On this episode of Branded, Larry Roberts and Sara Lohse are going deeper than usual and talking about mind mapping.
By creating a visual outline of your areas of expertise, services, and unique selling propositions, you can organize your thoughts and gain clarity on what your brand offers.
We’re talking about our own mind maps, how we created them, and walking you through the process. PLUS, you can find a template for creating your own mind map at bit.ly/BrandedMap.
1. Mind Mapping for Brand Clarity: The episode discusses the concept of mind mapping as a tool to bring clarity to one’s brand. By visualizing and mapping out different areas of expertise and offerings, individuals and businesses can gain a clearer understanding of how their brand components relate to each other.
2. Diverse Skill Sets as Unique Selling Propositions: Having diverse skill sets and expertise can be reframed as unique selling propositions. By recognizing how different areas of expertise overlap and complement each other, individuals can leverage their diverse background to offer distinctive and valuable services.
3. Importance of Clarity in Brand Messaging: The conversation emphasizes the importance of clarity in brand messaging and the need for continuity and cohesion in presenting a brand’s vision, mission, and deliverables. Developing a clear and cohesive brand message is essential for effectively communicating to potential clients and customers.
4. Visualization and Detailed Planning: The episode stresses the significance of visualizing and planning brand components in detail. By breaking down areas of expertise into subcomponents and further details, individuals can uncover connections between different aspects of their brand and identify how to harness their expertise to build compelling value propositions.
5. Action-Orientation and Continuous Improvement: We express the value of taking action to map out one’s brand and continuously working on refining and evolving the brand components. Mind mapping is presented as a proactive exercise to help individuals identify areas for improvement and align their brand components for greater impact.
Transcript
What is happening, everybody? I'm Larry Roberts. And I'm Sara
Speaker:Lohse, and this is Branded, a comprehensive guide for Creative
Speaker:branding. And on this episode of the podcast, we're gonna
Speaker:be taking it a little deeper than normal. We're gonna be
Speaker:thinking long and hard about this episode, and we're gonna be drawing
Speaker:out a mind map. A what?
Speaker:A mind map, Sara. It's a map of our mind.
Speaker:No way. Way. So
Speaker:No. You know, it's interesting because I I, you know, I belong to a
Speaker:variety of masterminds, and I was in 1 a couple weeks ago.
Speaker:And To be honest, I kinda got, I was in the hot seat, and
Speaker:that seat got very, very hot because they were
Speaker:talking about how I do so many different things, and I
Speaker:cover so many different topics. They're like, dude, what do you
Speaker:do? And it kinda left me stumped for a couple of
Speaker:weeks, and, You know, we had the holiday there, so I had a lot
Speaker:of downtime, a lot of thinking time, and,
Speaker:I went and visited Another creator. His name's Roger Wakefield,
Speaker:massive YouTuber. He's a plumber by profession,
Speaker:and he just has an entire, like, media,
Speaker:Compound out where I went. It's out here in North Texas. It's amazing,
Speaker:but he also brings a lot to the table, and he talks about a variety
Speaker:of topics. And it was just, like, it was fate
Speaker:for me to go out there and visit him this past week because as soon
Speaker:as I walked into his office, We had our little chitchat, and I sat
Speaker:down. And he hands me this 8a half by 11 sheet of paper and
Speaker:goes, bam, slams his hand down. He goes, this It's what I've been working
Speaker:on, and it was a mind map
Speaker:because he's doing the same thing. He's got him at the top
Speaker:here as the brand, Then he's got his YouTube. Then he's got his TikTok. Then
Speaker:he's got his speaking. Then he's got his courses. Then he's got his training. He's
Speaker:got all this stuff that he's bringing to the table under this one brand,
Speaker:but if you don't have clarity on how that
Speaker:brand comes together and how you have you can paint a cohesive
Speaker:picture to potential clients, it's just a
Speaker:muddled mess, and that inspired me
Speaker:to come back home. And after kicking rocks from getting my back
Speaker:So I'd whooped in the in the mastermind. I started putting together a mind map.
Speaker:So for people who didn't follow that, oh, a
Speaker:mind map. Do we need to mind map my story? Was it was
Speaker:it that convoluted? I think so. So a mind map is
Speaker:basically a way that you can develop some clarity
Speaker:around what it is you're trying to do. So
Speaker:the way that Larry did it was
Speaker:it's kind of like one of those, like, what is it called? Like, a spider
Speaker:chart or something back in, like, elementary school. Never heard
Speaker:it called a spider chart, Bet a full chart. Or maybe that's the circle kind.
