IAM1160- Marketing Expert Helps Entrepreneurs Evolve their Businesses

Blaire Brown is a Brand Strategist and Marketing Expert who specializes in helping entrepreneurs evolve their businesses. With over a decade being spent in New York City's fast-paced competitive environments, her career has been primarily based on entrepreneurial endeavors, marketing, and PR. She recently created and launched her Focused Branding online course that helps new female entrepreneurs set their brand messaging foundation for success. Blaire creates value for brands through marketing consultation services and strategic writing that maximizes brand objectives and is an expert at building brand stories to reach targeted audiences. She is currently based in Annapolis, Maryland.

• CEO Hack: Building a network of like-minded people
• CEO Nugget: Everything takes time, empires are not built in one day
• CEO Defined: Freedom of being my own boss and following my passion

Website: https://blairebrown.com/

 

Webinar registration page: https://blairebrown.com/invited/

Course: https://blairebrown.teachable.com/p/focused-branding

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/businessbyblairebrown/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/businessbyblairebrown/
LinkedIn Business Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blaire-brown-brand-strategist
Facebook Entrepreneur Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/successfulentrepreneurscommunity

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Transcription

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00:21 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:48 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, Hello, Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Blair Brown of BlairBrown.com. Blair, it's great to have you on the show.

00:56 – Blaire Brown

Hi, thank you so much for having me today.

00:59 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, super excited to have you on as well. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Blair so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Blair is a brand strategist and marketing expert who specializes in helping entrepreneurs evolve their businesses with over a decade being spent in New York City's fast-paced competitive environments. Her career has been primarily based on entrepreneurial endeavors, marketing, and PR. She recently created and launched her Focus Branding Online course which helps new female entrepreneurs set their brand messaging foundation for success. Blair creates value for brands through marketing consultation services, strategic writing that maximizes brand objectives, and as an expert at building brand stories to reach targeted audiences. She's currently based in Annapolis, Maryland. Blair, great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:44 – Blaire Brown

I am. I'm pumped.

01:45 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here a little bit more on how you got started when I call your CEO story.

01:54 – Blaire Brown

Sure. So my background is really, I've never really had an option, but to be an entrepreneur, to be honest, It's just in my blood and my heart. And I really can't help it. When I was, it goes way back to when I was 16, I started a handbag company back in the day. And I ran it for about 8 years. I loved it. All the time I was just cranking out purses. And in that timeframe, I made hundreds of handbags and sold them globally and it really just took off. And so I thought, you know, this doesn't feel like it's a job. It's something I love. I'm gonna pursue it in school. So I ended up going to New York and falling in love with the fashion industry. I went to school at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

And from there, I switched my career paths a few times. I hopped into product development. I worked in marketing and PR. I covered the shows at Fashion Week. So I did fashion journalism. It was kind of all around the board but fashion-related mostly. And but I always kind of came back to, I need to start something on my own. I can't work for somebody else. I can, but just it's killing my soul a little bit. So I ended up in my last corporate job starting a business through Amazon FBA selling unicorn party supplies, as one does. And I did that for a while and I realized having both a business and working at my job was really hard to do. So I just had it one day and I just did the jump.

I was like, I'm just going to go all in. I'm going to vote for myself and just start something. And I thought it was going to be freelance writing. And then I ended up, it all worked out, where a friend reached out to me and asked me if I'd be a consultant for her fashion brand. And so I talked to their founder, and then that's kind of how it spiraled into what I'm doing now. So now I run my own agency and I help other entrepreneurs that have that same, you know, drive and passion to start their own businesses, and I help them find ways to launch their business through marketing and branding. So that's where we are today.

03:50 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And I absolutely love that. And to kind of hear your journey and the steps that you took to kind of get to where you want to be. I myself, my first, I guess, official maybe entrepreneurial journey, I started to do a lot of freelance writing and it kind of evolved into what I end up doing now. But I absolutely love hearing that you had that entrepreneurial blood in your DNA and you didn't see any other way. And it's just a matter of finding the lane rather than knowing that you're gonna start something and kind of taking the bull by the reins it sounds like from there.

04:17 – Blaire Brown

Yeah, when you have it in you and you, it's just talking to you, like you gotta do it. And then it taps on your heart. Like, remember you wanted to do that. And then you just think about it all the time. And you know, at one point in your life, I feel like you're pushed into it. And then you're like, this feels right, even though it's totally scary sometimes, it's right. And my whole family is entrepreneurs, oddly. And so we all just kind of are supportive of each other as you're like, yeah, that does sound crazy, but you can do it, you know? So you gotta have that community.

04:45 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. That community is definitely everything. And I think we sometimes so many times we forget that you know, success is a quote-unquote team sport and to be able to have, you know, all those people that are rooting you on and being able to kind of even understand some of the struggles, the less than ideal times that we sometimes go through, I think is so key.

