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What We Talk About

We are back with our amazing friend and digital brand strategist Altimese Nichole because we KNOW she’s got a ton of information about your brand.

In this episode, we’re talking to Altimese about the steps you need to take when you want to uplevel or change your brand… and she knows because she JUST did it.

Resources

Altimese’s website

The Ezer Agency
On Facebook
On Instagram

Brandicity – Most small business owners desire to spend most of their efforts working on their core crafts, not performing trial and error on how to properly utilize social media. Brandticity provides a compass to guide business owners along the digital path. Through using Brandticity as a resource, business owners learn to use social media more efficiently and effectively to make vital connections with potential clients and drive business sales upward! 

The Girl Behind The Mask – Introducing a collection of poetry, from the journal of one woman's story that she learned isn't isolated. Sis, it's time to remove the mask.

Our transcript hasn't been proofed, so there will probably be some errors. Sorry about that!

Alyson Lex 0:00
On today's episode, we're answering the question, What do I do when I outgrow my brand? The big question is this as entrepreneurs, coaches and business owners, how do we consistently sell our products, programs and services without making our customers feel like we're only in it for the almighty dollar? How do we serve the way we know we're meant to serve and still run a profitable business? How do we put good into the world while we put dollars into our pockets? How do we change the lives of our community while also bettering the life we lead? It's not

Jennie Wright 0:35
a zero sum game. It's not an either or scenario, it is possible to thrive while serving your clients to the best of your ability. This podcast will show you how. I'm Jennie Wright. I'm Alyson Lex, and welcome to the System to THRIVE. We are back with one of our amazing friends and a digital brand strategist today. Ultimate Nicole, because we know she's got a ton of information about your brand. And we're dying to share with you ultimately, thank you so much for being on with us again. And if you guys don't know who ultimately is, we're gonna do a brief introduction. But you can also check her out on episode 13, which was amazing. So go and check that out as well.

Altimese Nichole Curry 1:16
Awesome. And thank you so much for having me.

Alyson Lex 1:20
It wasn't even.

Altimese Nichole Curry 1:22
It wasn't even a great I feel like, I don't even know why I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's because you guys are so cool.

Jennie Wright 1:30
We have such a good time on the last one. And it will tell you the story real quick though. We had altimeters on for Episode 13. And by the end of the conversation after we we stopped hitting record, we were like so when can we have you back? Mm like immediately and we immediately booked all tummies for this episode. And with our production schedule, you know, it ended up being pretty far out. But we're just really thankful and glad to have you on. So we're gonna we're gonna dive into a couple things first, just for everybody listening who may not have heard you in the original episode. Can you tell us what a brand strategy? They're sorry, a digital brand strategist? It's

Altimese Nichole Curry 2:06
Yes, absolutely. So a digital brand strategist helps you to create the digital footprint for your brand. So it does not include all marketing, right. So it's not your print materials. It's not the things that are offline, everything online. So that can include social media, your website, paid advertising and things like that. So it's really important to understand the type of marketing that you want, and realizing that all marketing is not identical. So, so great question.

Alyson Lex 2:43
And I could go into like 85 questions about that. But I already asked them all on episode 30. So really, what I'd like to talk about now is when you've outgrown your existing brand, how do you know when that happens?

Altimese Nichole Curry 3:01
Yes, yes. And I love this conversation now actually just lived through it. I had a rebrand myself. Um, and you realize that you've outgrown it, when it's time to scale, right? And you're in the process. And it's like, what used to work isn't necessarily working anymore. But, you know, you're kind of pressing forward and you're just like this pressing forward. It's not working either. And you require to shift, right? So, in that process, you just realize things have to be different, you know, and I like to say it's okay, to change. Right, you start out and you have this amazing brand, and you're thinking, this is the plan, this is my path. But sometimes the past looks a little different to three years later, so be open to being fluid and allowing the universe to shape whatever that path looks like.

