The Story Behind the Scroll: Social Strategy | Michelle Park

What if the brands that feel the most "visible" online are actually the ones with the least strategy behind them?

In this episode of the Wickedly Branded Podcast, Beverly Cornell sits down with Michelle Park, founder of Brand New Animals Agency, to talk about what actually separates a brand with a social presence from one with real, sustainable growth. Hint: it is not more posting, more polish, or more platforms.

Michelle shares how a personal Instagram account for her daughter unexpectedly grew to 15,000 followers in two months, and how that experience taught her the power of authentic storytelling long before she turned it into a career helping fashion, beauty, and lifestyle brands find their voice.

Together, Beverly and Michelle explore the emotional and strategic side of social media, from why looking too perfect online is now a liability instead of a goal, to why most brands are testing nothing, tracking nothing, and wondering why their content is not converting. They dig into the real difference between hooks that feel manipulative and stories that feel human, and why founders willing to show up messy on camera consistently outperform the ones who stay polished and hidden.

This conversation is a powerful reminder that visibility without strategy is just noise. Sometimes the most powerful move is slowing down, finding your real story, and building a system that lets that story do the work.

Key Marketing Topics

1. Authentic Storytelling Outperforms Polished Content

When content feels too curated, audiences disengage. Michelle shares how her most awkward, unedited posts consistently outperform her most polished ones, and why real connection beats perfection every time.

2. Strategy Is What Turns Presence Into Growth

Posting content is not the same as having a plan. Real growth comes from testing formats, tracking what performs, and building a system around content pillars instead of guessing at what to post next.

3. Your Story Is Your Competitive Advantage

Every founder has a "shimmering thread," the personal narrative that connects everything they do. Finding and telling that story consistently is what turns an audience into people who trust, remember, and choose your brand.

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SPEAKER_00 0:12

Did you know that more than two-thirds of the world uses social media, yet many businesses are still posting without a clear strategy for turning visibility into growth? Welcome to the Wickedly Branded Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Cornell. I'm the founder and fairy godmother here at Wickedly Branded. And today I am joined by Michelle Park. She is a founder of Brand New Animals Agency, a social media and digital strategy agency helping lifestyle, fashion, beauty, and aesthetics brands move from simply having a presence out there to building the strategy for long-term growth. Michelle's journey began after she quickly grew her own social following and realized that she could help other brands build stronger connections with the audiences they wanted to reach. Today we're going to talk about social media strategy, authentic visibility, building systems that support growth, and why one difficult Tuesday does not get to define your entire business. Michelle, welcome to the Wicked the Branded Podcast. Think that really it's good to be here. I am excited to dive in. You have such an interesting background. You've done a lot of different things. I know that in 2015 you began growing your own social following and it was faster than you expected. What were you doing differently? And even at the time, why were you on social and what were you doing? Talk about like the journey there.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Yeah, I think 2015 was such a different time to be growing. Your social audience, it was much easier, to be completely honest. It's not like now where it's so oversaturated. And I say that with a grain of salt because it's then continued to be more oversaturated. So if you're thinking about starting, start now. But back in 2015, I'd realized that was the world that was going to take over. And so I knew that I had to do something. At the time, it was actually an account for my daughter. She was a baby. And so I just started posting fun things with her, which led to us growing to about 15,000 followers in two months, which was very fast at the time. Now you can grow to a million in a day. But back then, 15k on Instagram in two months was impressive. And so I started getting reached out to by like publications about what I was doing on social and how I was growing this brand. I quickly decided to take her off of social media. So I closed down that account because I then, as we started getting too much attention, I felt really uncomfortable. I like completely defuncted that account. But what that led me to do was figure out how to strategically grow other brands. If I could do it for me and my baby, we're just two regular people. We can do it for a brand that has a really good product or message. Yeah. So what kind of content were you putting out for the baby? It was like I was nursing for 15 months. So there was a lot of that mixed in. Like motherhood from my point of view. It was very authentic. I wasn't really trying to make a following. I was just posting because I had this terrible post-partum hemorrhage. I lost all my breast milk.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

