How to Differentiate Your Brand & Attract More Customers with Sue Kirchner

Kathi: Hi, everyone. As promised, I'm here with Sue. So welcome to the show, Sue. I'm so glad you're here.

Sue: Thanks, Kathi. I'm thrilled to be here today.

Kathi: This is going to be fun. We're going to talk about marketing and messaging and all that good stuff. So for people who don't know you, tell people a little bit about your background. What brought you to this stage?

Sue: What brought me here? Well, my name is Sue Kirchner. I have a company called BrandStrong Marketing, and I'm also the host of the Turbo Branding Show, of which you are a guest on the show, so I'm absolutely thrilled about that. My background is in marketing and branding. But what I am passionate about is helping more founders, more entrepreneurs, be able to grow and scale their company faster and easier. And the way that I help them do that is by using their brand. Going back to their foundation to figure out their why. Why did you start this company? What are you good at? What are your core values? What value do you deliver to your ideal customer? Who is that ideal customer that you serve? And then how are you positioned against the competition so that you stand out and are differentiated? All of that culminates in me being able to do research and come back and say, hey, this is why your customers or your employees or even investors love your company, and you should keep doing that. Here's the messaging that you need to share. I also take a look at the experience that they offer all of their stakeholders to make sure that they're actually living the promise that they said they were going to offer.

Kathi: You know what? It all sounds so basic when you say it. We all should have this, but you have all the pieces. That's always the thing. It's like there's something missing.

Sue: Yeah. Absolutely.

Kathi: So what brought you to this type of work? What's your background?

Sue: My background, interestingly enough, I started out wanting to be an advertising copywriter. I love writing. Well, I love creativity. I love art, design, music, anything in the creative sphere. But the only thing that I can do, other than admire all of that, is writing. That's where my creativity bloomed. So I wanted to be an advertising copywriter, but when I got out of college, those jobs were a little bit hard to find. And I ended up going to work for a company that, although it's not known for marketing, at the time was the place to be. I worked for Motorola right as the flip phones and the cell phones were coming out. It was fantastic. And because I was the only one who spoke Spanish in the marketing department, because I grew up in Puerto Rico and in Latin America for a number of years, I got to do the whole breadth of marketing and branding activity. It was like, oh, you can do trade shows. You can do PR. You can do advertising. Create some brochures. Help us with these events. I got to see all of it, and that was fantastic. And I was helping our customers in Latin America start to build a name for themselves, because they were mostly small businesses, as the types of companies that would sell great cellular products like Motorola. So that's where I started and got my breadth of marketing experience and knowledge, and I came to realize very quickly that it's not just what you say, it's also what you do. And that's why I love the upfront foundational piece of branding.

It's not just what you say, it's also what you do.

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Sue: I was working with Latin America with Motorola, and I went out and started my own company because the group that I was with at Motorola decided to relocate to Florida, and I didn't want to do that. So I stayed here in Chicago and started my own company as an entrepreneurial venture to help US companies take their products into Latin America, and I absolutely loved doing that until I had kids. And then I didn't want to travel that much anymore. I didn't like the eleven-hour flight to get down to Argentina that much anymore. So I started focusing and looking around here in the Chicagoland area at what I wanted to do next, and that's where I started working for a brand strategy firm. Eventually I had some partners and had my own brand strategy firm. Long story short, I've always been involved in brand strategy and voice-of-customer research and the customer experience in some way, shape or form for the past, I hate dating myself, but twenty years or so. It's just been fantastic. And I had an e-commerce store for a little while, which is where I learned how you build a brand. Even though you have a website and think your brand is fantastic, if you can't drive traffic there, you really don't have a business. That was definitely something that I have used successfully for my clients: to help them learn how to drive more people to their websites and get themselves known and visible online. I've been with BrandStrong Marketing, this iteration of my business, for over eleven years, and I just love working with small businesses and founders so that they can be successful and grow their business, sell their business, whatever it is that they dreamed of doing when they started.

Kathi: It's such a blessing that you spoke Spanish, being from Puerto Rico, because then it allowed you to immerse yourself in all aspects of Motorola marketing. Whereas if you had just been English speaking, people on the same track probably didn't get nearly the breadth of experience that you received.