Jennie Wright 4:03
So I love that a lot. And I was hoping you were gonna give an example Do you want to speak a little bit about the rebrand that you had to even do just for yourself? And why like, I feel into the whole, you know, the scaling and the growth, but I kinda want to hear it. The digital brand strategist. Why are you into it?

Altimese Nichole Curry 4:22
Yes, absolutely. So before the rebrand my company was actually my name ultimus Nicole enterprise LLC. It worked. It was great when it was a side hustle. It was totally fine. My first year of business as I started to grow my team, and I started to have other people working with me and partnering with me, this, you know, making our clients very successful. All of the clients thought they were working with me only because the company name is my name. So if I I've tried to, you know, allow one of my team members to be more forward facing client facing the clients will be totally confused and be like, Wait a second, we're hiring you. We're not hiring this other person. And it put me in this place where I had to make a decision. I had to say, Okay, it's time to scale and grow, I'm going to have to say, Does my name needs to be attached to the brand? And, you know, if not, what does that? What does that new refresh look like? For me the rebrand, very intentional, it still aligns with our mission still aligns with everything that we do. Grant is now is our agency. And you know, for those who don't know, a czars Hebrew, it's often connected to a conjunction of a czar, can they go, and it's a name God reference, Eve and creation, and it means warrior and help now helper and I helped mate that second. Oh, oh, um, you know, in my company, we service Amazing, amazing women, amazing warriors, who aren't afraid to say, hey, I need help in my business. So it was a perfect fit. It was 100% intentional. But I knew I had to make good I had to make a decision in order to give my team more opportunities to be client facing and to help me be able to scale and grow

Alyson Lex 6:32
the business. I really love how you kind of laid out a few questions like, does this need to be focused on? XYZ? Yes, so I did a rebrand because I outgrew what I had done in a way that I wanted to be more professional. Right. So I had a freelancer brand. And that, and then I actually branded under my name, so we kind of flopped.

Unknown Speaker 7:01
But

Alyson Lex 7:03
I went from broad to more specific, especially with what I offer and things like that. But it had to be something like for me, it wasn't as intentional as so much like a no brainer. But the way that you laid it out is, you know, what is my mission? And does what I'm putting out there, especially online. Hello, digital brand strategist. Do those match up? And I really just wanted to call that out, because I really liked it.

Altimese Nichole Curry 7:30
Yes, absolutely. And it's just, it goes back to just the fluidity and being willing to say, you know, what worked before may not work moving forward in being willing to shift and pivot. And, you know, in the midst of our new normal, everybody is facing that shift and that pivot, and we have to, you know, it's okay to honor that at times. Alright.

Jennie Wright 7:57
So if we're established, and we figure out that we need to do this kind of brand, you know, redo basically, this refresh this new direction? What steps are in alignment that you have to do to start to begin developing that new that updated brand? What do you have to do?

Altimese Nichole Curry 8:17
Yeah, absolutely. First and foremost, active listening, right? Because in our brain, we may assume, hey, this isn't working, maybe I should shift and pivot here. But your customers, your current customers, they're going to tell you what's working and what's not working, if you're listening, right. So you know, social media, often it's kind of a bunch of noise, right? Everybody's posting content out saying, hey, check out this, check out that. But in the midst of the noise, there are comments under the post, and people saying exactly how they feel, yeah. And they're actually a representation of other people who probably feel the same way. And they just didn't take the time to comment. But they're busy with their life, or whatever, they probably thought the same exact thing, but they would just like, you know what, I'm just gonna keep scrolling and carry on about my day. So it's so important to understand that in the midst of all those posts, you literally have a focus group connected to your brand. And people who are already engaged with you utilize that, utilize it, utilize the the comments section and all of your posts on all of the different platforms and talk to your current client. For me, it was very clear, you know, I I legitimately had clients say, I'm thinking I'm working with you, you know, and it was a very clear, very direct comment from clients and let me know, okay, do I want to just continue being as a consultant, or do I want to grow an agency, and I had to make that decision. So start with the active listening, be okay with market research, and be okay with seeing what other people in the marketplace are doing. It doesn't mean that you compare. It just lets you know what's going on, and what the landscape is. Right? Like, for example, you know, Alison, you mentioned that at one point you were in the freelancing side. So if you are a freelancer and you live in, in California, there's a law that impacts freelancers directly, right? You have to know in the marketplace, okay? If I'm shifting to do more freelance work, and I want to do this, what's what's the landscape of the industry looking like? So take that time of building that out, in addition to the active listening, and you have a really good foundation of like, Okay, this is where I want to start. And this is where I want to rebuild.

