Build Better Brands

Danielle spoke with Courtney Ismain, Co-Founder of Jamii, which is a community and home for black British creators and makers. Jamii is a discovery platform for British brands on the up. A discount card that is a community giving users up to 40% off. They want to introduce you to the small businesses who know what you need.KEY TAKEAWAYSCourtney shares how Jamii came about from the first wave of the Black Lives Matter movement and how off the back of that, there was a growing interest in where people could find black-owned businesses. The Jamii card, which is a discount card, incentivises people to go off the beaten track and discover new black-owned businesses they might not have heard of before.Jamii is impact-driven and community is a really important part of what they do. Courtney explains how they always try to be easily accessible to make people feel involved and be action-led.  Courtney explains how Clear Channel approached Jamii to collaborate on their Compass initiative, aimed at supporting black-owned businesses. Together, they launched a competition that attracted hundreds of applicants, with ten winners receiving two weeks of free high-street advertising.BEST MOMENTS‘Customers, businesses and organisations alike, are able to kind of identify what we're about and align themselves with our mission and the opportunities present themselves because I guess these people who agree with our mission, they make themselves known and then we're able to work together, if that makes sense’.‘The way we work with businesses, we kind of have a package called partnership. These are all the businesses that are our partners. We list their products and we send them regular opportunities’.‘We decided that we want to refresh Jammie membership a little bit so something that we did in February was we hosted a focus group with some of our ride or die members. Honestly speaking, we're not trying to hide anything or make maybe membership look better than it is’.‘We reached out to Airbnb. We asked them for a donation for a grant fund so they gave us 20,000 pounds and we were able to distribute that to four businesses, 5000 pounds each’.CONNECT WITH THE GUESTJamii website: https://lovejamii.com/Search ‘ukjamii’ on social mediaABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle spoke with Susan C. Allen Augustin, Co-Founder & Chief Brand Officer of Here We Flo, which makes natural plant-based personal care for life’s messiest moments. They tackle sustainability and stigma with natural products and funny, feminist and fierce approaches.KEY TAKEAWAYSSusan shares how Here We Flo came about from meeting Co-Founder Tara in the toilets at The London School of Economics, to taking the business global.Menstrual care brands have always been built around being discrete. Susan explains how they had to cut through a lot of cultural shame and embarrassment around menstruating, and build a dedicated fanbase.Susan tells the story of how they won the Sky Zero Footprint Fund, which recognises brands that are committed to driving positive behaviour change and tangible impact towards a more sustainable future. This secured them £1 million worth of ad spend with Sky.Here We Flo launched their products in Tesco recently, Boots is a long term partner who’ve quadrupled their distribution and they are soon to be launching with the UK’s second largest grocer. BEST MOMENTS‘It was really helped by a lot of progress around the climate change movement and recognising the damage that single use plastics were doing in the ocean. As a small business, there's only so much pressure you can put on your manufacturers or suppliers to use alternative materials’.‘There's a reason why funny is first, and funny feminists and fierce is really using humour to break the ice, because there is generally a stigma and a shame that's been socialised around these topics’.‘Early on, there was a tendency to challenge or question what we were doing, but we met in one of the top universities in the world. We did the research and Tara wrote a dissertation on the business case for this so what we were saying, we weren't saying flippantly’.‘We were really intentional from the start to spend the time thinking about our mission, our vision, our values, and then we got to design our recruitment processes, which is super important. That's how you're bringing people into the company and those values are a part of that from that first phone interview’.CONNECT WITH THE GUESTHere We Flo’s website: https://www.hereweflo.co/Search ‘Here We Flo’ on social mediaABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle spoke with Grant Mitchell, Creative Director at Future and Associate Lecturer in Graphic Design at Staffordshire University. Grant is an international award-winning graphic designer with over 25 years industry experience. As Creative Director at Future he works with his team to design brand identities and creative communications for clients across a diverse range of sectors including; healthcare, cultural, not-for-profit, education, property and SME's.KEY TAKEAWAYSGrant talks about his early steps into branding and how he started his own business but it isn’t for everyone.Danielle and Grant