And so bringing it back was such a difficult journey that I just wanted people to know what I so it's so authentic because it was your real life experience that you were sharing and exposing for the world. And I'm sure there were so many people who connected to that moms who have struggled with their breast milk that they were definitely connecting to you in that way. And of course, we have a cute baby from a marketing perspective, babies and animals, marketing gold. That that both it's that. I also have an 11-year-old and he is very photogenic. And I used to dress him up in fedoras and bow ties and all the things. And he's very, yes. So I understand that element of it. And I just, he's a foster to adopt child. So our journey was very interesting as well. But I also feel protective as well because I didn't want to tell his story. I wanted him to be able to tell his story and in the way that he wanted to, and when he was ready. So I also am more limited now. You're right. In the beginning, when Twitter and all those came out, we didn't really understand the power that was happening. And you quickly understand, oh gosh, this is a little bit too much. And maybe I need to protect my child from some of this as well. So it's an interesting transition we've had to take in that way. Not to knock the moms out there who are like putting their kids on. If they're comfortable with it, that's their choice. Absolutely. And I'm sure they're protecting them in different ways. So yes, absolutely. So what do you think that you were doing differently from a strategic perspective at the time? Was it just that she was cute and it was a real authentic story?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

I think that as somebody who's been a storyteller my entire career, I knew how to tell a story. And I think if you look at my socials now, I still tell stories. There's not really a lot that has changed except that I'm packing lunchboxes and talking about my kids, but I'm still telling their story. And the one thing I know about the human brain is that we will always attach to a story. And I didn't realize I was doing this when I was when I started the initial baby account. But people were just along the ride for our story. Is she gonna be okay? Is she gonna manage to nurse? Oh, she's nursing now. How long is it gonna go? Like there, there were built-in questions for people to feel somewhat attached to us. And I think that was that's the piece that a lot of brands are missing, is they're trying to put all this content out there. But what are you really telling people? We work with a lot of brands where they bring us in to help tell their story. And I'm like, there is no story. If you don't have a real story, if your story is just based on we came up with these beads and the beads are pretty, that's not a story. Like, yeah, and how has it changed people's lives and where are all the little stories in there? And so to answer your question, like strategically, I really didn't try to do anything. It would just, it just happened seriously.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

It's interesting because I am a big fan of story brand. Donald Miller is a great, it's a great example for a lot of clients to understand the power of a story for your business. But I actually approach it and I'm not a big fan of the word niching. I believe in narrative resonance. So I feel like your story is what connects people to your clients and the perfect clients for you. And that story, your story, the narrative coherence of your story is your superpower when you're connecting with people. So the power of the story is not as a reporter, but I have a communications background. So maybe some of that comes from that, Michelle, like the education I have. But you're right, like the story before there was Twitter, before there was Instagram, there was cavemen ringing stories on a wall or telling stories around a fire. We are inherently human beings who learn and grow and are curious through stories. So I agreed. I think one of the things that I have gotten better about is how do you story to teach? So I was writing an article about confidence, uh blog article, and I used my son as an example, but he was at Harry Potter World and he had his wand and he was doing some spell in the middle of a very busy park. And all eyes were on him. And I thought, when do we lose that level of confidence? Like legit, he thought he was a wizard. Oh, Harry Potter World. When do we lose that kind of belief in ourselves and confidence as humans? And so I was talking about that from a female founder's perspective of our confidence. And I think through the story, it's so much more powerful. What kind of came from that? And how did obviously you have a daughter? So, did you want to write the book for your daughter, or was it something more?