Jennie Wright 11:02
That's, I love that because I think there are some brands and I'm sure you could probably think of a few that didn't do the active listening part. Yeah. Before they did the rebrand. Yeah. Yeah, I, I've seen a few. Alison, I have seen a few I've actually Allison sent me a message actually was a screenshot of the video the other day, there's this really high up sort of, you know, influencer slash guru that I think Allison and I both were in that one point. And this person is attempting to become more relatable lately, because I think that they've realized that they had sort of put themselves on quite the pedestal, or they've been put there by other people. And now they're trying to become quite relatable. But unfortunately, the way they're trying to do it, at least in this particular post, and I'm sure they'll figure it out, just seemed really contrived. So it looked like they were trying to change their brand, from very poised posh and professional, to more. I'm your girlfriends that were hanging out watching, you know, friends and giggling and dancing around the living room. And it just, there's a clash.

Altimese Nichole Curry 12:15
Yes. And see, and here's, here's also something to consider, too, when you're making a change. Anytime you're making a change. People hate change, that is human nature. That is it baby. Don't even like their diapers changed. And it's for their good, they scream and they crying. They're like, Oh, my gosh, his wife is so cold on my butt. Please stop Mommy, even though it's the best thing for them. So, as the business owner, you still have to figure out which one is it? Is it? You know, through the active listening? Is it truly the sentiment of my audience? And I need to take that into consideration? Or is it you know, the fact that I just changed something, and people got used to what I was doing before, and now they're taken aback because I've changed. And I'll use Facebook's new interface as an example. So you know, you

Alyson Lex 13:17
can say I

Altimese Nichole Curry 13:18
seen it, you will see it very soon. We have it. You have it? No, for the end of September. Allison, you will

Jennie Wright 13:26
have it. I bought it. It's I've had it now for out it into it for a couple of weeks.

Altimese Nichole Curry 13:31
Yes, yes. And after from I mean, they may change it. They may they may change it. But within the industry, they have told us by September everyone will have it whether you like it or not, they're just gonna go ahead and rip Band Aid off. And I literally, this is the resistance to change. Because everybody's like, Oh, this is the first ever oh my gosh, like, everyone does not like it. But if you think back some years back what is currently Facebook. If there was a rebrand Yeah, they could and they changed everything. Mm hmm. And the sentiment then I tentacle to the sentiment now. It was literally like oh my god, I don't like this. Why is this here? Why is this there? This news feed is so big, like it's literally the exact same thing.

Alyson Lex 14:27
I remember and every time I've heard somebody complain about the new Facebook aside from the I don't see it, um, reaction that I have, I don't know what you're talking about. I never even got the option to opt in. Like,

Altimese Nichole Curry 14:39
I didn't either.

Alyson Lex 14:40
They do not care for me to have

Altimese Nichole Curry 14:43
just changed mine. They were like mine off nice. We know that. You know what, we'll change it. I they didn't even give me the choice. You know, you. You could toggle back and forth. I didn't know

Jennie Wright 14:52
I had a choice. They were like, do you want to try the new Facebook or you want to stay with the old one and I'm like, I'll try the new one. And then there was literally about like a toggle At the top, if you'd like to go back to old Facebook,

Altimese Nichole Curry 15:03
yes.

Jennie Wright 15:05
It's not incredible. But there's three different versions. Allison, that hasn't been given a choice. Like at all. You, you know, you just got it.

Altimese Nichole Curry 15:14
I got it. Yeah, my husband, he had the choice just like you. I mean, he had a toggle.

