off. The car might totally be luxurious that they’re promoting but it’s like… “But that’s of is? You know, that’s this brand of car? Wait a minute.” And it just kind of opened my eyes to wonder. Do you agree that it’s pretty important to figure out your core message early on. Well at the same time, we can re-evaluate and see what sticks and what not but if we if we’re not conscious of it early on then it can be hard to change. -Absolutely. So, but I will also tell you there is hope. So, if there are people sitting out there thinking, “Oh, wait. I think people are describing me in a bad way.” I’m going to tell you a process that we use that helps people transition to that. But if you’re just getting started, it’s really good to begin as you mean to go on. And it’s interesting because there are a lot of people who have created their own monopolies, if you will. So, like even back in the 80’s, MTV got started and they didn’t want competition so they created Vh1. MTV and Vh1 were the same organization. The same parent company. And… But then they made each of them their own unique brand. And that car company, should they have just created a different line would have been easier to promote that because they were trying to make a market shift. Your brand lasts long beyond what you want it to sometimes.
And so, it’s really hard to make… Because we’re meaning making machines and we want to describe things and we want to label. We want to say that’s a flower and that’s a tree and that’s a frame. You know, we want to be able to describe things. And so, it’s hard for humans to make that transition. But you can do that. And here… This is a personal example. But my background is in marketing and advertising. I’ve done marketing consulting and marketing speaking for almost 2 decades. But 3 or 4 years ago, I really wanted to produce a motivational book. In my background, I love motivational speaking. I love motivational self-help books. That’s a piece of who I was and my interests. But it wasn’t something I had done professionally. And so, to launch that book, I I needed to shift my audience from “Michelle McCullough, the startup princess. Marketing… Coordinator marketing speaker extraordinaire” to “Michelle McCullough, motivational speaker.” And I can do both but my audience really didn’t want me to do both. They knew me as Michelle the marketing person. And so what I did is I sat down into this exact same exercise. What I call the clarity exercise. And I said, “What 7 things…? What 7 ways do I want people to describe me?” And the truth is, is while they seem different, they’re very similar. Marketing is telling a story to get people to take action. Motivation is telling a story to get people to change. And so, they’re very similar and I had to do some of that messaging. But I also had to say you know what? The things that you love about me but people liked that I was a systems girl. People liked that I knew how to message things. People liked the approach and positivity. But I could use those same principles to share this. But then for a whole year, even before I launched my book, I shared more of this part of me. And I was quick to say and easy to say, “Hey, you might know me for this. But did you know that I got my first wrinkle in day planner when I was 12? And did you know that I was the first person to ever go through the Franklin Covey, what matters most training?” People needed to know that it wasn’t just me making us a quick decision or that I was completely shifting my business. They needed to know that that was a part of me they didn’t know yet. And so, you can do that with your business too. Not, just an expert business but even if you’re shifting, figuring out how to say, “Hey listen, we’ve always cared about X. But did you know that we love Y too?” And you can tell that story but you have to be strategic and sharing those messages through social media, through your blog posts, through your advertising. And make sure that it’s clear that people understand that you haven’t changed. It’s just a side of you they haven’t seen yet. And businesses that are successful with that like in the beginning, Coke and Pepsi couldn’t have anything else but Coke and Pepsi. But they were like, “Hey, we’re not Coke and Pepsi people. Were soda people.” And so now, they can have full lines of sodas and have different sodas in different countries because the story came, became about soda. Not about coke. And so, you can think about that and you can expand your business in your line. And in some cases, it’s going to need its own advertising. But as long as you tell the story, people will come with you as long as they don’t feel like you’re abandoning them. And going a different direction. It was a long answer but I hope that was helpful. -Yes. So, I think are hoping that you get a sense that there’s a lot here. That there’s a great importance of having a core message. It’s really what takes a brand from just a logo to being something that will really make a difference that that people will really remember. So, if anything, I hopefully this conversation has given you some tips of being able to recognize first, what is a core message and why are we even talking about it. And and how to… How to define what yours is. So, make sure you subscribe. Look up Michele McCulloug. I’ll put speakmichelle.com. Her website down below in the description.