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Michelle Knight, founder and CEO of Brandmerry®, talks about building a brand that’s both authentic and profitable, reflecting the unique values and missions of entrepreneurs.
She shares how intentional branding has shaped her journey from starting a business with a desire for flexibility to running a successful six-figure operation while homeschooling her son.
Watch the episode ‘Why Your Brand Story Belongs on Every Funnel Page, featuring Michelle Knight’ (releases December 4th).
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Speaker 1:
Welcome back to another episode of the Art of Online Business, and today my co-host, my wife and I, Jamie, we have a guest. Hi, Jamie.
Speaker 2:
Hi, thanks for being here.
Speaker 1:
We have a guest. Her name is Michelle Knight and she is the founder and CEO of Brand Mary, which would be a brand strategy and marketing company that helps small business owners build a brand that is authentic, intentional and profitable. Michelle, she’s dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and small business owners create a brand that reflects their unique personality, values and mission. And if you’re new to this format, well, click in the show notes below so you can come to YouTube and see Michelle. She’s right there smiling at us and she cannot wait to share a bit about her business journey and how she got to where she is now building up the nice business. And in the next episode, if you’ve ever heard the buzzword brand storytelling and you wanted to know how to actually fit this brand storytelling into your business through relatable micro stories that help you connect with your audience and, obviously, increase sales inside of your funnel, Well, that episode is coming up next. Michelle, thank you for being here.
Speaker 3:
It’s a pleasure and it’s so nice to see both of you again.
Speaker 1:
Right, it’s nice to have you on this episode, so let’s start. I want to know what is a snapshot of how well your business is doing right now before we jump back in time to how you started it.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so my business is quite different from where it started and I know we’re going to get into all of that. But one of the things that I have really learned along the way is that seasons change and demands change, and so this season of my life I run a six figure business and I homeschool my son and I’m sure we’ll get into my journey and how I’ve created an aligned business. But this was kind of always my priority was starting a business. I really wanted to be very intentional with where I was spending my time obviously support my family with revenue and income, but also kind of be able to ebb and flow, and I have felt so fortunate that online business allows me to do just that. And so today I work with one-on-one clients and I also serve clients inside of a membership portal where I do coaching and marketing strategy, and then I have various courses that I sell passively as well. That gives me the time to be with my family.
Speaker 3:
So my business has come a long way in eight years, but it’s a fun season of kind of navigating. I kind of tell my husband sometimes I say what’s the what’s the word? Because I’m a, I work at home. What’s the word? Cause I’m a, I work at home but I run a business and I’m a homeschool mom and I guess you could argue also a stay at home mom, and I don’t know what the label is, but I’m going to figure it out.
Speaker 1:
Right, all of those, I think we need to add, like AI, to the middle of S, h A MA-M, somehow S-H-A-A-I-M.
Speaker 2:
Stay at home so.
Speaker 1:
S-H-A-A-M. Stay at home awesome income but.
Speaker 2:
I’ve seen people add a W in there. That’s like S-A-W. Stay at home working mom.
Speaker 1:
I like that yeah. Stay at home high earning mom.
Speaker 3:
I like it.
Speaker 1:
All right Stay home boss. That’s what you it All right, exactly, exactly, wow. So six figure business and you’re built that just around one-on-one services plus your membership.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so I hit six figures within the first year of running my business and yes, so I I told him we’ll go back in time. I’ve had my business for eight years, but within one year I I hit six figures cash revenue and every year I have done six figures plus in revenue for my business. In the beginning, it was very much focused on one-on-one brand strategy, brand consultation, coaching, support those words interchange in the field so much. And then, after my first year, I really started to develop more of the group program course mentality. In 2019, I launched my membership. It’s all been those very small, intentional changes to get me where I am today, where I do not have five hours to be on one-on-one calls. I have a few hours every week, and so how I’ve been offering my services has definitely shifted over the years, but I’ve touched and dabbled in all of them every single one.