Speaker:I don't know. It's some kind of chart. But you put your brand on the
Speaker:top and then that oh, it's kinda like a family tree. That's what it looks
Speaker:like. Okay. Kinda like a family tree because then that breaks down
Speaker:into the different areas that you wanna focus
Speaker:on. And then from there, you break that into what exactly it is that
Speaker:you do in those areas. Right? That sounds about right. Let's talk about upside
Speaker:down family tree because the the trunk is your primary brand.
Speaker:Right? And then you turn it upside down, and that's where all the branches come
Speaker:into play and all the different components. I don't know. Upside down
Speaker:at all. It's totally well, trees don't don't grow with the branches in the
Speaker:ground. If you ever seen a family tree, it's like the ancestors at top, and
Speaker:then it grows out with all of the different families. It depends on the
Speaker:diagram. I've seen actual trees with branches. Anyways,
Speaker:but, yeah, it could be the the the The the matriarchy
Speaker:and patriarchy of the of the family, and then from there, it goes
Speaker:it goes on down. Anyhoo, so
Speaker:So when you started yours, like, what you did you broke it down
Speaker:first into 3 different pieces. So what were those pieces? Well,
Speaker:the very top piece. You know, I I started it all with Red Hat Media,
Speaker:so that's at the the very top. That's driving everything. That's the
Speaker:brand. The Red Hat, for me, obviously, is the brand, but
Speaker:then I had to look and go, okay. What are the what are the primary
Speaker:things that we do at Red Hat Media, and one of the primary
Speaker:things that we focus on. And by we, I'm talking about
Speaker:me because in my instance, a lot of the times, I really am just the
Speaker:brand. It's me. So the 3 things that I focus on the
Speaker:most are podcasting, branding,
Speaker:and AI. So now granted, there's
Speaker:some other fringe things that I I dabble in from time to time, but those
Speaker:are the 3 primary focuses of me and what I bring to the
Speaker:table for Red Hat Media. So that's where it came from me
Speaker:and then branched off into those 3 areas of, I'll call it, areas of expertise
Speaker:or primary areas of focus. And then we had to take it 1
Speaker:step further, actually multiple step further steps further, there we
Speaker:go, and had to start breaking out the specifics of
Speaker:what our offerings and what our focus is on within each of
Speaker:those 3, we'll call them, categories. And if it for people that
Speaker:are listening to this and if they're you're struggling to follow this, we're actually putting
Speaker:together a template of a mind map so
Speaker:that you can look at it and fill it in for yourself. So that's gonna
Speaker:be available linked in the show notes when this goes live.
Speaker:So don't worry if this is hurting your head. You'll be able to
Speaker:really visualize it. But I think it's interesting how so you
Speaker:have podcasting, branding, and AI. Yeah. And then I feel like if I
Speaker:were to do this, because I haven't done this yet, I feel like podcasting
Speaker:might even be multiple things for me because
Speaker:I'm looking at podcasting externally and
Speaker:internally. Like, I wanna do branding, more I
Speaker:do, branded podcasts for businesses,
Speaker:but one of the things that I'm trying to get into and learn
Speaker:more about is internal podcast, and I feel like that's even,
Speaker:like, maybe its own thing. Like, I don't even know if those would be together.
Speaker:I think they serve such unique purposes that it might be
Speaker:smart to break them out into individual subcategories of their
Speaker:own. Yeah. And, you know, in in you were talking about just a minute
Speaker:ago, if folks that are listening or having a hard time picturing it,
Speaker:that's the whole purpose of this mind map is so that you can draw a
Speaker:picture Mhmm. Of your brand and a picture of your
Speaker:business model. And when I started doing this, and I think we've talked about it
Speaker:on other episodes, You know, the my website's going under a revamp
Speaker:right now as well, and my web developer is sitting right here. And I appreciate
Speaker:everything that she does for me in that arena because she's also very talented there.
Speaker:But she goes, alright, man. We can redo this, and I can make it look
Speaker:however you want it to look. But what's the content? What do you want on
Speaker:the damn site? And that's right. I don't know. Just put something up there that's
Speaker:cool. So, like, a couple months
Speaker:ago, the first time we did your site, that's literally what I
Speaker:did because you're like, I have an event next week, and I don't have a
Speaker:website. Can you make me 1? And I was like, alright.