know each other from Staffordshire University where Grant is a lecturer and Danielle was a student. Teaching wasn't part of the plan but Grant has found it to be humbling and flattering that he’s been able to have a positive impact on so many students' lives.Future is a creative agency working across four key disciplines; design, websites, branding and motion. Grant talks us through how working with a client is about collaboration and that pushback can help the project become stronger.Grant and Danielle talk about the changing world of creative design and how time and circumstances have played a huge role in that. BEST MOMENTS‘When you get feedback, when you're generating ideas like the process we go through, do your homework, speak to clients, speak to stakeholders, understand the audience, understand the parameters of the project, understand the sector and then generate, generate as much stuff as you possibly can.’‘What you are trying to do is move a client forward from one position, to a much better position that will help support their business objectives. Whether that's designing a better website that helps drive inquiries or creating a campaign that communicates important information, making a difference, it's very hard.’On working for Future: ‘I feel like I'm starting again and in a good way. I love seeing the team create stuff and I love us winning new clients and I love us pushing on, adding to the team.’On advice for starting a business: ‘You've got to love what you do but that love and passion has to be coupled with business acumen.’CONNECT WITH THE GUESTGrant Mitchell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantatfuture/Future: https://designbyfuture.co.uk/ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle spoke with Stephen Houraghan, brand strategist, consultant, CEO and Founder of Brand Master Academy and BrandBuildr.ai. He hosts The Brand Master Podcast, featuring guests like Seth Godin and Marty Neumeier.With a background in business and finance, he later gained qualifications in design and marketing, founding the Iconic Fox Agency, and offering brand strategy and creative services globally. Stephen has contributed to publications such as Hubspot, Marketo, Creative Bloq and has appeared as a guest on countless industry podcasts and summits.KEY TAKEAWAYSStephen talks about his early career in finance and stockbroking, moving into creating design and how he pivoted into branding. All of this experience has given him a great understanding of business and how to speak the right language to business owners.Artificial intelligence is already a big part of life and Stephen speaks about his AI-powered platform, BrandBuildr and how it streamlines the brand development process and enhances strategy outcomes.Stephen explains how the last four to five years have been spent on building the corporate brand of Brand Master Academy and how he became obsessed with the idea of being consumer driven and consumer led.BEST MOMENTS‘I didn't want to go back to a job, I wanted to work for myself. That led me down the road to asking, if there are all these other designers in this space, how can I convince my prospects to choose me over them? It's a fundamental question at the centre point of first positioning and then broader brand strategy that I didn't even know existed.’‘I knew I needed to get my ideas on my concepts out there and I struggled with the idea of, why would I put all of this in an article if people are just going to take it? It was a real struggle to overcome that mental challenge of look, this is how the industry works now, this is how the world works.’‘As we venture into the world of AI, that human connection and that ability to connect with your audience and to provide them that human guidance and that arm around their shoulder, that's going to become increasingly important in the coming years and it's a big part of what we do beyond the steps and the processes.’‘When we sit down with our clients, what ingredients we get is dependent on the questions we ask. The better the question, the better the ingredient. The better the ingredients, the better the outcome.’ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle spoke with Adam Housley the founder and coach at T3 Functional Fitness. Adam’s mission is to help you discover an active, healthy lifestyle that you love making it possible to regain your energy & reduce your stress in a way that is easy & enjoyable to sustain.KEY TAKEAWAYSAdam talks through his journey into the fitness industry and how he ended up creating a training method that was very different from his competitors.Danielle and Adam discuss how running a business is hard, the key skills you need to make it work and how help and support are invaluable.Adam explains how he had a belief that he needed to target a certain type of person to make money, or do a certain type of thing from a content perspective. When in actual fact he needed to do it in a way that sits well with him because that will attract the audience he wants.You’ll also hear about the challenges Adam went through when moving from an in person training business to an online coaching one.BEST MOMENTS‘One of the biggest shifts that I've made recently is instead of focusing on necessarily just time efficient strategies, it's wanting to really emphasise the enjoyment because my journey with health was a long one.’