Speaker 2:
So you started and it says you were in the corporate world for 10 years or so and then how did you even make the shift from that to I think I’m going to start my own business, and what do I even do to start? How did you make that shift?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so I was working in the nonprofit sector for about seven years. I went to school for public relations and communications, so that’s where I have a lot of the foundations that I teach today and I was really passionate about nonprofit work. My family had been in the nonprofit sector for years and I had worked with companies like the Make-A-Wish Foundation, nonprofits out of Chicago, and the company that I worked with right before starting my business was our large area food bank here. So I did advocacy work. I would go to DC, I would speak with legislators. So I look back and I’m like I was doing messaging and marketing long before I kind of fell in love with it and realized so I really loved my job and I tell people that all the time I was really passionate about it. I had no intention of ever leaving and I got pregnant with my son and still plan on going back to work full time.
Speaker 3:
But after he was born everything shifted for me and I’m sure you can relate to this but you know, having given birth and navigating a difficult postpartum experience, I really started to think like maybe I don’t want to be at work, maybe I want to be home with my son, but I really feel like I am a very driven person, I have to be doing things, I have to be creative, and so I just was scrolling social media one night and a girl that I had gone to college with was talking about her coaching business, and I went down a rabbit hole and, after a week of slowly scrolling and getting as much information as possible, I told my husband that I wanted to start my own business and he said all right, let’s do it. And that’s how Brand Mary started. Wow, yeah.
Speaker 1:
So simple, yeah, just so easy.
Speaker 3:
I snapped my fingers and voila, not at all.
Speaker 2:
Not at all.
Speaker 3:
I struggled a lot, a lot, a lot in the beginning.
Speaker 2:
Well, do share it, because that’s I mean, that’s some of the. What people need to hear, right? Is that it’s not just oh, I decided to do it and it happened overnight. Yeah right.
Speaker 3:
I mean, I think the first part is definitely deciding right and like really committing to that, and so one of the things I did, I told my husband I wanted to leave my job by the end of the year, so we really just started. Brand Mary started as a graphic design and marketing firm. We never had a client, but it started off with that intention. My husband was going to help me with the graphic design aspect of it. I was going to help with the brand strategy and marketing. After we spent about four months building the website, the perfect website, getting everything in place, I woke up one day and I said I don’t like this at all. This doesn’t feel like what I want to be doing. And he wasn’t mad about it. I think he was helping to be his compassionate, loving, supportive self that he always is. I think he was like no, really, I don’t need to be part of this at all. Thank you, I’ll be fine.
Speaker 3:
But I was really falling in love with the idea of brand coaching and one of the things that really was impactful for me as I struggled to brand myself online. I had a really hard time and I realized through the process that I didn’t really know what my mission was. I didn’t really. I hadn’t sat down and written my values. No one had ever straight up asked me you know, like, what are your values? I didn’t know. You know even. You know really what made me authentic, and so I ultimately stripped it all back, started from scratch my entire website, built it in three days, booked a photo shoot and launched a brand new coaching business, and I signed my first client within two weeks of doing that so yeah, and so it just kind of was a turning point for me and going more people need to understand the power of not only authentically branding but really knowing yourself before you start a business, and that’s really kind of become the whole point behind Brand Mary.
Speaker 1:
That’s like a lesson, something that I’ve said on the podcast. I’m sure you’ve said to folks, but you actually went through it, where you spent time on the website and all the pretty things before getting it. Did I understand that, right, yeah? You understood it right, and then you decided that you didn’t even want to do it.