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah, so there's two of them now. They're eight and ten. And the book was, it was just something I always wanted to do. I, when my older daughter was three, she was in preschool. They asked me to come in and do a lunar new year presentation because we were the only Asian family in the school. And I was, you know, as a last-minute kind of procrastinator, I was looking for a book on Amazon like three days before this thing was supposed to happen about Korean New Year because we're Korean and it didn't exist. There was actually zero.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

So, not like there was one that kind of touched on but even schools often feature different celebrations throughout the year as a way to expose children to other cultures and other ways of thinking, which is fabulous. And what a great way through story to do that. Yeah. I think that's amazing. I'll send you a book that relates. So you help one of the things that you said in the pre-interview, the application was you said you help clients go from we have a presence to we have a strategy. What is the real difference between these two stages and how do you cross over into that?

SPEAKER_01 8:13

I think the problem that a lot of brands run into is that they have somebody very young running their social who is just posting for the sake of posting. So, like, hey, here are five different content formats and five different content buckets. And let's think about which ones are going to drive sales, which ones are gonna make people feel affinity for our brand, which ones are just going to entertain and which ones educate, right? We have multiple different ways to connect with an audience. Most brands are not doing that. So there are definitely some brands that are doing it right. I think Loeve is a great example of a brand that has really used social media to build a world for themselves. And it's very obvious when you see a piece of their content, like this is Loewe content. But most other brands out there, like big or small, ones that you would immediately recognize are still not doing it properly. And that's because social media has become very important while also being an Afterthought. So it's very important, but it's also the last thing on the list. Yeah, because e-com and all these other things, SEO, all and PR. And then you have social media at the bottom, but then every founder knows social media is actually super important. Yeah, I love the messy middle of this part because this is where we really thrive as an agency. It's testing. So the reason that it's an afterthought is because most founders don't feel qualified to do the social, right? So they find someone young who they think can probably do it and they put that person in that role. And that person does not have enough experience to be strategic. Now you have a bunch of content out there and you're not testing, you're not looking at the data, you're not trying to figure out what's working, what's not working. And so we come in oftentimes into much larger scale organizations, and we basically combine the e-com team with the paid ad team, with the PR team, with the social team, oversee everybody, let everybody talk to each other.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

They don't necessarily have that. I call it the mad science scientist background. I want to see what's working, try something else, tweak this little thing, the algorithm is changing. So there's always a little moving parts that are happening, and we're trying to see what actually is really performing now. And I will say this time and time again for brands, big brands, little brands, when it's about the human beings that are doing the things in the business, not about a product per se, or about it's the human beings being human that always does better. But that to me, and I do a lot with pet brands. So anytime there's a cute dog or cat, that actually works too. But there is this thought, and when you talk about, you talk about I call the social media matrix. So it is the types of content. So whether it's a carousel or infographic or those kinds of things, it's also the funnel. What does this feed? Right. So is it nurturing, sales, education, infotainment, whatever? And then also the bucket that you talked about, we call them pillars, very similar, all the things. Yeah. When you do that, you were literally creating a formula and then you're measuring the formula.

unknown 11:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

So when you think of well, when we're talking about stories, everyone's like, you need a hook, and then you need a something to get people interested, and then you need payoff, and then you need the conclusion. I don't actually think that's the best way to test stories. I think you have to think about it as if we were gonna tell your best friend what is going on and make sure they're not bored, how would you say this thing? Because people can now smell a hook coming from a mile away and it's very annoying. I don't think hooks have the effect they had before we had an educated social media. There are some like what we call low-hanging fruit that still works, like here are five things to never do, and people are like, What sh things should I never do? For the most part, if you want to build actual brand loyalty and not piss a lot of people off, you do need to figure out how to tell your story in a way that's really replicable, but really interesting. So think about how you would tell it to your best friend in 20 seconds. And that's like usually the tenet that we go by in all places. And so anytime we have somebody on camera and they're speaking, I really do ask them like, is there a different way that you would say this if it wasn't me you're talking to? If it's like your dad and your not or your best friend or your brother or whatever, someone who you're not editing as you're thinking, say it that way. Because that way is going to feel the most authentic and the most interesting.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Do you think from like a news perspective, one thing that we learned in school was to always start with the lead, right? So start with the end, like the powerful end. Does that still work? Is that the hook that still works?