Sue: Absolutely not. I would have been pigeonholed into, oh, you're the brochure person, or you just stay over here in PR. And the biggest thing that I really appreciated about going out on my own, sure, it's risky and it's a big decision. But once I was out of the corporate track, it was amazing how many business models there are, or ways that you can make money, or things that you could do to advance your professional career and even your personal interests. When you're in corporate America, there's a ladder and you're siloed, and you climb the ladder or you don't, and you hope to make it to VP. But when you have your own business, or you're outside in an entrepreneurial aspect, it's like, gosh, I could teach MBA classes, which I did. I can lead focus groups, which I did. I can do all these different types of activities that I would never have had an opportunity to do if I'd stayed in a corporation.

Kathi: A lot of people that go from corporate to their own face obstacles. What do you think was the biggest obstacle that you faced as you were launching and reinventing yourself?

Sue: The biggest obstacle, one that almost derailed me, was this. I had made the decision that I wanted to build my own business and be entrepreneurial. I happened to be getting my MBA at Kellogg at the time and had signed up for an entrepreneurial course. It was one of those pitch courses where investors come in and you have to present your idea. Because I had an idea for a business, my team was like, yeah, let's run with yours. You want to start a branding firm. At the time, I was trying to build an agency that would help take US companies into Latin America. So it was very exciting. I went in and pitched to the investor, a very high-profile investor in Chicago. And I was like, this is going to be fantastic. I'm going to build this business. Here's how it's going to grow. Here's how I'm going to help companies. And at the end of the presentation, he looked at me and he said, no. No, I'm not interested. I don't think that's going to be a good business. I was devastated. I just went home and cried for days, because that was what I really wanted to do next. But at least I stopped after the grief period. I stopped and I listened to his advice, and his point was that I was talking about what I wanted, and I was not focusing the message on what an investor would want, what a client would want from this business. He gave me great advice on how to turn that around, that shift in thinking. So I reworked the whole business plan with my team, and we went back and presented again to the investor. And he said, yes. Now I've got it. This is good. You listened to me, so you take feedback, which is great. But more importantly, he said, you put yourself in my shoes. That was one of the biggest lessons that I could have learned from that class: it doesn't matter what I think or what I want. It's all about the person on the other end of that communication exchange. How can I help them? How can I help make them see what I want them to see, in terms of either what they need or how it can help them? So that was one of the biggest obstacles that might have derailed me. I could have just given up at that time and said, forget it, I'll stay here in corporate. But no.

It doesn't matter what I think or what I want. It's all about the person on the other end of that communication exchange.

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Kathi: I love constructive criticism, and I welcome it. I never get my feelings hurt. I mean, sometimes you get sad, but it's never about me. It's about, oh, this is another perspective of what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. So when you work with clients, what do you think is the biggest challenge that they face?

Sue: The biggest challenge they face, I think, is they cannot see themselves as others see them, which is basically why I get brought in. Where I help people really understand what their brand is and why their customers love them is this: the brand resides in the minds of your stakeholders. You can tell me, founder or executive team, all day long what you think your brand is, but we actually have to go outside and validate that that's the way it's being perceived by the people you care about: customers, employees, investors. So I do a lot of research, voice of customer. I ask their top customers, why do you love working with this firm? What do they do that others can't do for you? On their best day, how well do they perform? And nine times out of ten, what the CEO and founder told me their brand is is not what's being said on the outside. And it's not all bad. Sometimes the CEOs are like, oh my gosh, really? They say that about us? We're going to go with that. That's perfect. But if not, if there is a gap, well, then where's the gap? Is it that your messaging is wrong, that you're not talking about yourself in the way that they perceive you? Or is it that your messaging is fine, but you're not delivering? The experience is not delivering what you said you were going to deliver, so the customers are coming up with a different perception, a different brand, when they refer you or decide to work with you. So that's what we work on then: what needs to be fixed to help you identify the brand position and the messaging and the experience that's going to accelerate your growth.

The brand resides in the minds of your stakeholders.

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Kathi: But they need to be open to hearing what customers think. Good, bad and ugly.

Sue: Yep. And good.

Kathi: Like you say, your CEO is like, really? They think that? That's so cool.

