I wish every business owner knew this | Unify My Marketing Show

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My name is bear Wade, and I own a marketing agency. I’m here to help you grow your company. And so I wanted you to know that I have made an award winning documentary. I wanted to pass on some of my knowledge. I have learned in growing a company by, uh, through this experience of making this film. So the film is called paving the way the national park to park highway. And it’s about a road trip that happened in 1920 to all 12 of the national parks. At that time, there were only 12 back then. Now there’s something like 350. There was a photographer on that trip in 1920 that, uh, followed these 12 people around in their model T looking cars before there were roads before there were, um, paved roads. So there were just wagon trails. And this was before there were maps, air conditioning, GPS, even gas stations. 

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They had a truck that followed along with them to fill up their cars back then when you had your car, you couldn’t really get out of town. And so, um, this was a way to start promoting good roads and, and you don’t have to go to Europe to see your ancestors and your family. You can stay and stay and see America first. And so the film is, uh, uh, been airing nationally on PBS stations around the country and in Canada. And I just wanted to give you a little bit of background as to how this film can help you grow your company, which is this. If you look more professional, people take you more serious. That’s basically it. If you have your stuff together, if you look like, you know, what you’re doing, people will take you more seriously. And so the film got aired, even though I didn’t have any other TV experience, I was F you know, I was shooting videos and, and stuff for, uh, for other projects. 

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I started out as a video biographer. And, um, but you know, after doing that, I wanted to make a film that any, you know, everybody could see for people to take me serious as a filmmaker, I had to look like I was a filmmaker that, that isn’t to say, make a good film, but it was to say, make the film look like a professional film. And so, uh, it didn’t, it didn’t, you know, I was worried so much about crafting a good story, good cinematography, uh, you know, good music having the right voiceover and graphics and effects. Um, but before that, I had to get this thing, uh, in the catalog for PBS to offer it to all the stations around the country. And with that, I had to have good branding. I had to have good visuals. I had to have a website that looked like a movie website. 

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I had to have, um, uh, a DVD, you know, back then it was a DVD case. You know, I had to have the DVD case look like it was like something you’d pull off the shelf, you know, at a store. And so you had to have the barcode, it had to have, you know, some sort of, um, branding on the front and synopsis on the back. So it was just about analyzing what was already out there in the industry. The people that I wanted to be up against seeing what they were doing and trying to mimic or emulate what they were doing, uh, in my own way, but to try and take those elements and put them on my materials. It’s not fake it till you make it. It’s more like you just want to take what you’re doing and match how they’re doing it. 

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And so that is my tip for you today. If you want to become an industry leader, start to analyze what the big guys are doing, what the big brands are doing and try and match them in, in a way that, um, you’ll see. I mean, my example I use all the time is McDonald’s now whether we like it or not, you know, it’s a brand that’s recognizable, you know, we might have different opinions about it. And, and so, but we can all agree that their branding is on point it’s recognizable. And so we know that red and yellow color that they use everywhere. We know the building architecture, we know their menu, their photography, their TV commercials, their jingles it’s Oh, it’s so consistent. And so if you have a restaurant, let’s say a hamburger restaurant, and you want to kind of compete with them, um, best of luck to you, but, but you can, you can still be very good and not be directly competing with them. 

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You know, you can still have lots of seats, uh, filled up. You can S uh, slang a lot of hamburgers and a lot of fries without having to be, um, such a huge, um, entity that McDonald’s is we can spot a big Mac from a mile away with the Sesame seed bun. And so come up with those elements, define, start to kind of curate what stuff you like, what other people are doing, and, and try and match that. That’s my tip for you today. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you have any other questions, you can reach out to me@bearway.com. 

(04:45):

Today. I want to tell you a little bit about a hobby of mine. Sometimes they use one of these. Sometimes they use something like this, and other times I use something like this. Yes, is woodworking. If you can believe it, it seems like such a antiquated, outdated, uh, a form of, of, uh, of a hobby. But boy, do I love it? And what I love about it is you take, uh, something that, you know, like a tree that it’s living and, uh, provide an oxygen for us, which I love. And when it runs out of that life cycle, it turns we can turn it into, repurpose it into something new, like a table, something that you can, uh, use for generations to come. I want them to use this as an example today, to tie it together with your brand and branding, you do in steps you should do in steps, just like you do woodworking and steps. 

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So you don’t just usually, I mean, there is a trend right now where you use, you know, a slab of wood to turn it into a table, but usually you would take a piece of, of a tree. You’d cut it down and then mill it into shape to lumber. And, uh, you know, then turn that into dimensional pieces that you can use. And then you usually cut that down with a saw to, uh, join it together with other pieces to turn it into a table, let’s say, and when you get done with that, after you do the joinery and you have it put together, then you’re going to finish it. You know, you’re going to sand it or, or, uh, playing it down. So it’s nice and smooth. And then you’re going to sand it and, you know, or use a scraper to get it nice and smooth. 

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And then you’re going to put some sort of a polyurethane or something on it to protect it. Sometimes you use stain to change a color or paint or something, but, you know, we know the order of those things, just like when you build a house, you have a blueprint and that’s how branding should be. Uh, people don’t really think of how they build their marketing and that it should have an order to things, but that is what I’m, that is my mission is to help business owners realize that there’s an order of these things, and you can save a ton of money and time if you do your marketing and order. So I have something called the unified brand steps. It basically outlines what those steps are. If you want to go and learn more about it, you can go to bear way.com/steps to learn more. 