05:01 – Blaire Brown

And also, you don't know what path entrepreneurship is going to take you. Sometimes you think, oh, this is going to be my path. I honestly thought I'd be having my handbag business forever. And then it twisted and turned in different ways. But If you look back at it in a very detailed way in my background, everything kind of led up to what I'm doing now as far as marketing, operating a business in this way, working with these kinds of clients. And so it just works out. So never think that it's gonna go one path. It could go many paths. You just never know.

05:33 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think so many times we can look at, you know, life in our journey and silos. But I love that you said that. And Steve Jobs has this commencement speech that he talks about. Sometimes we don't realize things are happening in alignment. So we look back and start to connect the dots from there. And we start to realize that, okay, this helped me out here. I didn't realize how that would be connected, but it starts to all be in alignment. And so I wanted to drill down a little bit more. I know you touched on it a little bit and heard a little bit more about how you work with your clients. Can you take us through a little bit more on what that looks like and how you set up the class you work with?

06:02 – Blaire Brown

Sure. So how I work with my clients is I work with them in different ways. But the main way that I work with them is I'll be in contact with these entrepreneurs and founders. And they're usually in the earlier stages of their businesses. But sometimes they are more moved along. But I'll hold a discovery call with them and just so I can learn about them, you know, what they've already done for marketing and branding initiatives, where they're at, where their goals are down the line, sooner and then also years down the road. And then we have a consult called a brainstorming session, which means I meet up with them.

I do a lot of research in advance on their industry and based on what they've done and what they want to do, I come up essentially with an entrepreneur roadmap for them and I'm saying, hey, this is where you're at now. Why don't we try these different strategies that way you can get here. And then from there, we go from another list of strategies, just kind of moves them along the way because the people I work with are awesome. They are so fired up about what they're doing. They're passionate. They're they have all of these ideas out there and I'm over here, they're like, that's awesome, go for it. However, let's bring it in a little bit, you know, you have to have a little bit of a roadmap when you have that passion.

And it makes it less overwhelming than just you know, having them all spread out. So that's the main way I help my entrepreneur clients out. A secondary way I help them is you know just if they want me to help them with little projects they don't have enough time they're solopreneur things like that you know coming up with their branding marketing strategies and then I also have the online course that you mentioned It's called Focus Branding and it helps mostly solopreneurs come up with how can I share my brand story? How can I get it to the right audience instead of, you know, everybody you need to niche it down, how do you do that effectively and continue to attract these clients? So those are the main ways that I work with people.

07:50 – Gresham Harkless

So would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce, which can be for yourself or the business or a combination of both, but what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

07:58 – Blaire Brown

Well, I'd say, you know, My secret sauce, I guess would be, yeah, it would be going with a giving mentality. I think something like that is very important because giving advice is free. It helps people out and nothing feels better than building other people up. And then even if you're not aiming for it to come back to you, it always does in the long run. So I think going with the giving mentality would be my secret sauce. I love helping people and you know, it just, makes the entrepreneurial community so much better, and you know, there's always, there's clients for everybody. So it's not like you can't go in with a competitive mindset, go in with a giving mentality.

08:35 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely, I love it. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

08:47 – Blaire Brown

Okay, well, I just think kind of bounces off of my secret sauce is just building a network of like-minded people. You know, when you surround yourself with like-minded people who are also go-getters, or maybe they're pushing you a little bit more than you push yourself, I think that's crazy important as a CEO, because if you work with people like that, who are thinking bigger things, then you're gonna realize that it is possible to achieve what you want to achieve.

And because being an entrepreneur is difficult, it has its challenges oftentimes, because you have to push yourself to accomplish these goals that you have for yourself. And so having these people in the background as cheerleaders just in general or just to bounce ideas off of and to make you realize you're not crazy and that you can go after these things. That would definitely be my hack for sure. Cause if you're doing it alone, you're gonna feel like you're on an island and that's hard to push through.

09:40 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And so I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something if you were to hop into a time machine, you would tell your younger business self or potentially you might tell a client as well.

09:53 – Blaire Brown

So I would tell myself now and then that everything takes time and that empires aren't built in one day. Even if you have this monster goal up here and you're like, oh my gosh, is it ever going to happen? I have so much to do. Take the overwhelm down. Realize as long as you just, okay, what's more important today? My dad always says, when the acronym W-I-N, what's important now, you know, if you focus on what's important now, and then you move forward that way, just chip away, then all of a sudden you're getting close to the top of that hill and to that goal that you're going for. So I think something like that takes the pressure off of you a little bit. It reminds you little steps do add up even if it doesn't feel like it right then and there. So just keep going. It doesn't happen in a day, but it'll happen.