‘I've maybe kind of stuck with a message that didn't quite resonate because I was like, maybe if I give it enough time and people start coming in, it'll sit with me better. That kind of stuff, it takes a lot of experience, knowing the difference between this is right, but I need to give it time versus it just doesn't feel right and I need to change it early.’‘It just got to this point where I was like, why is this so hard? It came so easy beforehand and it was just over that time, trying something and thinking, okay, it's not quite working, and just kind of building that resilience. Every time I got knocked back to be like, no, there is a way that I can make this work.’‘When it comes to health and fitness, I believe the key is changing the beliefs because when you're stressed and tired, you think doing exercise is going to make you feel worse, whereas weirdly, kind of doing that physical exercise makes you feel more energised and helps relieve the stress.’ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle spoke with Mike Kirby, Founder of Find & Finance. Their focus is not on selling cars, but on guiding people through the various stages of buying a used vehicle and making it simple, safe and special. KEY TAKEAWAYSMike takes us through every element of Find & Finance from the challenges of launching, the customer journey, recruitment, growth and scaling. At the centre of everything they do is - Simple, Safe, Special.Find & Finance have an exciting year coming up in terms of growth but Mike explains they’ve had challenges along the way and he’s very open about how he faced them.Danielle and Mike discuss what success looks like and how, as a business owner, you don’t always have time to step back and assess what success would be.Mike finishes the episode by sharing advice for anyone who wants to start a business, has an idea and wants to build a brand.BEST MOMENTS‘There were a few key factors why I decided to start the business and what I identified quite early in my motor career was a few, I don't want to say negatives to the industry, but some challenges within the industry.’‘We're trying to create a relationship with our clients. We're not selling the car to them, we're selling a service to help them to effectively find a car. Right from the first communication, we're trying to find out exactly what's important to the clients.’‘If you don't have that clearly defined set of values and you don't have a clear direction with your value statement, when you start growing your business and you bring staff on, you bring people in that might not have lived and breathed these values before. They're highly likely not going to work within your business even if they have the experience that you're looking for.’‘This year is very exciting for us from a recruitment perspective, growing the team and also some key accounts, and then the launch of our three key brands, ensuring that we stick to our core values.’ABOUT THE GUEST - MIKE KIRBYMike Kirby is Owner & Director of Find & Finance Limited CONNECT WITH MIKE ON LINKEDINFIND & FINANCE ON INSTAGRAMABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle spoke with Ria Burrage-Male, founder and director of Kibo, which helps leaders achieve personal and professional growth through mentoring, communication, and performance. Previously the CEO of Hockey Wales, Ria has a background in sports coaching, having been an international hockey player and a Commonwealth Games athlete. KEY TAKEAWAYSRia takes us through every step of her life, from growing up in Wales, becoming an international hockey player, rising to CEO of Hockey Wales, her family and how they’ve inspired her latest project, Kibo.Danielle and Ria discussed how life experiences, good and bad, make you the person and the brand that you are.Sport has played such a crucial role in Ria’s life and she explains how she competed at an elite level, representing Wales at hockey, while juggling a full time career and how there just weren’t enough hours in the day. Authenticity and confidence are key themes for Ria and she explains that you’ve got to be kind and positive to yourself as you are the most consistent voice in your head.BEST MOMENTS‘I'm very passionate about exposing people or holding up a mirror to people to show them that they have so much potential and people are there to support and guide them. I think as women, there's still a lot we need to do on that.’‘I was a teenager in the valleys, in a church school, knowing that I was a gay, and I spent my whole life being somebody that I wasn't because of that inability to be authentic and therefore not being able to be vulnerable.’ ‘I feel like I've gone through all of these experiences and now I'm in a position where I can reflect and also share those experiences with people and help them on their journeys, because I feel like I've lived through so many different iterations of authenticity and vulnerability and weakness and communication and, you know, psychological safety and also working in high performing teams and all of those facets that I think are imperative for leadership skills and leaders at executive levels.’