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It guides you through the process of building your branding and an order. It’ll save you a ton of time. It’ll save you a bunch of extra money. You know, if you’re building, you know, my example is if you’re building a, a brochure, let’s say you’re going to take photography, your logo, uh, some brand copies of some, some words that you’ve typed up and you might have some sort of call to action, like register now, or sign up today or whatever that is, you know, in your brochure. Well, that’s exactly, uh, major elements that you use for a website. So if you define those ahead of time, it’s easy to do a website it’s easier, and it’s easier to do a brochure. And so you want to collect those items first. That’s just an example, but there are so many different, you know, if you can do these in order, you’ll save a bunch of time and money. So I encourage you to check out bear wade.com/steps. You can even take a free quiz to learn where you are on the brand steps and help you focus and guide you through the process of making a brand that looks like an industry leader. You’re going to look more professional. You’re going to be able to sell more with less work. So check it out. fairway.com/steps. Today, we’re going to talk about 

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Our free checklist on our website of bear way.com, which is the push record checklist. If you shoot any video at all, I encourage you to download this checklist. It’s absolutely free, and it will help you make sure that you check off all the things you need to do before you push record. And I will tell you, I use it still, even though I have 20 years of experience of making videos. If you’re setting up a video and you start recording and you get through it, and then you realize that there was some thing in the background, shooting out the back of your head and made you look like a peacock. You know that you just don’t want that. If you have ever shot something and realize that you forgot to put the SD card in your camera, super annoying. If you end up shooting everything and you’re looking at yourself in the screen of your phone, instead of at the camera, that’s just nightmare. It’s a nightmare. You want to connect with your tribe. And the way to do that is to die. 

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Download this checklist. I encourage you to go to bear way.com/free, and there you’ll find the push record checklist. You can download it right away. I encourage you to do it. Push record, get some videos going and get more content out there so people can find you. You are a marketing specialist, like a social media manager, a website designer, a photographer, graphic designer, videographer. And you’re just providing one piece of the marketing puzzle. I encourage you to become unified certified. It will help round out your expertise. It’ll help you offer more services for your business. It’ll help your customers grow their companies, which then in turn, help you make more money. It is time to level up your career, go to bear way.com today and sign up to be unified certified. 

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Today. I want to talk to you about the difference between marketing and branding, publicity, and advertising. Now, those are three words or four words. Those are four words that we use all the time interchangeably, but I want to help you tease them apart a little bit and get your mind right? Marketing is the effort you do to help your company grow or be known. Branding is what other people think about you when you aren’t in the room. It’s how they feel when they think about your brand. Yes, you will do some branding, which has efforts to create those emotions and manipulate and manipulate. That’s probably a tough word, but a way to shape how they feel about you. But branding is all about what other people think about you. Next is publicity. And I love publicity. I love the idea of free advertising. So advertising is something you pay for. 

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Publicity is something you pray for. I love that saying, and it’s not mine, but I love it. I love I’ve heard it a few times and I think it’s beautiful in the way that you can get in other people’s networks and get out there. And so shoot for publicity all the time, try and get in other people’s networks and advertising, of course, is taking something that you offer a solution that you offer and getting it out to the people who need to hear it and need your solution. So try and go after publicity, try and go. After branding, marketing is something you need to do to shape the way you think about things and the way other people are going to understand what you do and what you offer. And of course, paying for that is advertising. Go to bear way.com, where you can learn more about our brand steps, which is our five steps to help you grow your company in a way that’ll make you look more professional, make you look like an industry leader, sell more and create more margin in your life. So check out bare way. 

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Some of you were looking at the bottom. Now we out here making rules with the crew. My name is Bear Wade, 

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And I am obsessed with helping you grow your company. One way you can do that is to have a CRM, which is a software, a bit of software that you use to create your database of interested people and paying customers. There is nothing better than selling to somebody who’s already purchased from you. They already understand what you’re looking for. And if you go back to them and offer better solutions, they have a better chance of purchasing from you. And if somebody already knows your company knows what you do and what you offer again, they have, even if they haven’t purchased from you before you have a much better chance than a, what we call a cold lead, somebody who doesn’t know anything about you to becoming a purchasing customer. So I encourage you to get a CRM, get that database of previous customers, get their name, you know, you can write down their name, uh, and you can do this in a spreadsheet for now. 

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If just to get started. You want your first and last name, their email, their phone number, uh, their company name is usually helpful. And, and maybe you could, um, you know, offer two different lists. So one that’s, uh, already a paying customer and one that is still a warm lead, but hasn’t that hasn’t pulled the trigger yet on purchasing from you. I encourage you to get a CRM there’s things like MailChimp or active campaign, or, um, constant contact. You’ve probably heard of these before. Those are great places to start. Usually a convert kits. Another one, usually they’re, um, uh, they have a free version up to a number of people, a number of, um, people in your database. So I encourage you to check them out and continue to write to them, you know, send them an email every once a month to get started. 

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If you can do it every week, even better, but be careful, you can get burnt out pretty quickly. So try and just at least send out once a month and tell them the new stuff that you have going on. You know, happy clients, happy customers, a new product offering, uh, highlight somebody else, give them the a tip of the month. Think about good content and, uh, make sure you reach out to them. Email is different than social media. It’s active. You get to end up in their inbox as opposed to social media. There’s some stat that only like 4% of your followers actually see you in the scroll. And so those, uh, social media platforms are, are limiting your ability to reach your audience, but an email address and an email database you own. It’s your tribe that is specific to you, and you got a better shot of reaching out to them 

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And serving them. So serve, serve, serve. And, uh, we’ll see you next time. If you want to learn more, just check out BearWade.com. B