How to Keep Your Business Top of Mind: Michele Correnti on the Mastering Business Skills Podcast
Our Founder, Michele Correnti, recently joined hosts Erin Alli and Sharon Savage on the Mastering Business Skills podcast. In this episode, Michele opens up about her journey as an entrepreneur and the skills she’s honed along the way.
Hear about Michele’s dedication to helping professional service firms clarify their messaging and stay top of mind by building consistent branding across all platforms. We hope you enjoy listening to this inspiring conversation full of tips, stories, and insights!
Tell us a little about what you do and what inspired you to start your business.
“We do everything from branding to content marketing. We handle messaging, logos, websites, SEO, to social media, email marketing, and mostly everything in between. And we focus on service providers, mostly in the professional services realm. For me, I’ve always had this passion about branding, and I’ve always been drawn to people who provide services. I think when it comes to marketing, it’s more interesting to me to market the people behind the service and what makes their service different as opposed to, let’s say, a product, which it might not be necessary for someone to purchase, but you’re trying to convince them to purchase. So for me, I've always been drawn to that service marketing realm.
And I started my business because I felt like there was a gap in the market for helping professional service firms to create that clear, strong, consistent branding, and also to market them in a way that keeps them top of mind. Because in the professional services realm, if you think about it, when someone needs a specific service or an advisor, they'll often go to the first person they think of, or they'll go to a trusted colleague or advisor that they already have. And if you’re not top of mind for that referral source, like that advisor, or you’re not top of mind in general, they’re going to go to someone else. A lot of what we do is based on that kind of understanding, and I feel this kind of innate desire to help professional service firms and keep them top of mind and really have clear messaging for them.”
We talk about mastering business skills on the podcast. What is one skill that you have mastered that you can share with the audience now, and they can either learn about it or implement it on their own?
“I think I've really mastered the skill to translate a business's expertise into clear, consistent, and compelling messaging that attracts not only their ideal clients but also their ideal referral sources, like we talked about earlier. We’ll do that through websites, social media, emails, all of that, and even down to the visual identity, like how they’re perceived visually. And I think if someone wanted to learn this skill today, I would start by first asking yourself, or even better, asking a friend or a colleague to visit your website, your social profile, things that you’re using to market yourself, and ask them if they understand what you do, who you serve, and how you help them.
For example, I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but growing up, I never understood what my dad did. And I think it's better to even ask a friend that you assume knows what you do, but really, they don’t, because most of us don’t really know what our friends do. So if you were to ask them, “Can you look at my website? Can you tell me in your own words what you think I do, or who I serve?” and if they can’t answer that question, then that’s a starting point. That means you've got some inconsistencies there. The other thing I find a lot is, I’ll talk to someone and I'll be like “Oh my gosh, this is great, I need to send you so and so, you need to talk to them,” and then I go to their website after I talked to them and I'm like, “Wait that's not what we talked about at all.
So if you find that you're talking about yourself in a certain way, but your messaging online, whether it’s your website or your LinkedIn, or things like that, is not matching what you’re saying, that’s a sign that you might be working on your messaging in person, but not online, which is confusing for people.”
Let’s talk a little bit about why it’s important for any size business, whether it's big or small, to have great content, consistent branding, and a well-optimized LinkedIn profile.
“I think it’s a great question. I mean, it kind of circles around what we’ve been talking about this morning. Having that consistency. A) You want to present yourself in a way that feels representative of you, what you do, and the level of your service. But B) you want that consistency across all the platforms because when people are going from platform to platform, you want them to see that you put care into it, and that the messaging is the same across them, otherwise you’re going to create confusion. And when there’s a prospect that is confused about what you do, they’re less likely to hire you, especially when it comes to professional services.
We're looking for trusted people to do something that’s usually very important to us, even if it's something like someone hiring me for marketing, that’s a huge thing to let go of and to trust someone else to do your marketing, even though it's fun, or all the things you might describe marketing as. So you want to trust someone, and if you don’t understand what they do or feel confused or unsure, you’re probably not going to hire them. The quickest sale that you’re going to make is the one that’s already been referred to. They've seen your website and they’re like, yeah, this is it, I got it, I'm so good to go.
LinkedIn is becoming one of the most used social platforms, especially in the business world, and it’s such a great place. You should be connecting with everyone that you meet on there, and you should be posting regularly. Again, it’s trying to make sure people understand what you do and that you’re top of mind. So if you’re showing up consistently in their newsfeed, you’re going to stay top of mind for them, and hopefully, you're doing things that relate to what they do so that they have a better understanding. You don't want to just post fun or silly things or you out and about, that’s great, but we're still not getting an understanding of what you do.
We’ve actually helped a client before; he’s well known in his sphere of being really funny, and he'll go viral for different memes related to what he does, but he hired us to also post for him in addition to what he was doing to help people understand what he does more. So it was like he was doing his funny posts and we were doing a little more informational, so that it was helping people better understand what he does.”