‘Another part of Kibo as well as the coaching is eat, sleep, breathe, connect. I talk a lot about and with businesses and with individuals around these four pillars that before you look externally, before you challenge culture that might not need to be challenged, let's stop and pause and look at ourselves first.’ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle spoke with Caroline McQueen, Founder and Chief designer at Impulsiv®, a digital consultancy specialising in branding and custom Shopify Themes. Impulsiv® helps independent companies in fashion, beauty and lifestyle connect with customers through engaging brand experiences. They blend neuroscience, brand psychology, and cutting-edge design to craft engaging customer interactions.KEY TAKEAWAYSCaroline delves into how she decided to pivot during the pandemic from focussing on tech and, thanks to a grant from Baroness Karren Brady, founded Impulsiv®, an ecommerce consultancy specialising in interaction design. Danielle and Caroline discussed how brands can enhance their online presence and make meaningful connections with their audience. Caroline suggested a good starting point is to do a website audit. Making sure the brand is communicating its values in a way that customers can really understand.Caroline shared a case study of working with a client and how Impulsiv® helped reduce the bounce rate from the clients website from 70% to 40% by making one change.BEST MOMENTS‘If you can get your customers to engage in the brand building process with you, especially if they're early adopters, then they are very open to giving you their feedback on what they think of your website or what they think of your products and how you can actually use that.’On working with clients - ‘I take it all the way back to the beginning and start looking at the strategic approach. What their goals are, what their visions or intentions are, and then also who their customer is and also what research they've done on their competition and how they're different’‘It was a lifeline because it came during the pandemic. If you're running a tech company, you are burning cash. She (Baroness Karen Brady) awarded us the grant money and I was chuffed to bits when that came through because it was just enough for me to just kind of go, okay, this is what we're going to do’‘Depending on what conversation you're having on social media will depend on whether or not someone will sign up to your list. If you've taken the time to understand what their needs and wants are, that would determine whether or not they're actually going to click through onto your website and buy something.’ABOUT THE GUEST - CAROLINE MCQUEENImpulsiv®: https://impulsiv.io/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinemcqueen/ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTHWORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROWCONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDINSUPPORT THE SHOWThis show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle spoke with Andy Starr, Managing partner of Level C, an education program teaching principles of modern brand to business professionals, which he co-founded with international brand expert and author Marty Neumeier. Andy helps clients outmanoeuvre competition and conditions in their markets, and make marketing, advertising & PR content work better, land stronger, and drive real results.KEY TAKEAWAYSDisruption is something that Andy is really passionate about so he and Danielle talked about what this really means and why it’s so important.Andy explained to Danielle how his collaboration with Marty Neumeier began and how Level C originated from his personal circumstances at the time.Branding hasn’t always been Andy’s thing. He’s a trained musician, majored in English Literature, worked in finance and studied law before coming to the world of brand.Andy spoke about how his branding classes with Marty work, why they are different from traditional teaching and how they teach you how to think about brand.BEST MOMENTS‘These days, if you're a brand, if you're a business and you're trying to stand out and you think that just being different will get you there, we make an argument that it won't, that it's not enough’.‘Creative thinking, strategic thinking, design thinking - more and more so called experts and coaches and mentors out there, they've been doing the whole how to do thing - how to do this, how to use this template. More and more of them have been trying to copy us now and it's kind of weird because they end up almost completely contradicting what they were doing just a couple of years ago’‘I won't work with anyone now who won't acknowledge that this is what I'm doing, who won't allow me to have the opportunity to teach them how to be a great client, teach them where I'm coming from right now’.‘We believe that creativity is more valuable in problem solving than just being more productive, but it needs more people who are able to think about what they do before they do it, while they do it, and after they do it’.ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle spoke with Simon Dixon, co-founder of DixonBaxi, which is a global agency that's worked with clients like AC Milan, Warner brothers, Google and Samsung to name a few.KEY TAKEAWAYSSimon spoke about how and why he started DixonBaxi, what brand is and what is important to him as a business owner.Danielle and Simon discussed DixonBaxi’s Essentials book, the practical thinking that drives them. How they run the company on principles and an ethos rather than technologies or what people say they should do and how diversity is so important for DixonBaxi.How the business survived Covid was a big talking point and Simon’s view on remote working. People will still want to interact in some way, but there's now space for people to have time to themselves and privacy.Simon and Danielle discussed how to take your first steps into the industry and the attitude you need to succeed. Simon feels there is tension between education and the industry, where education is teaching people great creativity, but also there is a perception that everybody should have everything and should have it easily.BEST MOMENTS‘People get a little caught up or confused between identity and the design aspect of branding and branding conceptually, in terms of what it means as a whole. Basic branding is people's relationship with the company, the benefits of the service or the product or the business's relationship with them’.‘When we started the agency, we wanted to go back to something simpler, a bit more selfish and a bit more kind of refined how we wanted to create, because it was a kind of pivotal stage of our career and it obviously was something new, so we could build it in a different way’.‘You have to literally invest in training people, because if they haven't had the ability to go to St Martin's and you have to train those basic skills to get them into the industry, you might have to get visas and bring them from different countries and help them get into the industry’.‘The eternal thing is doing work that makes us excited. We'd rather be better than bigger, or we'd rather be the size that allows us to do the work we want, rather than it being about a certain size of company. So it's how it feels to make the work and make the work we want to’.ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle spoke with Matt Clutterham who is a transformational brand strategist and founding partner of Q Branch Consulting. He's also a speaker, board member and knows a lot about branding. KEY TAKEAWAYSMatt talked about his background in creativity, passion for graphic design and how his career in theatre lighting led him to the world of brandingDanielle and Matt discussed their love for branding and how storytelling and creating a feeling in the customer is key to a successful brand. Brand building is getting the customer to recall the business at every possible opportunity. The aim is to link the business and brand with a deeply emotional experience.Matt explained how his business has changed since he started working with his partner, Jenny. Working together has allowed him to deal with the emotions and the audience psychology of building a brand that connects to people outside while Jenny deals with the people inside the brand and helping them control and build the right emotions that are going to accelerate what they are doing.BEST MOMENTS‘In psychology, they call it anchoring. That for me is the whole purpose of what we're trying to do when we build brands is to anchor our business and what we're doing with people because they're the people who are buying and they're also the people who are going to come and work for you and invest in you’‘Overnight a team of people with diggers and machinery dug up all of the grass outside of City Hall in London and planted a fake UFO in a huge crater with smoke machines pouring smoke out of it. The press came down and are taking photos and we're like a UFO crashed in central London. We built the story up over a couple of days’‘I think it comes down really to one question, which is a powerful question and it's hard to answer. What do we want people to feel?’‘We want to help as many people with great ideas as possible, with the strategies and the confidence to take the action that will make all our lives better’ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is a recording of a live webinar Danielle did with Katie Brown, who is a social media marketing consultant. Katie helps small businesses, or SME's, refine and create a social media strategy that really speaks to their target market. KEY TAKEAWAYSDanielle and Katie discussed why brand consistency is important for building trust, why consistent branding on social media is really important, and how to translate branding onto social media effectivelySocial media strategy and branding overlap. Often clients aren't really sure who they're trying to communicate with, what they're trying to say, how they want to come across. The starting point for branding and social media is to focus on thisIf you want to actually make some progress and you want results and you want to know that what you're doing is actually moving you further towards your goal, then at some point you need to move away from reactive decision and become