Jennie Wright 15:19
Yeah, I've had a toggle. It's gone now. But I had to toggle. And isn't that interesting, the different variations and how they're seeing how the audience just kind of reacts? Because the

Alyson Lex 15:30
research aspect.

Altimese Nichole Curry 15:33
Exactly what that is, because I can guarantee you, they're watching on the back end, and the algorithms to see how many times people toggle back and forth where they linger, which you know, what areas make them toggle back to classic? Like they're the totally used that information should change or modify or does?

Jennie Wright 15:55
No, that makes so much sense. The AI component freaks me out. More like,

Altimese Nichole Curry 16:03
totally freaks me out. It's massive. Yeah. And you can customize everything. So this is slightly off topic. We'll go back, you can customize everything on Facebook, even the ads, if you see an ad, you don't like, click that beautiful snowman on the side until Facebook. I don't want to see this. Or you can tell Facebook, show me why I saw this ad and it'll tell you the exact targeting parameters. And you can say, I want to change it. And you can customize your advertising experience. Oh, utilize that as a consumer.

Jennie Wright 16:35
Are you looking for another episode? Are you

Alyson Lex 16:39
already she's lobbying for Episode 52 you

Jennie Wright 16:42
were like it's getting syndicated.

Altimese Nichole Curry 16:46
Welcome to the show. Oh my gosh, it's all three of us. I would love it to be like what it was that show back in the day Three's Company. Yeah, love to watch that show. Just gonna say Me neither. And I never knew.

Jennie Wright 17:03
My parents were like, you're not watching that trash.

Altimese Nichole Curry 17:06
And my mom was like, No, you're not watching it. And I'm like, What? What's wrong? It's like 30 frames, whatever I didn't. I didn't get it until I was like

Alyson Lex 17:15
an adult. I wasn't allowed to watch Beavis and Butthead. Unless my cousin was babysitting. And then we would sit and watch it. And that's, that's messed

Altimese Nichole Curry 17:23
up. Or Ren and Stimpy. Yeah, I never liked

Alyson Lex 17:27
I haven't watched it as an adult. So I would probably, but I was never a fan of that and Broncos modern life. I think I just

Altimese Nichole Curry 17:34
loved Rocco's modern life. What do you mean? standard? Oh, my gosh, Rob, Martin, My,

Unknown Speaker 17:45
my.

Jennie Wright 17:49
I'm gonna toss it back to Allison, she's got a really good question. So

Altimese Nichole Curry 17:54
when you update your brand, should it be completely different from your existing brand? Should you still maintain some of it? I have a feeling you're gonna say it depends. But I want to hear your thoughts. And your feeling is absolutely right. It depends on why you're changing it. Right? Your audience, right? And your objective. So for my rebrand, it didn't make sense for me to just rip the band aid off in the way Facebook did, right. Like, I can't just rip the band aid off, I have to gradually prepare my current clients who, you know, are used to working with all to me, I have to compare, like, prepare them to begin working with the team and get them familiar with the team. Right. And the new clients is totally different for them, like a all they know, is the HR agency. They don't know, ultimate Nicolle enterprise, right. So, because of that experience, I'm able to kind of make it a gradual, but if you're changing a specialization, you're changing category services, right? Like or if you're completely realizing like the caliber of your clients are shifting and you know, the the tensions are shifting, that may require an abrupt shift. Right? Well, you completely like, one moment brand looks like this, and you literally prepare to turn on the switch for your new one. So it does it depends on you know, those three primary things of whether or not it should be quick or gradual.