Speaker:Bet. And in, like, one day, create it. You said bet.
Speaker:My New York just came out. Yeah. Right on. I dig it. I just created
Speaker:a website based off of, like okay. I have a
Speaker:General idea. We weren't even that close at the time, so it's like I had
Speaker:a general idea of what you did, but Yeah. I didn't know like, I had
Speaker:no clarity for your brand because neither did you. So now we
Speaker:look at that site, and it it's lacks all brand
Speaker:clarity because we didn't take the time to do this.
Speaker:Right. And that's why this is so important. So anyone that is
Speaker:struggling with that brand clarity, what is it that you
Speaker:do? Who do you do it for? What are those offers?
Speaker:This mind map is a way to get that down on paper
Speaker:and have it in in front of you and breaking it down in a way
Speaker:that it almost will resemble your
Speaker:website map because you're going to use this to actually
Speaker:Outline to your website visitors what it is
Speaker:that you do because if you don't have clarity
Speaker:on your brand, The people that you're trying to get to hire
Speaker:you, they will have even less clarity
Speaker:on your brand, and why would they hire you if they don't know what you
Speaker:do? So And that can be painful too to have that realization. You
Speaker:know? And and Oh, yeah. You know, going back to licking my own little wounds
Speaker:here. You know, The whole hot seat thing, that that's that's it's been a couple
Speaker:weeks, and it's still stinging a bit because it was literally you
Speaker:don't have that clarity in your message. And The irony there is we see we
Speaker:have a podcast called Freakin' Branded. So we're supposed to be the branding
Speaker:experts and have a firm grasp on how we
Speaker:convey our brand and our message that's behind our brand,
Speaker:and here I am struggling to keep it straight. But
Speaker:Not to make excuses. This year has been
Speaker:an interesting year for me. There's been all sorts of developments
Speaker:with the whole AI thing and the branding and the, you know, podcasting. I've been
Speaker:in that game for for 10 years, going on 10 years now. So
Speaker:that's pretty straightforward, but the other 2, it's been an evolution, and I
Speaker:think that's something that we tend to go through,
Speaker:as as entrepreneurs and business owners, but we have a very difficult
Speaker:time keeping our message up to date with our evolution
Speaker:as a business owner. Yeah. I think we also, like,
Speaker:kind of cling to the ideas that we have at first a little
Speaker:bit. And I I feel like I say this a lot, but I'm a very
Speaker:much a do as I say, not as I do marketer because
Speaker:I know marketing. I've been in marketing for since 20
Speaker:Seventeen, if we're not counting, those, like, 6 internships in college and all of the
Speaker:stuff I did in school. So I know marketing, and
Speaker:I know what I should do for my company,
Speaker:but I don't do it. But I'll still tell you to do it for yours.
Speaker:Yeah. Because it's like I'd rather Take the time
Speaker:working on client projects and making sure that I give them the best
Speaker:product possible than spend the time to do it for myself. And I
Speaker:feel like that's so common. Like, I cannot be the only
Speaker:one that does that. And No. Both
Speaker:of us are getting to that point where we're both like, okay. We need
Speaker:to figure our own shit out because, like you said,
Speaker:we're the branding people. Like, we could talk about this all day, but then you
Speaker:look at our brands, and we're like, We need to start listening to our own
Speaker:advice. Yeah. And it's it's sometimes that advice can can sting
Speaker:more than just bringing it to your attention that you don't have the clarity you're
Speaker:looking for, but it can sting because Your business and you as an
Speaker:entrepreneur, you do evolve. And as you evolve, you
Speaker:start to stand out in, potentially,
Speaker:arenas that you never intended to be a part of. You
Speaker:know, I mean, as as an example, the whole AI gig. Right? I've gotten
Speaker:more attention and became more of a thought
Speaker:leader in that space in this year alone
Speaker:then it took me 10 years to get even in the podcast
Speaker:space. If we look at it from the AI perspective, I mean, I've gone way
Speaker:above and beyond any Success, quote, unquote, that I've experienced in the
Speaker:podcast space. I mean, I've earned media attention
Speaker:on ABC, on big name channels on television.
Speaker:I'm consulting with the state of Texas on education and and the
Speaker:impact that AI is having on education. It's it's just it's
Speaker:opening up So many doors, and so you
Speaker:have to look at it and go, okay. But I'm really a podcast guy. I
Speaker:think you can be both. Having expertise in one
Speaker:arena does not remove the expertise you have in another.