more strategicBEST MOMENTS‘I talk a lot about the social media funnel. You've got the top of the funnel which might be that first time that you see something or maybe I'll just give them a follow. Visibility, repetition, consistency is where we get to the middle of the funnel. You're building that relationship, you're building that trust which hopefully ends up with that person then reaching out or whatever it is you want them to do’‘When I do strategy with clients we'll look at competitors and we'll look at who else is out there that's doing similar things. And the difference could be in price, the difference could be in terms of location and the difference could be in terms of efficiency or the quality of the product or how quickly they can turn things around. There's lots of different areas that you can look into to go or how are we different?’‘It's about moving away from that idea of branding being a logo and a colour, and actually brand is more of a living, breathing thing. Your business, however many people are in, it doesn't matter if it's one or if it's 3000 it should still be this living, breathing thing that's made-up of human beings’ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether you are a long time listener or you've just found us, thank you for supporting the show. Danielle wanted to highlight and look back on some of the incredible conversations she's been lucky enough to have over the previous 62 episodes and re-share some of the learnings that may help with your journey.In this episode we hear from Kingsley Peters - founder and creative director of Kingel, Tze Ching Yeung from We Disrupt Agency, Sane Mafa from Studio M, global creative leader and brand strategy consultant Ezequiel Abramzon, the mental health PT James Roffey, personal brand manager Viktoria Jancurova and Ben Gallagher - veteran, athlete, explorer and keynote speaker.KEY TAKEAWAYSAre you a student looking to get into the creative industry? Hear about the skills you need to learn from being newly qualified to actually doing the job. What about starting your own brand? You’ll hear how branding is a key part of a startup's birth and what you need to start building your brand.You’ll also learn from people who are currently building their brands. What has their journey been like so far? What impact are they having on their customers?   BEST MOMENTSKingsley Peters: ‘One of the things I was kind of saying to them (students) is that when you come out of university you might have a craft, but actually you don't really know anything about the industry. As a creative director, I'm not looking for them to come into the business and know everything about everything. What I'm looking for them to come into the business with is passion and ideas’Viktoria Jancurova: ‘I think of competitors as collaborators. They might have the same processes, they might have the same systems or similar, but they will never give branding the same personality as I do just because it's me. It's what makes me unique. My clients know exactly what they're going to get and that's a really important aspect to think about. Again, linking back to branding’Sane Mafa on the importance of brand for Studio M: ‘I will literally have this conversation with the partners everyday - How are we sticking to who we say we are and can we practically say that's what we're doing as a brand. I think continuous reflection (is important) on what it is that your values are, your philosophy is, and how you are as a company and sticking with those things in a practical sense’ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle interviewed Radim Malinic, Creative Director, Designer and best selling author. He lives and works in Southwest London and runs Brand Nu, a multidisciplinary award winning studio.Before finding his calling in the creative industry, Czech born Radim was an ice hockey player, a bassist in death metal bands, an indie DJ, music journalist and student of Economics and Business management.At the break of the new millennium he moved to the UK to explore the music scene, only to find even greater interest in art and graphic design. Since then his eclectic interests have seen him working with some of the biggest brands, companies and bands in the world. Clients include Harry Potter, London Film Museum, SyCo, Sprite, WWF and USAID amongst many othersKEY TAKEAWAYSMindfulness is important for Radim and he believes it’s especially useful in the creative industries; creatives have set a level of perfectionism, which may not even be possible. As a result we don’t always know when to stop. This is reflected in his book ‘The Mindful Creative’.Radim has always loved trying different things. We discuss his new book releases - Creativity for Sale and The second Mindful Creative. Both books aim to provide anyone with a proven and tested framework for finding success in their career and systems to avoid burnout and stress. BEST MOMENTS‘I think my life motto is seeing something I like and thinking how hard is it to do? Let's give it a go and see if I can get through that entry point. OK, we'll do it for a while, if it doesn't work I'll just see something else. And I think, as a human beings, we are the collection of