Sue: Exactly. And when you're doing brand strategy, I'm not doing a customer satisfaction survey when I talk to your clients. What I'm doing is trying to find out why they like you, why they're loyal. If there's something horribly bad, it will come out in the process. But generally, it really focuses on what they like about the relationship and how they work with you. And it's really gratifying to me, because I have had some founders tell me, you've helped me fall in love with my business again. Because we all deal with putting out fires all day, and someone's complaining about this, and this went wrong, and we need to fix this and this and this. And to have someone come back and say, you know what? Let's take an hour and let's focus on what you really do well, and let me share that story with you. It just energizes everyone and gives them the clarity and energy and inspiration on how to move forward, because they go back to why did I start this business to begin with? And they're excited about the growth and the opportunities moving forward. So that makes me feel awesome, that I can bring a little bit of joy and purpose back into their lives.

Kathi: Super valuable. I used to be signed up for a group that would come in and give viewpoints on products or whatever, and it's great fun. I just love being the person that's reviewing and saying my thoughts. It's quite interesting to see what happens in the focus groups.

Sue: Exactly. Do they take that advice and work on it, or do they just say, oh, she doesn't know what she's talking about?

Kathi: Right. You have to be open to receiving that feedback. What's the most memorable piece of your career so far from what you've been doing with your agency?

Sue: I think it was actually launching my podcast. I'm sure you feel this way too, but it was one of those things where I thought about it forever and just didn't do it, whether it was lack of confidence or whatever it was. I just sat on the idea for three years. And then finally, one day, I said, why aren't I doing this? I need to be educating. I love teaching, and I love learning, and the podcast allows me to do both of those things. I learn from my guests on the show, and then I can turn around and teach my clients and others all of the insights that I'm being gifted with and gathering on the podcast. It was a super scary thing for me to do, I thought at the time, and I am loving it. It's so much fun. I meet the coolest people, either being a guest or having them come on to my show. But most importantly, what the podcast has allowed me to do was this. I didn't want it to be just me saying the brand is so important, especially to my target market, which is small business owners between one and ten to fifteen million. When you talk about branding, some of them get it, but a lot of them are like, oh, branding is for big companies. We don't have that kind of money. We don't have that kind of budget. No. Actually, branding is a strategic decision-making tool that helps you grow and accelerate your growth, because it keeps you focused. It gives you clarity. It tells you how to communicate to all of your different audiences that are important to you. So the podcast to me was a way to not have just me getting that message out there, but to bring people on like yourself and interview as many small business owners and advisers to small business owners as I can who have a story about how focusing on and using the brand led to accelerated growth for their company. That's my mission. That's what I want. There are not enough small business owners that make it to the big time. I think only nine percent ever get beyond the one-million-dollar mark. Only four percent of women-owned businesses get beyond the one-million-dollar mark. I applaud entrepreneurs, and I want to do anything I can to help them grow, help their community, provide jobs for people, and then maybe even sell their business and create a legacy for their family.

Branding is a strategic decision-making tool that helps you grow, because it keeps you focused.

Kathi: And hopefully more women are going to hit that mark with our help. That's why I have a podcast too. You meet other experts, and then you pass on their information. There are so many people doing so many fabulous things in the world, but it's hard to drill down and learn from each one. I think a podcast is a great vehicle for that, because you can look at the content and say, yeah, this is of interest to me. I don't need that. I do need this. Let's listen real quick. That's why I also like the twenty-to-thirty-minute podcast format, because it's easily consumable. And like you said, Sue, it's a chance for me to meet women like you, other entrepreneurs who are doing things. Because really, when it comes down to it, we do the same thing using different modalities. We're still here to help businesses scale. I do operations. You do branding and messaging. We need it all.

Sue: You absolutely need it all. You're full focus on process and systems, and they're absolutely going to need that to scale. And then I look at it from the point of the branding, or even helping the founder, because if you are starting to scale, the business needs to eventually not be you anymore. It needs to not be the founder. Your personal brand needs to be transferred to become an organizational brand. Because let me tell you, if you want to sell that business, or if you want to grow, it can't be you. It cannot be dependent on you. Otherwise, you're not going to get the money you wanted if you sell it. You're probably going to have to stick around for two to three more years after you sell it, because you're still the brand. So your systems release the owner from the business, and hopefully my help with branding releases the owner from the business as well.

