Onward Creatives

You can't be the same and expect different results.  If you truly want different results from life, business, relationships, health you must reinvent yourself. The truth is, every hero is made by the process of reinvention. If you're ready for your ideal life, this is a journey you need to take.   Are you ready to reinvent yourself? Let's Talk!   Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast that helps you find clarity and take action so you can build and grow your brand. Each week we go beyond all the hype and the noise and we help chart a course to build a business your customer will love.  Don't do it alone!  Join the community! Onward Creatives Facebook

Your mindset makes all the difference.  It will either open up a world of possibilities or keep you exactly where you are.  Most of us start small.  Even a well funded startup launches from a relatively small space.  In spite of how we start, we don't have to stay small.   Mindset precedes growth. Growth doesn't create the mindset, the mindset creates the growth.  My early days at Starbucks taught me to always develop, look to level up, and never, ever stay stagnate.  Not only does this apply to our personal life, I truly believe that this mindset can be applied to any type of business or creative act. If we want to grow our business and develop to the next level we must: Think Large Build Large Lead Large   Are you ready to chart a course forward? Let's Talk!   Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast that helps you find clarity and take action so you can build and grow your brand. Each week we go beyond all the hype and the noise and we help chart a course to build a business your customer

Naming can be so difficult but the impact is significant. With over 500k new businesses being started every month we're facing a shortage of names.  Today's guest, bestselling author Jeremy Miller, not only shares why names are so important but also shares his amazing naming process. Whether you're actively naming a company or product or not, this podcast is full of amazing insight.  Jeremy's approach to naming not only creates a great name but equally as important, leads to a release of creativity among the team. We also talk about the future of branding and the importance of alignment between operations, sales and marketing.  Whether you're just getting started or are well on your way this holistic approach to brand building is where the magic is.  This is what customers love! To find out more about Jeremy Miller, visit here. To order his new book Brand New Name, click here.   Are you ready to chart a course forward? Let's Talk!   Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast that helps you find

We're in the midst of another marketing revolution.  Everything is about the customer!  You can no longer stand out simply by offering digital, or having a consistent visual identity or a great backstory....everyone has those.  How do you stand out?  You make everything about the customer.   The brands who focus on customers win in three big ways: they see greater retention, higher satisfaction and more word of mouth referrals.  Does this sound like something your business/brand needs?Of course it does....we all need it. The big question is how do we get it?  You start with the customer and go beyond demographics....that's only the beginning.  You understand they're spoken and unspoken needs and you build a process to meet all of their needs.  The customer journey is at the heart of creating this customer narrative and the key is thoughtfulness.  The brands that we love have been thoughtful about every touchpoint along the customer journey. The best news is that size and budget have nothing to do with the abi

There are a few books that have changed my life forever.  They've not only changed the way that I live, but they've changed the way that I view and build business. Here are the five: (if you buy from here you can help support the podcast) A Million Miles in a Thousand Years The War of Art Tribes The Brand Flip The Icarus Deception   Ready to build your business? Let's Talk!   Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business. This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do. Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.  Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST. Don't do it alone!  Join the community! Onward Creatives Facebook  

You have to stand out!  If you look and sound just like everyone else why should someone choose you?  Competition is intense and now it's global.  The key is standing out! How do you stand out? 1. Focus on the customer.  They are the ones who will choose you over the others.  It's important what they want in both the spoken and unspoken space. 2. Define what makes you different.  The key to this is that it has to matter to the customer.  This isn't middle school anymore....different is good! 3. Look and sound different.  Pull up their sites and their IG accounts....do you all look the same?  Create an identity that connects with your customer and sets you apart at the same time. 4. Focus on the experience.  Your competition is the best customer experience they've had.  So become a little marketer and study what the best do in customer experience and bring it into your space.   Are you ready to stand out? Let's Talk!   Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativit

Starting a business or making big pivots can be difficult.  We made a huge move a few years ago where we not only changed zip codes but we changed country codes. It's often difficult in the middle of big moves and risks to see beyond the work to evaluate how you're processing it all.  But what if we could time travel? Imagine if we could hop in a Delorean and travel back to five years ago, what important lessons or insights would we share with ourselves?  Listen in as we share our top six things we wish that we knew five years ago.   Ready for some help with your idea or business? Let's Talk!   Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business. This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do. Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.  Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST. Don't do it alone!  Join the community! Onw