SPEAKER_01 12:30

In it really depends on the story. Like I think if the end is something that still leaves mystery for the person, sure, start with the end. But if you tell the end and there's like nothing left to listen to, do not start with the end. Start with the beginning and the most interesting nugget, right? Like a good example is I recently posted a video where it was like, I found my daughter's pillow in the garbage can, right? How did it get there? What happened? Why was it in the garbage can and why did you leave it there, right? These are all questions that will naturally arise in the listener's ear. But then there are other stories that don't lend themselves to that, right? When the payoff is like my kid said something really funny, I want to save that for the end. I want really just depends on the story. But that's why I really think that most people need a strategist involved because that's why most people can't tell the story. I've been telling stories for 20 years. I it comes very naturally to me, but it's not something that is you can't learn it in an online course in two hours.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

It is an art. There's a very much an art to it. You can tell anybody can tell a story, but can they tell a story that doesn't bore your friend? That was the great differentiator you said that I think is powerful for as a listener. Talking, that's a bad thing. If they're dozing, like looking off in the off the window, you need to keep them centered to the conversation. So one of the things that you would mention in the in our pre-interview was this idea of starting a newsletter. And I just posted something this week about the biggest mistake that I ever made in marketing was not starting a newsletter for 12 years. And how I was a huge advocate for my clients starting it. But for me, I'm the cobbler's kid with no shoes, essentially, and just didn't want to spend the time to do that. And now that I have a lot more content and I'm sharing more stories and I have things that I want to get in front of people, and I don't have this list, this magical list. That's been one of the biggest mistakes I have made as a founder over 15 years. So, what is drawing you towards email as this next part of your visible strategy, your visibility strategy? Why newsletters, why now? And what it what makes it so important for you now?

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Oh, I don't know if we're gonna do a newsletter. I play your question, Beverly, and I was like, we don't have one. I would love to hear your thoughts on why we but yeah, it seems like a lot of work. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

So that's like it. It's storytelling too. It's taking the best stories you have and sending them out. The nice thing, and I'm sure you've heard this, is you own your list. When you go on social, they could be taken away from you in a second. Some algorithm or some bot could think you're doing something nefarious and take you down tomorrow and you lose your 15,000 fans or more or whatever. And so, this idea of being able to communicate with your fans when you want to, there's all kinds of things that are happening in the back end. And when you send an email, you get get 40 to 50 percent read raids or open rates. So getting access to them and that kind of ability is very empowering. So my list is a lot smaller on my email list than it is in my socials, but it is people who are actually engaging in my content on a really regular basis. How did you build that list? Pardon? How did you build that list? Yeah, so a couple different ways. I went to my socials and said, hey, follow me. It's a low-hanging fruit one. But I also my first book is for free on my website. So they get the first book for free. I'm in the process of writing a second book right now. So I have a companion workbook to the first book, and there's other things that I can give away. I've done quizzes, other things, lead magnets, being on other podcasts, and then having something to give to the podcast audience that has value. I've done talks and given things away on customer journey or how to tell a good story or some of those things as well. So it is a more personalized experience based on the tag you have. So if you're in a podcast, you're gonna get certain communications. If you're a client, you're gonna get certain communications. So it is getting more sophisticated for sure. But it's really just been over time. I have a LinkedIn newsletter as well that has several hundred people on it as well. And that's doing really well. There's just a few different ways to do it. But it is something that you own, which I think has a lot of power over time, especially for you to nurture and build relationships and keep them in your orbit after your initial meeting, whatever that is, like our meeting today, or uh an event I've spoken to or I've not worked at or whatever, I can still keep them in my orbit in some way and connect with them and nurture them. I do believe in rich relationships. I believe in making sure you have real relationships with people and not just it's hard now. On social, like I just have people I don't even know that are on my socials. And I'm like, in the beginning I knew everybody, and now I don't know everybody, and it's a little intimidating. But for the most part, my newsletters, I pretty much know everybody there, had some kind of conversation or connection with them that makes it more than just a stranger, for sure. That's my question. For sure. When you look at your own marketing, what do you think has been the hardest for you to do?