If you want to sell that business, or if you want to grow, it can't be you.

Kathi: I'm with you on that for sure. That's awesome. So, speaking of systems, what's your favorite organizing hack? How do you keep yourself in line day to day with your business?

Sue: I'm kind of a neophyte, I think, so I hope I don't embarrass myself with all this.

Kathi: Hey, whatever works. Whatever works is fine.

Sue: Time blocking, I would say. That's my biggest thing for time management. I learned that a number of years ago from another professional I used to know who was helping with organization. A lot of what I do is meetings, but then I need creative time. I need time to write and to do research, time when I cannot be distracted. So I have to block those times out in my calendar and know what time of day is actually peak for me to be writing or be creative. And I even time block my personal time. If I want to work out, I've got to have it there in the calendar. Otherwise, I can come up with a million other things to do in that hour. So I block those out and make sure that they're just as important as my professional tasks that need to be assigned. That's one. Another one that I use a lot is Trello with my team. My team that helps me with the editing of the podcast and putting out my episodes every two weeks is in the Philippines. So Trello actually works really well, because then we can share files, pass things back and forth, mark things off, and hold everything together in one central app or software system. All of those work incredibly well for me. And then I've started playing around with AI to help with taking over some mundane tasks. I take the transcripts from my podcast, and I have AI just clean up the grammar, take out the ums and the ahs, and make the transcript a lot more readable. That's an easy thing it can do. It categorizes all of my podcasts so that I can easily find them later based on branding subject or case story. And I also use it for research, whether that's for new content ideas. Hey, what's the latest that's going on in the world of branding? Should I be writing about something like that? AI can do that research for me. But it also can do research for my own marketing. Hey, what new podcasts are out that I should be a guest on? Are there any associations that I should be speaking at? I can use AI to help me pull that together, and it does save a tremendous amount of time.

Kathi: Absolutely. I'm with you on the time blocking. And I love the fact that you're blocking personal and business in the same calendar. I think it's so very important as entrepreneurs. A lot of people want to do their separate calendars, but then things get lost in the muck of the stuff. And then you don't go to class, or you don't get the workout, because something took it over. Somebody took that time block, and it wasn't me, and it wasn't them. And who did that? I don't know.

Sue: No. Absolutely.

Kathi: So love that. If you could turn back time and talk to your eighteen-year-old self, what advice would you give her?

Sue: I think there are two to three things I would probably tell her. The first is think bigger. Like we talked about earlier, the fact of, oh, I've got a job, and I'm just going to climb this ladder. And it's going to be two years between promotions because that's what everybody's telling me it's going to be. So think bigger in terms of what can I do? Part of that is another piece of advice: get to know yourself really early. Your strengths, your personal brand, what you're good at, what you're not good at, what lights you up, what doesn't light you up. I wish I had known that and worked on myself, so to speak, when I was a lot younger. I think maybe I would have made decisions faster, would have maybe done some different things, or at least not had certain points in my life where you're like, oh my gosh, I feel trapped. This is it. This is what I have to do, and I'm not happy with this job, or even a client. How do I get out of this? By understanding my strengths and what I'm good at and what energizes me in terms of work, I might have been able to steer the ship in a different direction a little bit faster. So, thinking bigger about opportunities and what I could possibly do, because that helps, and knowing my personal brand. And then the last one is don't be afraid to ask for advice. That was the thing. I was always independent, thought I knew what was going on in life. When I was in my twenties, I was like, oh yeah, I'm smart. I've got stuff going on. I figured out my life. And then you realize, coming into your thirties and forties, wait. There are so many other smart people out there who have done what I want to do. I need to talk to them. I need to ask for their advice, and it's not a sign of weakness to say I need help with anything. That was something that I wish I had started a little earlier, and my eighteen-year-old self should have known. It's amazing to me how people who don't even know you, if you ask, it still amazes me how many people help you. People want to help you. And I think now, as a caveat, because I'm married to a man, as women entrepreneurs, it's so much easier. I still see the stigma with men asking men. For us, it's so easy. We always want to give information and get information. There's no mark, so to speak, to ask for advice. In fact, I think it's an asset. Sadly, I think it's still a little bit strange for men, but we're lucky because we're women entrepreneurs.