experiences of wins, failures, inspirations and information’‘I can tell you 20 different ways we can avoid burnout yet people will go and burn out because we followed that passion and expression in us. But it's then realising, OK, I have made a mistake even though I knew it was coming. How do I get out of this? How do I recover? Because we underestimate recovery. We underestimate the impact of the problem because it takes you to recover as long as it took you to break yourself’‘I just liken it to like the highway of life and creativity. Imagine a 5 lane motorway and you've got the self-made, self certified millionaires bombing it in the in the fast lane in their little flashy cars and you're in a slip road going, I'm sort of happy here going 20 miles an hour in your bashed up Fiesta and this is my beginning’ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOUR 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarkeThis show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle was interviewed by Darren Jamieson for his podcast called The Engaging Marketeer. This episode of Build Better Brands revisits that episode where Darren asks Danielle lots of searching questions about her childhood and how she’s ended up doing what she does. Darren has worked within digital marketing since the last century, and was the first in-house web designer for video games retailer GAME in the UK, known as Electronics Boutique in the States. After co-founding his own agency, Engage Web, in 2009, Darren has worked with clients around the world, including Australia, Canada and the USA.KEY TAKEAWAYSDanielle Clarke has always got a buzz from solving problems, going right back to fundraising for her school as an infant, through to refusing to settle for unsuitable work experience at school, and on to responding to the heartbreak of redundancy by going it alone in a male-dominated industry.As creative as she is determined, Danielle runs Danielle Clarke Creative, which specialises in branding, design and marketing solutions for the health, fitness and wellbeing sector. BEST MOMENTS‘My mum was a single parent and we didn't have much. I used to hate going home from school with these fundraising letters because I never wanted to ask my mum for money. I had this idea of doing a school magazine. Can't remember how much money we made but parents were buying them. That is the first memory I have of having a problem and feeling like I had the solving it’On becoming self employed ‘The main thing was because I've been made redundant a few times and even that word redundant. It's horrible, isn't it? You are of no use. You are no longer needed. That is what that word means, which is horrible’‘I think what I've learned (about being self-employed) is about having a balance, knowing when you need to take a break and understanding that there's always going to be something that needs to be done. There's always going to be quotes to do. There's always going to be emails to answer. There's always going to be work to do and it doesn't matter how long you work’‘I love what I do. I love working with brands and helping to create better ones. I love talking to people. I don't get bored doing my job’ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

TRIGGER WARNING We do talk about suicide in this episode. For support go to samaritains.orgDanielle spoke to Ben Gallagher. Ben is a veteran, athlete, explorer and keynote speaker. Ben suffered life changing injuries while serving in the British Army and now shares his experiences and how he's overcome lots of challenges, to help others.KEY TAKEAWAYSBen served in the British Army and had a very successful military career. He was deployed worldwide on operational tours and exercises and embraced all of the opportunities that the military gives you. In 2019 while serving in the British Army on active duty, Ben was involved in an incident where he received multiple gunshot wounds to his upper torso and blast and fragmentation injuries to both arms.After a long period of rehabilitation Ben tried to be the soldier he was before the injuries but, unfortunately couldn’t cope physically or mentally. The effect of his injuries and having to leave a career he loved took him to a very dark place.Ben has gone from that incredible low to competing in the Invictus Games, becoming a keynote speaker, a mentor to the next generation and has hopes of competing at the paralympics.KEY MOMENTS‘...Fortunately for me, I woke up the next morning, and I woke up because I was that broken and that committed to taking the pain away, that I drank a bottle of whiskey too quickly and it knocked me out’‘In terms of the Invictus Games itself, it allows you to test yourself again, it allows you to be around like minded people. We all lost that connection when we were medically discharged from the military. So we all lost that comradeship, that humour and humility, the banter that flows through the military environment, you get all that back again. But you also get the sporting element as well’‘I wanna prove to myself and my family, my kids, my loved ones, that I'm capable of pushing forward and continuing to be Ben. And be the person that I was in the military and so successful