Alyson Lex 19:45
And another thing that that I've thought about doing and that I kind of like to do so with my own brand, which is just me, my person, you know, I have products that are branded, and so I've covered have,

Altimese Nichole Curry 20:01
like the Alyson Lex brand is the umbrella and then everything else just kind of lives under it. Is that a strategy that you recommend to people? Absolutely, absolutely. Because, yes, you are a person. And yes, you are a brand, you are a representation of the company that you're building. So a comp, like the organization, whatever brand you're building, if it's like products, good services, it's always going to be associated with someone, because a company that's faceless, they struggle, they struggle to make the connection, because you're trying to connect with humans, which is why, you know, a lot of large companies they have, you know, a face, or they have a mascot of some sort, to personalize it to where they can create some type of personality around the brand, and it doesn't feel fake. So absolutely like that is that's okay, that's okay to do. So like even with, you know, a shift like ultimates, Nicole enterprise to the HR agency, ultimate, Nicole calm is not going away at the entity of me. But as the as our agency, you're going to see the full breadth of what the brand is becoming. So it's 100% okay to do that, and I actually encourage it, because at that point, if you decided to scale and shift and start to build a team, and all that great stuff, your brand, someone was interested in learning about Allison, they can still do that. And it's not like you're like this mysterious person leading this company, and like, Who is this like it, you know, and in terms of sales and conversion, it all starts with people, they have to connect with you first, and then they give you their money, they're not going to give you their money without connecting with you.

Jennie Wright 21:59
Hundred percent. So if we've, if we followed along your path, your steps, the really good steps to getting into rebranding, what we're doing and things like that? How do we release this new brand to the world now, you've already kind of covered this a little bit in terms of your own agency, and that switch that you've done, but let's just say I, you know, I've I mean, I've rebranded my, you know, just rebranded my website, and I've added in a new course and things like that, how do I release that to the world? Or maybe it's a new LLC, like, what's the steps to do this properly? so that we don't get the the whiplash around it?

Altimese Nichole Curry 22:39
Yes. So too, kind of give a disclaimer, you're gonna get some of the backlash. Because it goes back to people not wanting change. So prepare for it, plan for it, and then have messaging for it. So literally, like, create a crisis management, slow process, that communication document, whatever you have to do to prepare for the inevitable that's going to happen, right? Like, yes, you have to prepare for that. You have to also strategically prepared the communication. So create a campaign around your rebrand to make sure there's proper messaging on social media, making sure that, you know, for your old website, if you have a new website, there's communication on that website, driving them to the new website, and everything should integrate together. Everything, isn't it?

Jennie Wright 23:41
So that communication plan, should that include the why or just be like, Hey, we changed our brand. Here's the new one, it's effective x date,

Altimese Nichole Curry 23:50
I would recommend the Y was m times m, an abrupt shift. And as a business owner, that's totally your prerogative, right. But I recommend the why. So people know why. They understand why. Sometimes, you know, if they understand, like, why you're changing it, it shifts their perspective. They're like, Okay, I get it. And then other times, it's none of your business.

Jennie Wright 24:19
Yeah, absolutely. And I like I like having the why because I think our brains naturally become very inquisitive.

Altimese Nichole Curry 24:25
Yes.

Jennie Wright 24:26
As to the why, you know, and I've, um, I've changed my colors over the years, I've changed the font over the years, I never bothered to explain it because I really didn't think it was a big deal.

Altimese Nichole Curry 24:36
There. Yeah.

Jennie Wright 24:38
But I believe strongly that if I change my brand from which currently is my name, and the fact that Allison and I work together on a specific brand, which is System to THRIVE, we have had to explain that, you know, friends for, you know, friends for five plus years, pandemic hit, needed to mutually support each other. We were already talking all the time anyways, and developed this idea. And it just, you know, blah, blah, blah, and it grew from there. And we've had to talk about that a few times. Because we still have our separate entities. There. We still function is completely separate businesses, but we come together for this pooled resource of, you know, have different talents. And we've had to express that. And now after everything you've said, I feel like we haven't done a good enough job. And I'm like, in the back of my mind, Allison, I'm like we did awesome. But we could do more awesome. And we could like, we could be awesomeness on it. Yes.

Alyson Lex 25:34
But isn't that why we invite experts like ultimate ease onto the podcast so we can learn what we need to be doing in our business?

Jennie Wright 25:41
Absolutely. If we screenshotted the notes that we take during the actual podcast, right?

Right. Like the things that we're learning we got, we've got bites all over the place on here, we found all sorts of notes. Here show people to those people do like, wow, because we actually learn a lot for this.