Growth is something we all long for and yet at times it seems to elude us.  Growth in business can be focused on so many different things: sales, profit, influence, brand alignment.  Regardless of how we measure growth we have to acknowledge the gap where frustration lives.  This is gap exists between where we are and where we want to be. When we find ourselves in this space it's important to assess the cause.  Is it a foundational issue or an idea or product issue?  The better we assess the root cause of the gap the greater insight we gather to find solutions. The most important thing is to keep going, and not to settle for the current state.  So many businesses and individuals plateau and make their home in the gap....remember, you were never meant to live in the gap.  So don't give up, don't settle, take the time to assess and then do everything you can to level up.     Ready for some help? Let's Talk!   Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and busin

There's so much to learn from this amazing conversation with Macy Mcneely.  At the heart of everything Macy does is persuasion.  To persuade is to move someone towards a course of action.  Macy has a natural gift to cast a vision and then actively gathers people around her to move towards this vision.   In this podcast we talk about her movement "Good is cool" and the powerful way that it helps people make the best decisions.  We also talk about initial failure in sales which resulted in an amazing partnership with her dad called "Clearly Confident" a three day sales training held multiple times per year. She also shares three tips for selling on Instagram.   1. Tell others stories, a more subtle way to establish authority. 2. Be enthusiastic.  You must believe in what you're selling. 3.Learn proper communications skills.  Remember that everything is a personal connection. Be sure to follow Macy on Instagram @macymcneely Clearly Confident and Daily Deposit     Ready for some help? Let's Talk!   Welcome to the

Winning at Instagram isn't about numbers, it's about engagement.  Enough with obsessing over the daily gain and loss of followers, enough with the gimmicks and hype, it's time to change the conversation. Connections over following, this is where the magic is.  Winning at Instagram is actually quite simple and old-school.  It's about making connections.  Whether you have an audience of 100 or 100,000 connect with your audience.   There are three ways to win at Instagram: 1. Facilitate online conversations.  You have tools such as comments, likes and direct messages....use them. 2. Take the online...offline.  Business is still human, so make the connections human.  Grab a coffee, beer or even gather a handful from the IG in real time. 3. Give, give, give.  Use your connections and influence to help others succeed.  Make the introductions and watch as this human ecosystem begins to take shape.   Ready to build your Instagram Strategy Let's Talk!   Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridgin

Word of mouth has always been the preferred way of doing business. The struggle has always been the absence of a way to scale word of mouth.  Nano and micro influencers are the answer because they literally personify word of mouth marketing. Social media is more than a variety of apps aimed at entertaining us.  Social media has created an influencer marketing space worth over $10 billion dollars.  This landscape has mostly been dominated by the mega influencers, but the tide is changing. Not only are the mega influencers seeing engagements rate decrease they're seeing trust decrease.  People want more than a spokesperson.  They want a human connection. We're seeing the rise of the new influencer both the micro (5-25k followers) and the nano (1-5k followers.)  This group is amazing because they more abundant, easier to connect with and most importantly they still have connections to their followers. Regardless of the size of your business or the marketing budget you have it's vital to have a way to connect wit

At the heart of selling is the customer experience.  An ad may capture your attention, content may create interest but the customer experience is where the magic happens.  This is the space where win or lose, this is the epicenter of the entire process. How do we create an engaging customer experience? We have to think of every detail of the process from the customer's perspective. Here are a few questions to ask: 1. What is my brand's digital/physical curb appeal? 2. What does my website/store/point of sale look, smell, sound and feel like? 3. How do I make the experience as human as possible? 4. How easy is it to find what they want? 5. How easy is it to purchase/buy/donate/exchange? 6. How do I care for people post-sale? These guys are doing it well Hioscar.com Amazon.com Apple Trader Joes Dollar Shave Club   Ready to create the customer experience?   Let's Talk!   Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business. This podcast is for the creative e

It's not enough to grab people's attention, a lot of brands do that.  Trust is the currency of business, and earning it is vital to the customer journey.  Customers care less about perception and more about experience.  Every day well "branded" companies go out of business while "hole in the wall" places flourish....what's the difference?  Consistency of experience.   Customers engage brands that they trust and this trust is earned when THEIR understanding of the brand matches THEIR experience.  In the old world the brand proclaimed the greatness and established the trust.  In this new world the customer proclaims the greatness and socializes the experience.   Money is always preceded by trust.  When brands earn our trust, they earn our money.  When they lose our trust, they lose our money.  The key to trust is consistency in every part of the experience.  Brands earn our trust when they create a consistent experience from start to finish. Three brands that consistently earn our trust: 1. Apple: Helps people

