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How to Build a Better (Funnier!) Brand for Your Business with Allie LeFevere of Obedient

Episode #094

If it isn't fun, Allie LeFevere (@AllieLeFevere) doesn't want anything to do with it. It just so happens that, in a world full of undifferentiated products and fear-based marketing, fun and humor are the missing ingredients that founders need to set their brands apart. In this episode, Allie shares the fundamentals behind solid brand marketing that every early-stage founder should know, how to sell more (and have a good time doing it) by using fun to connect with your customers, and the things she's learned as the founder of both a scalable product business and a digital marketing agency.

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    @csallen Are the podcast transcripts going to come back? I often go to the transcript after listening to an episode to look up a product or service that was mentioned, or to save some important information from the show.

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      Yes, this month they're finally coming back

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    My Main Takeaways:

    • Market with Fun, not Fear: A lot of marketing is sneaky and targets people’s fears in order to sell to them. Instead, focus on fun. Yes, still target needs, but don’t make people feel insecure and small in order to get them to buy your product.
    • Example of Humour marketing: KFC’s instagram account where they have a fake Colonel Sanders making fun of Instagram Influencers. Instagram Username: (at)kfc.
    • Humour marketing is more human: Having a human element to your branding makes it easy for people to better relate with your brand.
    • Have a consistent brand experience: Have a consistent core value that runs through everything that you do.
    • Identify your Unique Selling Point, USP: Focus on your USP in your marketing.
    • Identify the Emotion that you want to evoke in your audience: Create a personality that evokes this emotion in your audience, and weave this personality into your marketing.
    • Standing out is not a matter of Taste, it’s a matter of Survival: Most industries are saturated, it’s hard to be completely different from everything else, so how you differentiate is through your wording (marketing).
    • Launch version 1 quickly: With Indie Hackers, Courtland went from idea to launch in 3 weeks.
    • Branding is an evolving process, it never stops.
    • Humans are very emotionally driven: Identify the correct emotions that your audience responds to.
    • Your goals may change over time: Growing up, Allie wanted to be a Veterian. Then she wanted to be a therapist and studied Psychology in college. Then she changed her mind and pursued another degree in Communications with a focus on PR. And when she graduated she didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do.
    • Sometimes you need a break to find yourself: Allie spent a year living in Hawaii to find herself. After coming back, she got a job at a consulting firm, and enjoyed exercising her brain again. A few years later, she took a 3 week trip to India after experiencing working in a toxic work environment, upon returning she decided to start her own company.
    • Work on side-projects, you never know where they may take you: While working her consulting day job, Allie started a blog on the side, and this blog lead to her getting a job as VP of Engagement at a company.
    • Allie is a hard worker, she’s scrappy, and is willing to get her hands dirty.
    • When you haven’t got any ideas but want to start a business, seek inspiration from existing businesses: Allie was inspired by many personal brand businesses who also sold courses (i.e. Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, etc), to start her own business that sells courses. She leveraged her own skill set and started something of her own, eventually getting over 9,000 students.
    • Take good courses, if necessary: Allie took courses on how to build an online business, this helped her get started, but she had to pivot and make changes to make her online business “her own”, rather than “just another online business”.
    • It’s good to know how everything works in your business, but not to do everything: When you can, delegate tasks to people who can do things better than you. This also frees up time and helps you scale.
    • Leverage your network: Allie had a friend that was working on marketing projects similar to herself, and they decided to come together to start a company called “Obedient”. Through this they would help other companies with their marketing.
    • Fulfilment > Automation: Allie went from a scalable automated business (with her online courses), to a less scalable less automated business (with Obedient). But she doesn’t mind because her work has now become more fulfilling.
    • Have a heart-to-heart with your co-founder to get on the same page in regards to the business and life.
    • When selling, you don’t need to convince the other person, you need to convince yourself: Don’t go in trying to sell your “prospect”, go in trying to understand their true problem and educating them on how your product solves their problem, if you really believe it does.
    • Cliche advice is the best advice: Usually the cliches are the truths that have stood the test of time.
    • Put your ego aside, seek constructive criticism: Working too hard to protect your ego will ultimately lead to you building a worse business.
    • Ask your users: “Is your experience, different to what you expected?” The answer to this question will show you how aligned your marketing is to your actual product.
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    Great viewpoint on how to think about sales. Believing in what you are selling and educating the customer, great advice! I also love the idea of funny marketing campaigns, will try on my own now!

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