SPEAKER_01 17:22

What's been the messy middle for you? You mean like my marketing for my own socials? Yeah. So marketing for my business, we haven't really done any, to be honest. And I think that's something that is also on my goal list. We're at like full tilt right now with our team and our load. And like thankful to the universe for that. We're very busy. But I do think that in my next phase of this, I think I'm in the messy middle because I'm trying to figure out like what is the next stage of this. Our marketing has been 100% word of mouth. There has been no other way that we have done it. And it's because we're strategy, right? So it's not like something where let's say I put up a Google ad, like probably 99% of people are not going to need strategy for social media. So it's I didn't even know truly how to market around it. We're very fortunate that we were like people identified very early on that I was able to build a brand. And so that kind of catapulted us from 2015 into now. And we're still a small team, we're a team of five, and I we're like partnered up with some larger agencies, so we help their clients. But other than that, we haven't really done much marketing. And my team keeps saying we need to start a social. Like, why don't we have a social media account? So we're gonna do the account first, and then we're gonna speak to you of what is on what you're doing, totally fair.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

And it is a process, as there's so many businesses like this, Michelle. Like you're not alone in this because people start a business, they see a need, they start a business, they do the thing, they're so busy serving the clients, they're not thinking about like what's gonna happen next and how is this gonna evolve more. And so they're that long-term strategy because honestly, as marketers, we do marketing for everybody else. And by the time we get done with that, it's like we don't want to think about our own stuff. Calvert's kids, no shoes. And I think for me, two years ago, three years ago, maybe, I decided I want to be the best case study for my clients. It'll be a fun totally great to share. You've got some great stories. Some of the clients you work with too. Like, talk about some of the clients you work with and why you've chosen this particular niche. Talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

I think I've always had an interest in fashion, beauty, aesthetics, all of that stuff. I love fashion. I've always loved fashion. I love being able to come in and share like the interesting tidbits about each fashion brand with the world in a way where they can digest it. So generally, when you speak to a creative director, they're like, look at this specific stitching. And I'm like, nobody cares about the specific stitching. Tell me how you're gonna feel when you're wearing it. Translating all of that has been really fun. We also, of course, have a lot of like beauty slash lifestyle brands. And they also, I think, I think the beauty industry right now is so oversaturated that it's really hard to figure out how to find your footing. So it's been, and I've been interested in beauty and skincare my entire life. So it's another, I think I just took my hobbies and I turned it into a business. I think that's what it is.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

That's beautiful. You said a word that I stuck struck me, which was translating. I believe that the founders and I've worked with, they're like brilliant, right? They, the people, the creative directors, the people who are doing the work within companies are brilliant at what they do, but they don't always know how to translate that into the marketing and strategy and the story that's going to connect with the people who actually want or need to wear that shirt to feel dynamite when they go into that interview or whatever that looks like for people. And that translation is like magical because you're right, the stitch is really important to them and maybe it holds up well or whatever. But at the end of the day, does it wash well? Is it gonna wear well?