Regardless of size, we all face the same battle...the one for attention.  Whether you're a brand of one or a brand of many attention is the first step in nudging customers on their journey.  No matter what you make, if they don't know you exist they can't buy from you. You probably feel the pain on a daily basis: you design the site, you publish the video, you open the store and the silence is deafening.  There are great brands like Glossier, Everlane and Warby Parker that have captured our attention and turned us into fans.  How did they do it?  Here are the four things these brands have in common: 1. They know and understand their audience 2. They're defined the problem(s) their customers have 3. They know how they uniquely solve the problem 4. They actively communicate in unique and consistent ways     Ready to get your customer's attention?   Let's Talk!   Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business. This podcast is for the creative entreprene

The Customer Journey is at the heart of an effective marketing strategy.  Whether you're a company of one or one thousand your chances of success greatly improve when you understand the customer journey.  Once you have this journey mapped out then it's time to overlay content. The goal of the content is to move people through the four steps of the customer journey: awareness, reputation, exchange and advocacy. Here are the key steps to developing this content strategy: 1.  Identify your customers.  Who are the key 2-3 people who will ultimately make an exchange with you? 2. Define their problem.  You're selling more than a product, you're selling a solution.  Dig into your customers worldview to discover their key problem. 3. Create content/strategy for each step of the journey.   Where do you communicate? What do you communicate? How do you communicate?   Download the Customer Journey Worksheet here!       Ready to create content for the customer journey?   Let's Talk!   Welcome to the Onward Creatives pod

Frustration finds all of us at times.  Frustration isn't a sign that things aren't working, it's actually a sign that you're on the right path.  Frustration exists because we have taste.  When we see what can be in our business and we see where it is, we get frustrated.  If we see the gap as a failure then we quit, and someone else fills in the space.  But if we learn to live with frustration, and use it with a growth mindset incredible things can happen. How do you turn frustration into momentum? 1. Remember that it's proof of your magic 2. Engage a growth mindset 3. Keep at it.   Feeling Frustrated?   Let's Talk!   Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business. This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do. Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.  Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST. Don't do it alone! 

Customer Experience is the new Battleground for Marketing!  The key to great customer experience is understanding the customer journey.  How do you build around the customer journey? 1. Acknowledge the journey. 2. Define the journey: Awareness Reputation Exchange Advocacy 3.Experience the journey: Learn from those who do it well.  Southwest Airlines, Disney, Ritz-Carlton, Sephora, Carvana, Barkbox, Apple, Trader Joes, Zappos.     Ready to build your Customer Experience?   Get Started Now!   Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business. This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do. Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.  Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST. Don't do it alone!  Join the community! Onward Creatives Facebook  

How do you build reputation without becoming the hero of the story? Empathy!  We all love brands that make us feel important, it's just the way it works.  So when we focus on building reputation we face two choices:  1. Build our reputation around ourselves or 2. Build our reputation on the customer experience.  If we want to be the guide and keep the customer as the hero then using empathy to build the customer experience is the best choice. We must start with the customer journey, understanding every step from first contact to post-purchase.  Once we've mapped it out we overlay with empathy.  This question is key: What do I feel/think at this stage of the journey?  Once we've answered, we leverage empathy to create an experience and this creates loyal fans and an amazing reputation. 1. Empathy makes things easier. Filter Easy does an amazing job of this by providing a service that removes the hassle around changing your air filters. 2. Empathy redefines the experience. Most of us hate flying but we LOVE Sou

Money isn't the goal, trust is!  Trust is the actual currency of business and reputation is one of the key tools you have to earn this trust. Everyone talks about marketing, do a search on YouTube, iTunes or Google and you'll be flooded with articles on how to market.  Don't get me wrong it does matter what you do if people don't know you exist. But your reputation is WHY they buy from you. How do you build a reputation like Disney, Nike or Chick-fil-a? 1. Define your desired reputation 2. Align EVERYTHING with this reputation 3. Listen and Pivot   Are you ready to earn trust? I can help.    Sign up here for a free consultation.    Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business. This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do. Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.  Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live 8:30 pm EST. Don't

This is the key to building a successful brand.....understanding your customer!  Competition is more intense than ever and technology is continually changing the playing field, so how we do compete?  A human or customer centric approach will disrupt and help you stand out.  It sounds simple enough but I continually hear this feedback "I don't understand my customers, I don't know who they are." So how do we stand out from the competition and build a successful brand?  Here are three key steps to take: Know your Customer Discover their Problem Become their Guide Do you want to build a customer centric brand?    Sign up here for a free consultation.    Welcome to the Onward Creatives podcast. A weekly podcast bridging the gap between creativity and business. This podcast is for the creative entrepreneur, the one's who dare, dream and do. Each week I help you find clarity and take action so you can make a living doing what you love. The journey onward starts here.  Join us for Monday Night Live on FB and IG Live