Altimese Nichole Curry 25:57
Absolutely. And, you know, it's okay to realize like, man, there was a gap here, right? Because it's never too late to fill that gap. Never too late. It's never too late. And it's better that you fill the gap than someone else outside your company, who is in fact inquisitive. And they're trying to figure out, why did you do what you do? And they decided to go to Google, or whatever, to figure out why are you that person? I've done

Jennie Wright 26:31
that I have. I have a timeline where it's like, why did they do that? Why did they change this? And then I'm like, spending the next 15 minutes searching, searching, trying to find it. And then coming to my own conclusion based on the I'm using air quotes, facts online. Yes, that makes sense. So you should have the narrative the you should have creating the narrative versus having somebody else with the inquisitive mind to create the narrative for you.

Altimese Nichole Curry 26:58
Yes. And that is why I recommend sharing the why. That's why I recommend you rather tell the story, then have someone else create the narrative for you. And you have no input whatsoever? And what they're going to say, whether online or to other people, or even just the perception they create in their head, you have no, you have no say over that. But what you do have say over is the messaging you put out for your brand. So that's why I recommend the why.

Alyson Lex 27:33
So want to kind of go back a little bit, because you said that it's never too late to go ahead and put that out there. So let's pretend there were two individual entities that joined together for a podcast and ended up making like, let's just put them that often. Um, No, but seriously. So if you were in our situation where we've already come into this we've gotten this far, how would you go about going back without being like, Hey, guys, we didn't tell you enough? Like, what would you do to go back and make sure you're filling in those gaps?

Altimese Nichole Curry 28:08
Yes, I would create a campaign around it. I build a marketing campaign around that messaging, and have video content, create lives about it. Invite your audience to the experience of you all sharing this, why, and how they seen the evolution like create a campaign around it. And make it a thing, like, make it a thing.

Alyson Lex 28:36
So you're leveraging this opportunity to now engage your audience, which then builds more raving fans, and then a little miss conversion over here. So the next time you sell them something, they're a little more into you?

Altimese Nichole Curry 28:50
Yes, yes. You'll also through that process, you'll learn your advocate, because they will be the ones coming to the live, it would be the ones a part of the experiencing experience commenting the most, you will see the people who pretty much are your faithfuls through the process with you. Because as you say, Hey, this is my why they'll be the ones to be like, Yes, I know it, because they've been there with that. So it's so it's always, I'm always actively listening to those comments, because it tells you so much about the people who are making the comment. It's much deeper than just them saying, I love it. And I love you. They're literally saying I'm one of your biggest fans. And if you guys had any swag at all, I'm just going to drop this as like a campaign possible. If you had any swag at all. Those are the people that you will fit in and be like, Hey, give me your address. You have something special for you. And then all of a sudden, they get something in the mail and what do people do when they get pretty surprising in the mail, they go right to Instagram, share it, go right to Facebook, share it, they tag you, and then you have them for life.

Jennie Wright 30:10
The check is in the mail ultimately is thanks, right? Like, I think,

Alyson Lex 30:13
um,

Unknown Speaker 30:16
wow,

Alyson Lex 30:17
yeah, I'm gonna have to re listen to this episode. I'm recording it again cuz I can, Jenny just, we need to do this. On our notes. I'm like, we need to do this. I'm thinking, I bought some stickers.

Altimese Nichole Curry 30:31
And I was gonna say, it's so funny. I was gonna say that, like, it doesn't have to be big doesn't know. If you had like, I have one client, they literally give out stickers and pens and notebooks, because their content writing platform, it does make sense. So we just surprise and delight people. And they love it. Absolutely love it. So if you guys, you know, found really cute here, but at wholesale rates. So you could potentially put your branding on. That would be quite fancy. affordable, and people would use it and love it and share it.

Alyson Lex 31:13
Mm hmm. Huh.