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Or is it simply this shirt makes you look expensive? Right? How do we I think it's this idea coming back to the beginning of our talk that social media is at the end of the list. I think if everybody saw exactly how impactful social media could be, they would probably fire their PR teams because I think that the impact of social media has now outweighed PR.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

But you when you look at a small founder or small business who has 20 people or 10 people or one person for that matter, they can't afford those kind of budgets or those kinds of shoots. But social media was an equalizer for anyone to be able to participate in this idea of being sh being out there to the world and connecting with your ideal audience. And watching that evolve over the years, watching more and more people be able to equalize in the world and have sometimes even more impact than the people who have all the money, right? Has been revolutionary. It's revolutionary. It's giving the power back to the people. And that is something that Has changed the entire landscape. And now video and how you consume video is so different than TV. And it's all changing and evolving and going back to the user, the individual user having more power and how they consume information, where they consume the information, what information they're consuming. And it's up to the businesses to understand what's happening. And like you said, evolve and play in that space to be able to understand what's happening out there.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

100%.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

And it's been, it's hard to keep up, Michelle. I know. One of our core values is dynamic because you can't rest in your laurels in this world at all of marketing and social media specifically. And I wasn't really adopter of social media. I was teaching social media and it was just coming out. I was trying to get brands to do what they needed to do. And it's evolved so much since then. And I really do more with strategy now than I do with social media, but overall brand strategy, not necessarily just social media. But it's been really interesting to watch it evolve. And my younger team members who are native to social media, how they consume it versus how I consume it, is really intriguing as well. So it's just become a very would how would you say things have been either simplified or systemized, or even like we don't do that anymore? What are some things that have evolved over those 11 years, do you think?

SPEAKER_01 24:43

So with the onset of all of these different mediums and all of the different platforms, it's become far more complicated. So back then, back in 2015, really Instagram and Facebook were the only two that matter. And now we've got TikTok and we've got LinkedIn and people are posting pretty much everywhere. YouTube shorts, it's expanded quite a bit. And so now you need to have strategy for each platform if you really want to be impactful. But other than that, what's changed is that in 2015 it was good to look perfect. Like it was everybody was talking about aspirational. And in 2026, it is really bad to look perfect. You do not want to look perfect because it people are gonna either assume you're AI or they're gonna think you're an authentic.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

This is my time then, because I'm not perfect. I'm gonna fully embrace this, Michelle. My gray hairs and my wrinkles and all the things as I am gotten older. I there's something really you're right, authentic about you just being human in whatever that looks like. I agreed. And you're right. Like I am very suspicious of a lot of things now because of AI. Is that really a real person? That's like a real person. Doesn't sound like a real person. You're right.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

There's we're becoming more discerning of my Instagram stories are a good example of this because I will post like something that somebody else took of me that's curated and like photo edited and all of that. And I'll post it and I get maybe a thousand views, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:09