10:42 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. If you continue on that path. That's why I love, you know, Obviously what you do with your clients, and I of course love that nugget, and I think there's a quote, the journey of, it might be 10, 000 or a thousand miles begins with one single step. And I think that if we start to realize that, then as long as you're continuing to take those steps, one after another, it's not necessarily a linear journey, but it is a journey. You have to kind of respect that journey and continue to kind of put one foot in front of the other.

11:05 – Blaire Brown

Yeah, exactly. So important.

11:08 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And so I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Blair, what does being a CEO mean to you?

11:18 – Blaire Brown

All right, well, for me, I'd say it'd definitely be the freedom of being my own boss and following my passion to exactly what I want it to be. You know, it's such a blessing and a really nice thing to have whenever you can just say, you know what, this is sometimes as a CEO, you're like, oh, I should follow this path. And you're like, wait, I'm making my own path. I can do this. You know, you have to remember that you have freedom and that's why you're doing this. So I think being a CEO is Remember you can make this path your own.

You know, you can go after what you want to do. And as long as you're passionate about it, you're not going to work a day in your life. I've treated her that 1, 000 times. But it's so true. And so being a CEO, that's definitely what it means. Being able to work to help people creatively follow their dreams is the best feeling for me. So for me to actually be able to do that, and help people level up their businesses has just been an absolute way for me to live my own dream and my passion.

12:14 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that. And I think forget that we have the power to sometimes quote and rewrite things a different way. Obviously in what you in h being a CEO, but also what I think so many times everybody is going left, We can go right, we can go straight, we can go down, we can go up. There are so many other opportunities that we sometimes don't realize.

12:39 – Blaire Brown

Yeah, I mean, that's something I'm constantly having to make sure I remind myself because it's so easy to get lost and see like, this is what I've always learned working in the work world. And this is how people have done it. And it's like, wait, hold on. I can make, I can do whatever I want. And let's just try it. If it doesn't work, not a big deal. Then I'll try something else and see if that works. You know, it's your own show and you're not going to get fired from yourself in this situation. It's just a matter of trial and error, you know? So very important.

13:09 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I love that. And I think so many times one of the things that I started to realize too, is when you start to read the biographies or the stories of the people that are quote-unquote successful and how we define it, we realize that they are the people that tried this and it didn't work, then they tried that and it didn't work out. You know, Albert Einstein, I think they said he had, you know, 10, 000 inventions before he came out with the light bulb. So just reminding us of, you know, that journey that you kind of talked about so well earlier is something that really will lead us there to get kind of present in the journey, not present sometimes in the destination and the finalization of that.

13:40 – Blaire Brown

Yeah, and you know, I mean, anytime people feel down on themselves, I'm like, pick up any book about a founder, a leader, all of them have failed often. And usually, their first business isn't the one that they're still with today. It's just, that you have to go through trial and error and just try things and see which one ends up sticking. I didn't start out in this business. I started making handbags. And that was before Etsy even existed. And then Etsy exists, I moved it over there and then it's spiraled and now we're talking about your show

14:11 – Gresham Harkless

So, yes you do never know and I absolutely love that well Blair truly appreciate that definition and of course, I appreciate your time as well What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get ahold of you, find out about your course and all the awesome things that you're working on.

14:31 – Blaire Brown

Awesome, thank you. So I would just say further advice is just if you feel that entrepreneurial pull in your heart, if there's that voice tapping on it, pulling on it, you feel like it's right, just go for it. I mean, be smart about it, but if it's there, then that should be what you're going after. Make a plan, and go after it because, at the end of the day, it'll be a lot of work, but at least you'll know you're working towards something that you love. And I always think it's more important to try and go for it versus wondering what if I had gone for it. So that's my last piece of advice there. As far as reaching out to me, you know, I do free discovery calls if you guys want to chat with me about your business.

I love meeting founders. It's literally what gets me up every day. I get so excited about it. And so that's an option. I also have that focus branding course if you are a brand that's starting out and needs to refine your voice that's actually going to attract clients consistently. It's a really great process and I'm happy to talk to you about that as well. The best way to reach me would be on Instagram, which is business by Blair Brown, or my website, and my name is it's my website is my name. It's Blair brown.com and that's spelled BLAIRE brown like the color.com. So that's the best way I hope I hear from all these CEO listeners. Thank you so much for having me today. I really appreciate it.

15:56 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I definitely appreciate you for obviously taking some time out and all the awesome things that you're doing. We will definitely have the links and information in the show notes as well too, to make it even easier for people to get a hold of you. I absolutely love that kind of final piece that you kind of left us with, you know, as well too. I think so many times we forget about that aspect and forget about, you know, the journey of success and how to actually get there. But I love that you encapsulated that so well for something that we can kind of remind ourselves of on a regular basis. So thank you so much again, Blair, truly appreciate you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:25 – Outro