Jennie Wright 31:14
That is so yeah. Okay. My mind is really going I'm writing notes. And I'm like, surprise and delight, you know, gamification,

Alyson Lex 31:23
rights and earbuds down? Yeah, that's right. I am a wholesale research awesomeness. So good. Well, I spent all my like my whole career doing direct mail. Like, if you want to know the cheapest place to find a stress ball shaped like a barbell, I got you.

Altimese Nichole Curry 31:42
Love it. I love it. For that, for campaigns like, that comes in handy. Yes. Like I want to say every single thing in our life is interconnected. So you've been connected to the direct mail industry, you literally have information at your fingertips, I can help you with this campaign to make sure that the cost of you guys creating campaigns is at a reasonable affordable rate. And the experience that you're creating, for your audience goes through the roof. Absolutely.

Alyson Lex 32:18
Yeah, I love it. And in the in the direct response world, we call this a shock and awe box. And a lot of times we use this to reach out to high level potential clients. And I've done this I want to give a real quick example. Before we get back to the branding thing. Because now now we're speaking my language. I've done this on a one on one kind of thing. I remember I went to an event, and I saw a speaker and I'm sitting in the audience and I'm thinking, I want to write for this person so bad. She's awesome. I'm like vibing with her I want to write for her. I went up to her after chatted for just a minute she asked me where I was from. And I told her and she said I grew up around there. And I was like, Where? And she told me. And it turns out, we graduated from the same high school. Wow. And so I didn't give her my contact information. I didn't get her whatever, right. We just I was really trying to play cool. So I still try online, I found her mailing address. I sent her a stuffed animal that was the mascot of our high school along with a handwritten card that just said, I want to write free. I was just, I want to write for you. You're awesome. And she hired me. Yes. Because she was surprised and delighted. And that's on brand for me. That's super hyper personal direct mail is on brand for me since we're gonna drop that word in there.

Jennie Wright 33:42
Uh huh. Brand higher up sent me that.

Altimese Nichole Curry 33:44
Yeah.

Alyson Lex 33:46
So it's, you know, I love the idea of using swag for the audience. And for some reason, I just never put those together. I was always just thinking super high end.

Altimese Nichole Curry 33:58
And I don't even say you know, we're thinking of physical, tangible products. But imagine if you were a fan of you are a fan of this brand. And they, you know, had some type of love or fascination with coffee. And you take your coffee, you're with them and you're experiencing all of this wisdom. And Nick, drop into your dm with a $5 Starbucks gift card. Mm hmm. And just say thanks for being a fan. What in the world? Yeah, it's literally five bucks. It's not like it's $5. And you made that person's day. Yeah, they will tell all of your friends, they will screenshot that bad boy tagged you in it in the post and for ever follow you. That's an experience that is ingrained in their memory at

Alyson Lex 34:50
that point. Mm hmm. So basically ultimately says lobbying for an episode on active listening. Yep. She's lobbying for an episode. sewed on surprising and delighting your audience. Yep, booked?

Unknown Speaker 35:06
Yep. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 35:09
Just letting everybody know that that will ultimately

Jennie Wright 35:11
is not going to be a quarterly at least you know? Because the thing is, is that there's so

Alyson Lex 35:18
much cool quarterly report,

Jennie Wright 35:20
right? There's so much to say there is so much to say about this. And I just think this is really fact. And I know we're having a giggle about it. But in all seriousness, this is really important stuff. This can be, you know, this can be a big game changer sending somebody that you wouldn't think that sending somebody attended like a 30 cent sticker, right, with your brand on it could have an effect. But Allison and I, when we, you know, we sent a, we sent a thank you card to somebody who appeared on the podcast, and they took a picture of it and posted it on social media. Right. And they're like, thanks, so, so nice to appear on your show, and bla bla, and that, I mean, sending a card. I mean, I don't know how much a stamp is right now, because I haven't sent a card and God knows how long thousand does. And it definitely has an impact. Right. And, and you don't think all these have that correlation? So,

Altimese Nichole Curry 36:10
right? Yes. And I received their card is Well, I mean, this goes back to their representation. I literally like, like, Oh, my God, this is my daughter, like, she's okay. Yeah, yeah. Like, she was just like, oh, like completely derailed me. But that person who posted I want my brain, I was like, Oh, my God, I want to share this. And then my mom brain kicked in. Yeah, same thing. Same thing with posts, same thing. So comments, people who are commenting, pay attention to them, even if it's negative or not favorable comment. And it happens to be five out of 20 or four out of 15. Pay attention to that.