Speaker 3:
And then you pivoted to brand Mary and one of the crazy things for me is that, like it took so long to build that first website. It took so long, I mean, choosing fonts, choosing colors, choosing the logo, writing everything felt like it took forever. And then the website that I ended up using for two full years took me three days to create. You know what I mean. Like there’s something to be said about. Coming from a place of alignment and authenticity to it makes everything so much easier, and that’s one of the reasons I really, really, really encourage people to do the branding work first. It doesn’t have to take months and months. I teach it in like a two-week process. It’s like in two weeks you’re going to have your brand ready to rock and roll and then you can create content and messaging and all of those things so much easier than if you’re trying to do it without that kind of brand compass, as I call it.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so I want to know what happens next in your business journey. But before you share that, can you just let us know and listener. What is it that online business owners who come to you for help think that brand is versus what brand really is?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I will say that this has shifted a lot over the years luckily, because the industry has shifted a great deal. But we still do see a lot of people coming to me and inquiring and saying my brand colors feel immature, right, my brand colors feel immature, right, or I need help designing a logo, or my website just isn’t converting. You know, like those kinds of things I think people still really associate to branding. It is that aesthetic where it’s very easy. It’s almost like I have it like a template in my brain of how I respond to these you know inquiries and I say you know, those things are important but there is a lot we need to do first in order for those things to fit in first.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so, such as storytelling, right, like that whole, like what, who are you? Your mission, your values, what are these things that you absolutely need and want to integrate into your branding? And then ideal customer work I know we’ve talked about this before, but like, who do you really want to serve? And then your core messages. Those three things really need to be in place before you even go look at fonts and colors and design a logo.
Speaker 1:
So hold on a second.
Speaker 3:
So my website’s not converting and you’re saying there’s other work to be done first before we go and just fix website conversions yep okay, all right, that can be a hard pill to swallow yeah, but here’s what I’ve discovered when people take the time and again it doesn’t have to take a ton of time, like it doesn’t have when you ask the right questions, like if someone is booking a strategy call with me, I can ask the questions and get it out of them, or people will go through like a workbook, right.
Speaker 3:
When you do this, then you can look at your website yourself. I’m all about empowering people and say this is why, right, this doesn’t feel like me, or this doesn’t tell enough of my story, or there was nowhere where I even shared who I serve in a cohesive way. What I found in the branding process is that when people start branding before they’ve done this work, they mimic other brands and they lose themselves through the process, because a lot of brand coaches and brand strategists and even graphic designers teach you to go look at other people in your industry first.
Speaker 1:
Well, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and you’re kind of like cherry pick, like, oh, I like this and I like that and their colors, and you think you know.
Speaker 1:
So you’re saying don’t do that.
Speaker 3:
Don’t do that.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Speaker 3:
We have an inward to outward approach to branding.
Speaker 3:
So, first, because you’re the person behind the brand, especially because so many of the companies that I work are with are consultants in the coaching industry.
Speaker 3:
They’re offering service-based, but even on a product-based level, we know that personal branding, storytelling is how everyone is selling everything today online. Online, you still need to be able to clearly communicate and articulate who you are, why you run your business, the benefits that you are going to be providing to your audience and, I believe, have a very clear brand story so that if someone is having three different professionals or three different businesses side by side, they all offer the exact same thing, what differentiates you? It’s going to be your story and the connection that your audience feels. So I really think that once you identify those things updating your website of course, there are marketing things like colors of your buttons and all of those different things that will increase conversions, of course, of course, but to create a really authentic, aligned and, I say, a money-making brand, you need to start with these three pillars, because they’re going to ooze their way not only into your website, but also into your copywriting, into your videos, into your content, how you’re speaking, all of that.
Speaker 1:
Okay, all right, speaking of speaking, you’re very well spoken thank you well. I want to know, though, on your way up to and past six figures, going back to your business journey, like, how many wrong clients did you work with until you figured out the thing that you really stand for and the right kind of client you want to work with? That?
Speaker 3:
That’s a great question. I would say five.
Speaker 1:
Only Five Representing how much time.
Speaker 3:
I would say probably about six months of time.
Speaker 1:
All right. Why were they the wrong clients for you?
Speaker 3:
So in the beginning and I think a lot of people make this mistake right Obviously someone comes to you and they say I want to work with you, I’m willing to pay you. You’re like yay.
Speaker 3:
I need money the way that they were. For me, the wrong clients is they weren’t respecting of boundaries and in defense of them. I wasn’t very good at setting boundaries in the beginning, so I very quickly realized that I needed to be clear on what my clients could expect of me and what my expectations were of them around time and deliverables and things of that nature. And so those first I wouldn’t say they were my first I actually think there was a moment in I started my business in 2016. In 2017, I was dialing up right, dialing up the one-on-ones, taking even more, and then, during that period of time is when I did take a few that were not the right fit for my business, and so a big thing for me really was like I’m not going to respond instantly, and that’s something that I did in the beginning, because I felt like I had to right or my clients weren’t doing the work that we had outlined, and I was feeling like I had to over deliver and give more to have them do the work. I also really noticed when I went back and looked at it, that like there were red flags long before.