If you could give one piece of advice to someone, whether they’re just starting out in their business or even if they're a seasoned expert, what would that one piece of advice be?
“Find people you trust to go to for advice and support. I would be literally nowhere if it weren’t for the people around me on this journey. Starting from the day that one of my still trusted friends, colleagues, and mentors came to me and said, “You really should consider starting your own business,” she was part of my starting things. She was like, “I know people that need your help, you’d be great,” she was really encouraging. But, you need people like that, you need cheerleaders, you need people you can go to and ask, “What did you do, or are there things I should be looking out for?” And there's always going to be these stepping stones that you have and a new challenge you're going to face. Whether that's deciding if you need to hire a contractor or an employee, and you need to figure out what that means or what that looks like, and which one you have to choose. And then if you have to hire an employee, you have to think about what you need for employees, and what does that mean? So I feel like having those people around me that you can go to for advice and also to go for that support I talked about earlier, like there’s going to be hard times. Running a business is not for the faint of heart, so you have to recognize that it’s going to be a rollercoaster and there’s going to be times where you just need someone either to vent to or someone to kind of hold you in a way and be like it’s going to be okay, this is going to pass, we’re all going to make it out on the other side.”
I know you're involved in your community in a few different aspects, including arts and music. Tell us why this is important to you, and also why you believe other entrepreneurs should be involved in their communities, and how they can best join in, especially if they’re new to an area and really don’t know anybody or know about the area yet.
“That’s such a great question. So, for me, I've always been drawn to music and the arts, ever since I was little. I'm obsessed with music; it's a mainstay in my life. I moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, about 4 years ago. It's a small New England town on the coast, it's amazing. I'm obsessed with it. And every summer, they had this concert series and musical that ran the entire summertime. And it's completely free and accessible for everyone who may not be able to afford tickets. So for me, I was going to these concerts, you know, you donate some cash at the gate, you’re going in and enjoying these concerts ,and you’re looking around like look at this community together enjoying this artist… it’s bringing everyone together, we’re all experiencing this in the same instance, and it just felt so incredible and heartwarming. And it really just shone a light for me that I want to get involved more, especially with that nonprofit organization, the Prescott Park Arts Festival. So in my experience, after about 2 years of being in Portsmouth, I had decided Prescott Park Arts Festival was something I was really interested in getting involved with.
This is my advice: if you want to get involved in your community, use your network, and you never know unless you ask. So I started by asking my network if anyone knew anyone in the Prescott Park Arts Festival, the board, or the team there, and eventually I got connected with the Executive Director, and I essentially just made a meeting with her, chatted with her, and told her how much I was interested in getting involved. From there, I was invited to their Young Professionals Group, which we now call the Community Professionals Group, and now I'm on the board. It was basically like I inserted myself in a situation where I was showing them I'm interested and I want to be involved. I was showing how I can help, and obviously, there was a bit of a right fit situation there that worked out, but I'm a big fan of if you want to get involved, just ask and use your network. And I feel that way bout everything in life, you never know unless you ask. And then I would say, as far as your question about why you should get involved, I mean, I could get on a soapbox about this, but I'll keep it short. Our country, in general, and the world is lacking so much community, and I think it's so important to get involved in your community and feel this sense of belonging, bringing people together, and being there for each other. So I feel like if you can somehow get involved, it’s going to make your life more meaningful, and it’s going to help other people’s lives as well.”
Tell us a little bit about what success means to you and how your definition of it may have changed over the years.
When I was younger, it was very classic, you know, success is getting a lot of money and having nice things. And today, to be honest, when I feel successful is when things are going well with my clients and my team, and I feel like I have a balance in my work and my life. Nothing makes me happier than when I see my clients succeed and my team being praised for their hard work and expertise. It makes me feel so proud, and when I have that sense of balance, that is a marker of success for me because it’s really important for me to enjoy my hobbies, enjoy my friends and family, and you know, actually live life. Because I think we can get really caught up in working all the time.
What’s the next skill you plan to master, and why that skill?
So for me and my team, we’re always working on different skills, to improve our services and stay on top of things in the marketing world, but for me, I want ot master the skill of being CEO. I have a team now, and it's up to me to ensure that we're heading in the right direction and that everyone has the support that they need. For me, that’s something that I'm really trying to master, that skill of being a CEO, which I do think is a skill, and it can be worked on. And then outside of work, because I think that’s fun too, I just learned snowboarding last winter, so I would love to master that skill, that’s my new personal thing I'm going to work on over the next few years.
So what’s next for your business?
For us, I am going to continue to build out our team, improve our services, and continue to help more professional service firms grow their business. But, right now, we're working on some new services that we want to put in the mix. So we've been starting to help some clients start LinkedIn newsletters, which is a new thing that's seeing a lot of success in the market right now, so it's fun to always see what’s going on, what's a new thing that would benefit our clients, and start offering that. So that's what we're working on right now.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes look at Michele’s journey and perspective on branding, business, and community. To hear the full conversation and dive deeper into her insights, check out Michele’s episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