Kathi: Exactly. There's so much knowledge out there that you could tap into by just asking. And as you said, people feel good when they can help somebody else with their career, or get a leg up, or make an introduction. So even if they don't know you, what's the worst they're going to say? No. So ask. Ask and get their help. And back to your point of getting to know yourself and your strengths and weaknesses, I think that we don't really know ourselves until our thirties anyhow. But at forty, I finally had to come to it, and I picked up the book What Color Is Your Parachute? I still work with people on that, actually, because it's a process. You can take Myers-Briggs. You can take all the different assessments, but you can skew them. You can totally skew all of those to a certain point to get what you want. But What Color Is Your Parachute? is in, what, the fifty-sixth edition. You can't mess with the results. The results are the results. So I love that. If any of you are listening out there and you're wondering what your strengths are, because I didn't know. My major strength is I love change. Okay, cool. I would have never come upon that. And so what do I do? I help people change. That's my easy thing. You don't know that until you have the right assessment. So if you're listening and any of you are wondering, go to What Color Is Your Parachute? It's like fifty editions later, still the same content, because it works.

Sue: Yep. It works. And it is hard to know who you are. It really is. You have to grow into the confidence of what you're good at or what you enjoy doing. There's a lot that needs to be explored before you can really say, okay, I like this. I don't like that. I'm good at this. Or, as a business owner, I should outsource that because I'm just mucking it up.

Kathi: Absolutely. And call in a professional, because we can see what you can't see. That's the whole point. That's the only reason why masters hire masters. It helps us see what we can't see. There's somebody that's just looking over, not stuck in the muck of your stuff, saying, oh yeah, well, maybe have you thought about this? Or I see this in you. That's why, going back to when you do the group forums for products and stuff, you learn all this stuff about what people really think about you, and then you can grow and move on. Wow, this has been really good. I love this conversation.

Sue: Me too. This is fun.

Kathi: Is there anything that you want to talk about? I know you have a valuable free offer for people. You can talk about that, and then let me know if we haven't touched on a topic that you want to discuss.

Sue: I think we've touched on a lot of good things. But my free offer is this. Like we said, it's hard to get to know yourself, and it's hard to see yourself as others see you. However, you still can take strides and start working on figuring out what your brand is, whether it's your organizational brand or your personal brand. So on my website, which is brandstrongmarketing.com, on the home page I actually have a workbook, so to speak, that has the ten questions to ask to identify your unique brand. It goes through the questions you need to ask your customers if you own a business. Or if it's a personal brand, ask the people you work with, your peers. You can ask them a lot of the same questions, and then it tells you how to distill that information into figuring out what truly makes you unique.

Kathi: That's good. That's a good one. Everybody should do that. Even if you think you know, you probably are going to learn something that you don't know. I love that assessment. Just talking to your customers and asking them some questions, it's eye opening. Absolutely eye opening.

Sue: And don't be afraid, because you might actually love what they say, to the point where I've had some clients go, oh my gosh, can we take that testimonial? I'll just completely make it our marketing campaign.

Kathi: Sure. Absolutely. You might fall in love with your business again, just like you said earlier.

Sue: Yes. Exactly.

Kathi: Love it. Anything else? Did I miss anything?

Sue: I don't think so, other than, yeah, I mentioned the podcast, the Turbo Branding Show. If anyone is interested in how small businesses in particular are using their brand, case stories, how it helps you get a higher multiple for your business if you want to sell it, and things like that, I've got some amazing guests on, and I would love to have people come over and take a listen and let me know what you thought. It's the Turbo Branding Show, and you can find that on YouTube, Apple and Spotify.

Kathi: Yes. And we will share that below in the show notes as well, because we need to grow podcasts. Speaking of that, gang, if you like this podcast, please give me a thumbs up. Comments are awesome. If you want to subscribe to my YouTube channel, if you find this on YouTube, please do. I'm this much away from a thousand subscribers, so I'm very, very close to that landmark. I'd appreciate your help with that. Check out all the things that Sue is offering for you in the show notes. Grab the links. Get to know her more. She is a turbo brand herself. So until next week, you guys, we will see you. And thank you, Sue, for being on the show. I really appreciate it.

Sue: Thanks so much, Kathi. I had fun.

Kathi: Absolutely.