Speaker 3:
You know, I accepted the client and, honestly, this shocks a lot of people. But I started to pay attention. I started to kind of AB test my onboarding process and I noticed I offered a form on my website for this was for one-to-one work and I gave people the option to have a call with me and nine times out of 10, the people who had a call with me didn’t sign on and the people who chose I know that I want to invest in you. I feel confident. I have a few questions, you can answer them via an email signed on and I changed my entire onboarding process at that point to I don’t offer calls anymore for one-on-one work Whoa.
Speaker 2:
The calls were basically the tire kickers right, that were kind of like oh, I’m not really sure. I just want to take your time and ask you a bunch of questions, but not really commit.
Speaker 3:
For my business.
Speaker 3:
They were, and I realized that one of the reasons that they weren’t necessary and this is where I started to also see that I was attracting more, I would say, higher quality and willing to do the work leads was because they were using the content on my website.
Speaker 3:
They were looking at my story, they were getting to know me before submitting an inquiry, that they didn’t need to have a call, and that’s what. Going back to the whole branding thing that I talked about, before I have had so many people fill out my application and say I watched a video or I listened to your podcast. I know that you’re the person that I want to work with. What are next steps? And that’s really where we are now. And, in addition to that, I will say and we’re going to probably get back to my story a little bit and talk about my timeline but I focus heavily on search engine optimization and so a lot of the people who are coming to my website are already pre-qualified because they know that they are looking for a brand coach and a brand strategist. So those changes all happened around the same time and having that call isn’t really necessary because they already know this is what they need. They’re just looking for the right person for them.
Speaker 3:
My website, my content, pretty much lays it all out there the kind of person I am and the kind of work that I ultimately do.
Speaker 1:
I like that. You figured out SEO and so you tapped into search-based traffic. So people were coming to you to solve a problem that they had and then you, just like you said, split test your form and realized the call was basically attracting the wrong people and getting in the right way of the right people. So goodbye.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, and going back to what we talked about at the beginning, about, like, always protecting my time and making that a top priority, why, when you have this data, why keep doing something that is costing you time and energy and isn’t converting? The same way, something like more passive is Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:
All right. So you worked with some clients that weren’t quite ideal While you were working with ideal clients. So you worked with some clients that weren’t quite ideal while you were working with ideal clients, while you were climbing to and passing that wonderful six figure gross revenue mark, what did your business look like when you finally stopped working with the clients who weren’t ideal for you? What’s a snapshot of business at that point?
Speaker 3:
I was happier, I became happier, I became happier. No, that was really kind of around the point where I started to really look at how people were discovering me online. And so, you know, I would say I worked with those clients kind of, you know, I said, at the beginning of 2017 into end of 2017. So around that time, I started to play with how I was attracting clients. A lot of these people who were inquiring, you know, submitting inquiries or having calls, were coming from Facebook groups. They were coming, they found me on social media, and so I started to look at A how are people discovering me that are converting? And B where do I like to spend my time? And I have always really had a tough relationship with social media and spending my time on social media and using it for my marketing and so I started to think about SEO and I started to use more Pinterest. I was on Pinterest long before any other coach was on Pinterest back in 2017, 2018.
Speaker 1:
I didn’t even know coaches were on Pinterest.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I teach Pinterest. I love it. It’s another search engine platform. It’s so powerful Again optimizing my blog YouTube. So taking more of a SEO approach to my marketing started to really shift at that moment in time.
Speaker 2:
Wow.
Speaker 3:
Okay and it was also kind of required. Going back to the storytelling, in 2019, my family and I sold our home and moved into an RV for two years. And yes, and so going live and Facebook groups and having to post on social media and even have these calls every week with my clients became really difficult because of internet access, and so I actually started making these changes just to fit my lifestyle and found out whoa, these work really well and I could just keep doing them and teach them.