So do you think that that is trust? Like they trust you to look because you look more awkward, they trust you more because you're just more real.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Yeah, I actually think people feel connected to me. So I get a lot of, you know, like I'm in New York City, so people approach me once in a while and they're like, oh my god, I love your videos or whatever. But they feel like they know me. And it's because I'm not I'm like sharing all the messy stuff. I'm not really, I don't really believe in well. I actually try to avoid sharing the super like I get a lot of access to things and I don't really like sharing that stuff because I think it's a little out of touch. So I really do try to just share this stuff that is more real. Like we've all we all have struggled, we all have things that it doesn't matter who you are or what you've accomplished, you're still gonna feel that way. Right. So how do we let other people feel like it's okay to be that? And I think that's one of my responsibilities as somebody with a lot of following. Like I gotta let people know that this my life is not anywhere near perfect, like it's real far from perfect.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Giving them permission to be themselves. Yeah. And as you're talking, it's almost like I felt like a deep sigh of relief in the sense of you don't have to be so curated and so perfect. And I do think you're right, like back 15 2015, it was aspirational and it was very much this perfect how could you be perfect in these spaces? And for the people who are listening, my listeners who feel like this immense pressure of showing up visibly and having to be perfect, that's not what you need to do right now. It is showing your evolution and your growth and what you're encountering and that transformation you're experiencing, as well as whatever the transformation is you're giving to your clients, like how it starts out and the messy middle and the end and what the result is that can be very powerful in that. And then just sharing your stories. If your son does something funny in Harry Potter World, or if you encountered something unique in your life, like to talk about it because people can learn from you. This is the narrative coherence and narrative residence side of things. People will connect with your story if you're real. The word authentic and all this has been so overused, and I know you want to use the word authentic here, but uh I when we work with clients, we really try to get to their unique story that is their superpower.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Actually, somebody asked me at a marketing conference, they were like, What is your least favorite marketing word of all time? And I said authentic because it doesn't mean anything. I use it all the time, so I'm also guilty, but it really just means like stop thinking too hard and being too precious about what you're getting out there and stop editing. Just press record. Yeah, just let it be, and whatever comes out will come out. And then you now that we can trial things on Instagram, you should trial all of the different versions of you and see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Oh, interesting. One of my best performing pieces was I was in my swim spa. Yeah, there you go. No makeup. That's you and I work out three to four days a week in my swim spa. And I was talking about some hard stuff, like some of the stuff I've had to go through. I had a hip injury, I've had all kinds of things, and why the swim spa is so important to me and how it has given me so much back in my life. And I was just talking about it. And I said, sometimes the hard things are what help you appreciate the good things and having some of the strength I have back now. And it wasn't about marketing, it wasn't about anything of that life.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Example they just want to know that you're a human. And when you see another human doing the same thing you are and admitting that it's hard, it just makes you feel closer to that person. And I really do appreciate that about social media. Like, how lucky are we to live in a time when we can feel close to a million people across the world?

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Yeah. And but every mom gets that, every mom can feel it in their gut, that feeling that you felt like all of us can feel that immediately. Yeah. This is the question I always ask people because I feel like when you are working with a client and you're trying to get them to think more strategically, or you're trying to get them to understand the story that's important. But I picked this really cool name called Wickedly Branded for my business. And I believe it conjures up an idea for every single person. What do you think it means to be wickedly branded? And how do you help your clients embrace that more when you work with them?

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Actually, I want to ask you there, what made you pick the name Wickedly Branded? Was it because it was like magical?

SPEAKER_00 30:33

I am a musical theater. I met my husband in musical theater years and years ago. I read the Wicked movie and I read the Wicked book, the actual book, and then I've seen the musical three times. I was writing a blog post about how to embrace your inner green and really relating it to Alphaba and how her power was within her the whole time. And society was telling her that the very thing that made her magical was the very thing that she should hide. And how so many founders, women specifically, are given a lot of societal conditioning around how we show up, whether it's how you how you speak, you like don't live in all these conditioned kind of spaces where we are told how to show up. And the very thing that makes you magical might be the thing that society is telling you to squelch inside of you. And so the very last line of the blog was, I want to dare you to be wickedly branded. And when I wrote it, I literally got shivers up my spine and was like, is that even available online? And I found that nobody had claimed this domain, nobody claimed it on socials. And I was, I bought it that day. I set up the accounts that day. Because my previous, again, cobbler's kids have no shoes. My previous name was really boring, BC and Associates Marketing, blah, whatever. And when I was writing that, I was talking about embracing your green, even in the Wizard of Oz itself, Dorothy, she had the power to go home all the whole time. And we as people have the power to go home to ourselves. It's just, it's a choice and a belief. And so many of the founders that I work with, hundreds of founders I've worked with over the almost 30 years that I worked in this industry, they have magic inside of them. And they need someone to give them permission or to see it in them and to awaken it and encourage them to activate it and amplify it and show up as that magic. And so for me, wickedly branded is about really coming home to yourself, being a hundred percent authentic, as much as I hate that word. It is being unapologetically you in the most bold, green, magical way you can. And the people who are meant to be with you will be attracted to that. You're not meant for everyone, but the people you are meant for, you have the medicine to help whatever your business is, to look good in an interview, to be more well in the way you eat, in the way you whatever the business is that you are helping impact people with. Those people who need you will find you if you show up as yourself in that way.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