Speaker:So I've become the podcast person too because
Speaker:It's what I've been focusing on, and it's what I've been having a lot of
Speaker:fun with, so it's what I've been really targeting right
Speaker:now. But I actually I was working it was a
Speaker:former client, and I was consulting for them
Speaker:for their podcast, and We were looking at a landing
Speaker:page that they had made, and the landing page was not good.
Speaker:And I was like, okay. Well, here's all of my feedback, and I started pointing
Speaker:things out. Like, Based on psychological studies of, like, eye mapping, I
Speaker:would say move this over here. And, the way that our brain
Speaker:reads words, if you have this all Capitalized is harder to read, so it's
Speaker:like I would make this to just title caps. And
Speaker:I'm telling them these things that I'm, like, Citing psychological
Speaker:studies and all of this, and she stops me, and she's
Speaker:like, this was made by marketers. That's their expertise.
Speaker:You're the podcast expert, so let's focus on the podcast.
Speaker:And I had to be like, ma'am, I'm
Speaker:a marketing expert. I just focus on podcasts. Did you
Speaker:not, like, did you not hear anything I just said? I didn't say, oh, you
Speaker:know, I think this would be better. It's like, No. IMAP studies
Speaker:have proven that this is what they will look at. We
Speaker:can have more than 1 expertise, and it's when those,
Speaker:Like, areas of expertise overlap, that's,
Speaker:like, powerful. I don't think it's supposed to take away from
Speaker:them. It's how do we use All of these things that we're like,
Speaker:that we know and use them to build on each other.
Speaker:Like, I'm also a personal finance I'm an accredited financial
Speaker:counselor. That's nothing to do with marketing. Nothing to
Speaker:do with media. I have to interrupt. You are all over the map Here, there
Speaker:I have no idea what you do. What do you do? There's no
Speaker:clarity. You're a finance expert. You're a marketing expert. You're a podcast expert. I
Speaker:know. Right? How do you make all of this make sense?
Speaker:Because it does, though. So, I mean, like I
Speaker:said, I'm a finance expert. So At the time this is recording,
Speaker:I'm few days away from leaving to speak at a finance conference on
Speaker:how to use podcasts to grow a financial brand because
Speaker:I've done that, because I worked in the finance space while using podcasting and
Speaker:while using marketing. So I don't think it's a bad
Speaker:thing to have Different areas that we're an expert
Speaker:in if we can you like, harness them together. I guess that's that was
Speaker:a really long winded way of saying that. No. I think it's great.
Speaker:You you kept it off with with the emphasis on the fact that you're going
Speaker:to speak in New Orleans at a finance conference. But what are you speaking about?
Speaker:Podcasting. You're speaking about podcasting. And why do you have the opportunity to speak
Speaker:about podcasting at a finance conference? Because I know finance. Bing. Bing. Bing.
Speaker:Bing. Bing. There we go. We win the prize. So, you know,
Speaker:having a diverse skill set and a diverse set of
Speaker:offerings Under your brand isn't necessarily
Speaker:the no no. It's not having the
Speaker:continuity between each of these branches, We'll call
Speaker:it. Going back to our family tree analogy. It's not having a a
Speaker:uniform, collective, with your messaging and your
Speaker:vision and your deliverables. That's the problem. We have
Speaker:to also like, how can we reframe
Speaker:these different expertise areas, these different niches, what have
Speaker:you, into unique selling propositions for
Speaker:ourselves. We had Gordon Firemark was just on the show. He's the podcast
Speaker:lawyer. He and I had sat down and had dinner a week before
Speaker:recording and because he was in town accepting his award,
Speaker:and we ended up talking about my brand and what
Speaker:my unique, selling points could be. And the finance piece was
Speaker:one of them in a way that I didn't really See before. He
Speaker:pointed it out in that I
Speaker:spent, like, 4 or 5 years Working in
Speaker:marketing for finance so that I know
Speaker:how compliance works in finance.
Speaker:And I haven't had something kicked back to me from compliance saying like,
Speaker:oh, you can't say this since, like, the 1st year I was doing
Speaker:it. So when I started working with a real estate firm
Speaker:and they had they were doing real estate investing, the guy
Speaker:looked visibly stressed having to explain to me what
Speaker:compliance is, and I'm like, oh, no. I'm good. Like, I worked with CFPs for
Speaker:years. Like like, I got this. Don't worry about it. And he just,
Speaker:like, visibly relaxed. And, like, I've
Speaker:worked with lawyers who have a lot of compliance. I've worked in health care that
Speaker:has a lot of compliance. All of these industries that are so regulated.