Speaker 1:
So yeah, so those 2019.
Speaker 3:
Yep.
Speaker 1:
What took you to the RV life?
Speaker 3:
A lot. This could be a whole nother episode.
Speaker 1:
My husband and I we don’t hear that all the time, right I?
Speaker 2:
know, yeah, my husband and I how old were you?
Speaker 3:
at the time he was three.
Speaker 2:
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah, we had always wanted to experiment and try it. We’re big travelers and we just had always talked about it. And in 2018, we unfortunately lost two very close people to us to cancer. And this wasn’t the first time, you know, we have lost loved ones, and it was just a really big moment. One of them was my husband’s mom. He took some time off for bereavement and during that time, we were like why don’t we just go for it now, you know? So it was really like a why do we keep talking about this? Why don’t we just go for it? Life is short, we don’t know what’s going to happen. And so, yeah, we decided in November of 2018, and we were gone in February of 2019. Wow, nice yeah.
Speaker 1:
And then this pandemic hit while you were traveling around the country in an RV.
Speaker 3:
Yes, it did yes, so I know.
Speaker 2:
And one of the better places you could have been by yourself in your little RV and your little bubble.
Speaker 3:
The only issue that came up and one of the reasons we came back we’re from Missouri, so we came back to Missouri for a period of time was that it was really hard to get in places and so when you’re in an RV you need hookup, gas, water, things like that to survive. And I remember cause we were in Arizona at the time and they were shutting down all the parks Like you couldn’t come in and get water and we were living off the land at that point they call it boondocking. You know you have solar and you’re just camping in the middle of Arizona and that got a little scary. So we were like we need to make sure we have, you know, water and gas and things. So we did come back for a period of time and then we went back out again for a few months and then ultimately decided this was a blast, but we are tired and we’re done now.
Speaker 1:
Whoa.
Speaker 2:
We had our fun, and now we’re just yeah and we’re done now.
Speaker 1:
We had our fun and now we’re just yeah, no, because in my head I was thinking she would be like oh, it was hard to decide where to stay, because you’re watching the news and seeing where outbreaks are, but they were seeing you as a threat and not wanting you to come stay because you were traveling.
Speaker 3:
They were just closing everything down just to be safe. Yeah, so, and my parents are obviously here and we wanted to make sure that they were this was obviously right when everything was happening, so we came back to just kind of be in a bubble with my family.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, and here we are. So was it during that time that you started the membership as well? It is, yeah, where the membership came into that, because that seems started the membership as well. It is, yeah, I’m curious where the membership came into that, because that seems like a more sustainable sort of thing, but it’s an undertaking to start. It is.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, it is. So what happened was people started asking me more questions because they noticed that I wasn’t really on social media as much anymore. I had closed my Facebook group and so my clients already kind of knew it was happening. But I was getting messages and comments about this from people in my community and that’s when I was like, wait a second, I should teach this to other people, this whole sustainable marketing. And so, right around the time as well, people were obviously home more, they were spending more time at home during COVID and they were also kind of feeling fed up with social media. This is when everyone was kind of like I don’t want to be on social media anymore, I want to get off.
Speaker 3:
And so I launched my membership to teach sustainable marketing practices. I launched it with nothing inside. I launched it to founding members with the promise that over the course of a year, I would deliver SEO training, blogging, video marketing, copywriting, pinterest, all those things. And it’s still going strong today. So it’s crazy. It has changed a little bit over the years. We’ve actually integrated more branding support in there, because you probably know this where people will come and say I’m ready for the next step, but then you realize no, no, we skipped a massive step. We can’t focus on marketing until we have the brand. So now it really is my full package.
Speaker 3:
And we teach sustainable marketing strategies in there. But yes, that’s exactly when it kind of was launched.
Speaker 1:
Just you, or do you have like coaches that teach alongside of you, that focus on specific areas?