So then I think to answer your question, now that I know a little bit of background on what wickedly branded means, the way that we help brand is really about finding the core message. When it comes down to it, we're trying to find the core message and translate it for the audience, right? So a lot of founders get stuck in the loop of I have this product. This product is better than this other product. We have to come like there's they're still all the way up here, and we need to get down to the foundation of like, why did you create this? Did you try the other product and you didn't like it? Did you always have this problem and you wanted to solve it? Generally speaking, most founders are not like, I saw an opportunity to make money, so I did it. That's never the story, right? So what is the story? And once we figure that out for them, we let that shine. And I think we do this very long discovery month that usually turns into a discovery month and a half, where we sit down with everybody and try to figure out like exactly what is that nugget. And once you find that, then as you would say, magic will happen.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

The thing that connects everything together, because it is this magic that kind of runs through the organization, runs through the story, runs through the product or the service. Everything has led you to this moment, right? This moment in time. All of your life has led to here in some way. And not by accident, I don't believe. And so I, when we work with founders, mostly solopreneur female founders, we talk about some trauma, we talk about the celebrations, we talk about the things that have impacted them and really fundamentally changed them. And most of the time, it's not like the story is about money. Like you say, it's about a value that matters. Like a woman who saw African-American women could not find wigs post-chemo treatment and found a way to give them custom hair to make them feel better after chemo. For me, I really one of the things that I really feel power, really passionate about is this idea of understanding our clients, meeting them where they are, understanding who they are, because I've moved 20 years, 20 times in my life. I've been the new person. I've wanted to be understood so badly in my life. And so I wanted, I know what it's like to be the new person and not be understood. And I want our clients to always feel that and feel safe and feel heard and listen to them in our space because of that. But yes, that is your shimmer, that is your magic that shimmers through everything you've been through in your life that led you to this moment and this product or this service that matters so deeply to you and to the people that you help transform in some way, shape, or form. So, yes, I completely agree with you in that. And we spend a lot of time with our clients too doing that. And I think any marketing or agency that doesn't do that work with you is simply throwing up something for you. A pretty logo that doesn't mean anything, or a schedule of a checklist of things to do that has no coherence and it is a disservice to you. So for our listeners, if you're looking for partners that are to help you with your branding and marketing, you do want somebody who's going to spend time with you to really get to your story so that when you show up online, when you show up in person, it all feels connected in some way. Yeah. So how can listeners find you and your website and hang out with you and learn more from you and follow all your fun stories?

SPEAKER_01 36:48

I guess the easiest thing to get at is our website, which is bnanyc.com. There's a contact form you can use to reach out to me. Yeah, like that's everything that is there. And I'm excited to be part of your network, really.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

I'm so excited to have you and to support you as you are growing. And do you want to share your Instagram since that's like a place where you share all our stories?

SPEAKER_01 37:08

The one that I will be sharing this content on is called Mishi Skin Love. It's my skincare account. Okay. Yeah. You can get to all of my other Instagrams through all three.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Thank you so much, Michelle, for spending time with us today. I appreciate it. And so my listeners, I really hope that this episode made you think about your story a little bit differently and gave you some ideas and most of all inspired you to take some sort of action to create a more coherent story and a strategy around how you show up online. Because here's what I know after years and years of working with so many people is your work matters and your message matters, and the world needs to hear what you have to say. They're longing for it in many ways. So marketing isn't just about authority or visibility and just showing up and checking that box. It's about the actual impact that you can make out there. And it's about connecting with the right people in a way that feels true to you and your story. So keep showing up, keep sharing your brilliance and keep making magic in the world. And if you ever feel stuck, there are people like Michelle and myself who are here to help you not have to do it alone. We're here to help you turn your spark into a wildfire. But until next time, I want to dare you to be wickedly branded.