Speaker:I've done it before, and I understand it. And
Speaker:that, I never thought of as a selling point.
Speaker:But the way that he pointed it out to me that it actually is
Speaker:was really interesting. Yeah. I think it's huge. And I I didn't
Speaker:know where this realization came from, but I recognized
Speaker:when you started emphasizing, compliance. It
Speaker:was kind of interesting to see because the conversation started switching over, And
Speaker:you started talking about it as a potential selling
Speaker:proposition, how we could leverage that for internal podcast, and how
Speaker:we could we could really lean into that. So Thanks, Gordon. Yeah.
Speaker:Thanks, Gordon. Gordon, sharp fella. Sharp fella. I'll definitely
Speaker:check out his podcast if you haven't yet. So But that that's that's
Speaker:really what it amounts to, you know, is is understanding
Speaker:your potential to offer a unique Selling
Speaker:proposition because of your unique background. I mean, how
Speaker:many people out there have a background that lines up exactly like Sara's?
Speaker:Many people out there have a background that lines up exactly like mine?
Speaker:It's very few. Mhmm. And while, again, it does
Speaker:seem fragmented and it does seem all over the place, If you take the
Speaker:time to step back and visualize
Speaker:how all of these components not just go together, Not just
Speaker:make sense under your primary brand, but how they complement each other
Speaker:and and really elevate each other. And that's
Speaker:what everything that I do at Red Hat Media and Sara does at favorite daughter
Speaker:media and we do together at Brandon. And
Speaker:Being able to put all of this on paper is
Speaker:really the 1st step to figuring it out for
Speaker:yourself. So going back to this idea of that mind
Speaker:map, take that time to do it. Really sit down. Like
Speaker:I said, we're gonna have that, template available for you.
Speaker:So figure out what are the main
Speaker:offerings. Like, what are the main Areas of expertise, I
Speaker:guess. I like area of expertise. I think that's really good. That's kinda what we're
Speaker:talking about. When we look at my podcasting, my branding, And in my AI,
Speaker:that would be my areas of expertise. And then within each of those,
Speaker:you've got the the the subcomponents to go into those. Each
Speaker:Area of expertise and then break it down into what can you
Speaker:offer. Like, how can you use that expertise in the service
Speaker:of others? Looking at, let's say,
Speaker:branding for, for Red Hat, you have that
Speaker:broken down into speaking on branding, the
Speaker:book that you're coming out with on branding, and then social media.
Speaker:So how can we help others create a cohesive brand
Speaker:for, for their own social media. The area of expertise
Speaker:is branding, but from there, we break it down into what it
Speaker:is we can help others do by
Speaker:offering this expertise. Yeah. And and from there, you just break
Speaker:down even further until you get down into these the just the the
Speaker:the smallest details. And when you put that much thought, much time and
Speaker:that much visualization into something, you're gonna discover things about each of
Speaker:your brand components that relates to the others and how
Speaker:you tie that together. And once you have it all tied together, then you can
Speaker:start working on your messaging. You can talk about your vision and your
Speaker:mission and your core values of your your business, but
Speaker:It all dials right back to us. We have to have that clarity
Speaker:before we can start trying to give that clarity to others. So
Speaker:that's what we're talking about today, drawing it all out, putting together these mind
Speaker:maps, and, hopefully, you can take some of the things that we said
Speaker:here and Map out your own mind?
Speaker:Create your little brain tree.
Speaker:Create your little brain tree. Alright. Well, hopefully
Speaker:hopefully with that, you're inspired to create your own personal brain
Speaker:tree. I know Sara and I are actively working on ours. It's been a very,
Speaker:very fun exercise, and, we're gonna continue to work through it
Speaker:together, while we lay out this, this brand new website that I can't wait to
Speaker:roll out. So with that, if you found some value in this episode, map it
Speaker:out for us. Tell us all about it. And, while you're at it, also hit
Speaker:that subscribe button so we can continue to bring you these insightful
Speaker:conversations on each and every episode. With that, I'm Larry Roberts. I'm Sara
Speaker:Lohse. We'll talk to you next week.