Alyson Lex 36:59
Yeah, well, and I did, um, I haven't posted it yet. But I did a presentation for somebody group. And she sent me this gift off Amazon, I got an Amazon Prime package. And it's just a little journal, it probably cost seven or $8. You know, and she sent it directly. So there was no postage, it was whatever. And it lives right here. And I did take pictures with that. I just haven't posted it yet because mom bring. But that really does work. And I never

Altimese Nichole Curry 37:29
in the rebrand process. This is the leverage that we were talking about. Right? So when you miss them, own that story. Use it for your advantage and leverage it to maximize the experience for your audience.

Jennie Wright 37:47
There's been so much from this particular episode that I've learned. And I, you know, I'm really grateful for that. And I'm grateful that you came back on the ultimate quarterly report might turn into a thing. Just saying,

Altimese Nichole Curry 38:00
I love

Jennie Wright 38:01
it. It's it's fascinating. It's fascinating to look at this perspective in our businesses, because this is not necessarily the 100% tangible things that we look at on a daily basis. It's not like you have a tab open on your browser about how to improve my brand today. Yes, you know, we have our podcast stats, and we have, you know, the documents we're working on or this or that, or the stuff for the client or social media, but we don't have something that says what am I doing today to improve my brand? Or how am I identifying those key factors and those, you know, those raving fans and all those things? We don't think about this enough. And I and I think we need to obviously we've I think we've acknowledged that. And I'm just really, really excited from what you've said, because I think it's going to touch a lot of people. I think it's going to encourage them to look at their businesses a little bit more deeply, which is when you're looking at the System to THRIVE. It's really one of the things that Allison and I hear about a lot is people having an ability to directly impact their businesses and others through, you know, improvement. It's the little tweaks, right? Yes,

Altimese Nichole Curry 39:05
yes, absolutely.

Jennie Wright 39:07
So I just want to take a moment and say thank you ultimates for being on and where can everybody find you? Please share again?

Altimese Nichole Curry 39:14
Yes, absolutely. So I am automates Nicole everywhere. Al T i m e s e in ICHOLE. So please feel free to follow me. My new rebrand is the ACR agency. So a czar is E v. e, our agency and we're the as the as our agency everywhere. Mm hmm.

Alyson Lex 39:42
I love it. And we will put links to all your socials, your websites all of that in the resources part of the show notes of this episode. And that is Jennie remind me of the URL is it System to thrive.com slash it's going to be System to thrive.com forward slash 38 That's three, eight. Whoo. And so all the links that will be there as well as any resources that we talked about in today's episode.

Jennie Wright 40:09
And don't forget to check me out on episode 13, because that was the first episode we do together. And that was amazing.

Altimese Nichole Curry 40:16
Yeah, thank you guys so much for this opportunity. You are absolutely amazing. And I just want you guys to know like what you're doing, it's impacting so many people and their businesses, and making sure that they have the systems in place to build the life that they want. So, you know, I'm sure in the craziness of getting all of us scheduled and getting everything booked in making sure everything is perfect. You know, I just want to celebrate you guys want to celebrate you amazing women, like doing it. So that's it. Thank you

Alyson Lex 40:54
so much.

Jennie Wright 40:55
They feel to me, they really appreciate it. And thanks, everybody for listening, and we will be back another time answering another big question. Thanks again for watching or listening to this podcast. We hope we've answered some of your big questions today. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast anywhere you're listening and leave us a review.

Alyson Lex 41:13
Also, make sure you've checked out the thrive collaborative podcast community, our Facebook group for listeners and entrepreneurs find us on Facebook or online at System to thrive.com

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