Speaker 3:
It’s just me. It was just me in the beginning and it’s just me now, but there was a period of time that I call my boss babe era, where I was a lot of the messaging online was really around growing a massive team to scale, having a lot of coaches, around growing a massive team to scale, having a lot of coaches, and so there was about two years where I did test that out but just discovered that’s not how I prefer to run my business. I don’t like being on meetings. If we could have no meetings, that’d be great and so there was a period of time where we did have some additional mentors in there and things like that, but now it’s mostly just guest experts, and I have a team member that is a tech genius and so she does all the tech support, all the tech videos, and helps our clients out with like custom tech videos for their platforms and stuff as well.
Speaker 1:
So Okay, very cool. What is your team made up? Makeup right now.
Speaker 3:
It’s me and one other person.
Speaker 1:
Oh nice. Super small, but mighty Mighty.
Speaker 3:
Yes, yeah, at my max I was at, I believe, eight people and my husband was also supported me for years with video editing and podcast editing.
Speaker 2:
And therapy. And he still does that Still doing that?
Speaker 3:
I swear. If he has to hear one more thing about a landing page conversion or something else, he’s just gonna be like I can’t. But thanks to lovely AI tools and things like that, I do all my video and podcast editing and recording myself now. Okay, nice, I’m always looking for ways to streamline and optimize. It’s one of my superpowers.
Speaker 2:
Average how many hours a week are you working on your business?
Speaker 3:
then I would say it’s about three hours a day. So I want to say, let’s say, five days a week for safe keeping, so yeah, so about 15 hours. And then there’ll be the occasional Sunday crunch session, like if I’m going out of town or something, where I’ll record like three videos to get ahead, or something outrageous like that.
Speaker 1:
Three hours, so I aspire to that. Three hours a day. My wife aspires to that for me.
Speaker 3:
And I also think it’s seasonal, I’ll take five. Well, I also think it’s seasonal, I’ll take five. Well, I think it’s seasonal too. You know what I mean. Like I know we were chatting on Instagram about, like you were in a very busy season because it was launch season and everyone. And so, yeah, in those seasons when I’m launching or, you know, creating a new program, it’s going to be a lot more. I’m going to be pulling a late night or I’m going to be waking up early.
Speaker 3:
But I would say on average. That’s really what I shoot for, because, again, I wear the homeschool mom hat as well, and so there’s a lot of driving, like we talked about Right, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:
How many hours a day do you homeschool then?
Speaker 3:
We do anywhere between three and four. It just kind of depends if we’re home just us, or if there is like we’re out driving to like a workshop or something. It’ll be more because of drive time. Unfortunately, we don’t live where anything is right next to you, so three or four, I mean you’re still like working essentially like full days, right. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:
Between your business and homeschooling.
Speaker 3:
So and, like you know, then there’s also that other hat we wear which is like mom.
Speaker 2:
So then you have to do meal prep and play with me, and I like a little bit of my own time, yeah, and then you time. So, yeah, that’s a lot Wow.
Speaker 1:
Well, we’re gonna transition into the next episode where you’re going to share I hope, I’m inviting you asking, hoping that you’ll share about storytelling, as you call it digital storytelling, as some people think it’s called brand storytelling and that’s the buzzword and how that fits into funnel strategy for entrepreneurs, because I know the listener loves a good tactic to increase conversions in the funnel and I believe anything that makes you more relatable and helps you connect with your audience is worth doing. So I can’t wait to hear about that from you.
Speaker 2:
I’m excited. Let’s jump in, let’s do it.
Speaker 1:
In the meantime, though, if somebody clicks on the link because they’re listening and it’s Monday and your episode, the next one, doesn’t come out until Wednesday and they have to wait like a couple more days. Where can they find you in the meantime?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, the best place to find me is at my website, brand Mary. It’s B-R-A-N-D-M-E-R-R-Ycom, and there are links to all of the things on there. But if they’re on YouTube, I have a YouTube channel as well that you can find by searching Brand Mary. I make videos every single week and post my podcast videos as well.
Speaker 1:
Nice, okay. Well then, we will see you in the next one. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3:
Sounds good, I’m excited.
Speaker 1:
All right. Talk to you soon, thank you and as for you listener, thanks for listening and watching, and until we see you again, or you see us again I think that’s how that works Be blessed.
Speaker 2:
Take care Bye.