through my military career, that I can still be successful even though now I've got a disability and an impairment’On the message in his talks: ‘The word failure is something that comes up every time I talk and that's both with kids, the younger community and in corporate companies. If we're not failing, we're not trying. Failure is about learning and developing as human beings’ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle co hosted a live webinar with Viktoria Jancurova - a personal brand manager who helps coaches, creatives or founders in creative spaces leverage their LinkedIn and really brand themselves as the go to experts that they are. Danielle and Viktoria talked about the power of branding and actionable takeaways to make your business ready for 2024. KEY TAKEAWAYSDanielle and Viktoria demonstrate an exercise you can do to check the power of your brand to make sure you are on track for the new year. They discuss the differences between personal and corporate branding and the key elements to building a successful brand. They also share actionable tips so you can create a brand strategy for 2024At the end of this LinkedIn live, which has been turned into a podcast, you’ll hear a selection of questions asked by attendees and the answers given by Danielle and Viktoria to help you take action.BEST MOMENTSDanielle responding to the question of what branding is: ‘One of the key things that I always try to say to people is there's a broader concept of branding beyond a logo. Branding is the sum of every interaction, every tactic, everything that you put out into the world’Viktoria: ‘I see so many people just neglect their branding. They think that posting on LinkedIn or Instagram using colourful carousels and adding some colours to their brand, that's it. They have a logo but do they have a brand?Danielle: ‘When you get it (branding) right and you do it consistently and you put out quality products or services that people know are going to solve their problems, they know that once they buy it, it's not going to let them down and you continuously reaffirm that, it builds trust’Viktoria on how branding helps your business: ‘Your sales are made easy because if people recognise you, they’ve already established some trust, they already have certain feelings about your brand, they’ve already set their expectations on a certain level’ ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle interviewed James Roffey, also known as the Mental Health PT, is a well-being performance coach for CEOs, entrepreneurs, athletes & leaders. James is on a mission to change people's lives by improving their minds as well as their physiques.KEY TAKEAWAYSJames talks about his early life as a promising footballer and how, when that career didn’t go to plan, it was the start of his battle with eating disorders.After a long struggle with anorexia and then bulimia, James managed to work his way back to health and became a personal trainer. He talks about how his business focuses on mindset as its key pillar. Becoming a PT wasn't straightforward as James broke his leg 3 times shortly after qualifying. He's now making great progress in his business and recently launched his own app for clients.James speaks about his business journey, what he's learnt along the way and how he's driven to give clients the tools to get back control over whatever it is in their life that they are struggling with.Authenticity is super important to James' brand; he made a deliberate choice to leverage his unique experiences. He recognises the power in sharing his story (which is pretty unique) and using his journey for positive impact—a calling he feels compelled to fulfil.BEST MOMENTSJames talking about his journey to this point: ‘I was in hospital and my parents had to sign a do not resuscitate form. I was at such a high risk of going into cardiac arrest my kidneys were failing’‘I think my core values are slightly different to your generic PT online coach. My most important pillar is your mindset and mental health’'I love giving stuff back to people just as they've enabled me to do what I'm doing now. I want to give people value, for them to see what I can give them in a month, for free. Show them what I can do because I know I can help change people's lives'On how he wants to be remembered: ‘As the person that never gave up? I think it would be that. I think you've gotta keep going. As the guy that went through all that stuff but still managed to have a happy family life’ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle interviewed Sane Mafa, co-founder of Studio M.  After gaining a degree in Product Design from Birmingham City University, Sane gained experience designing a wide range of products including jewellery & retail displays before co-founding Studio M.Studio M is a sustainable interior and furniture designs studio. They are passionate about creating beautiful, functional spaces that promote health and wellbeing. In nature there is no waste, everything is a resource. This narrative of repurpose, reuse, and recycle, inspired the concept behind a new material developed by Studio M, called Erth, made from excess cow manure. Their furniture collections work with materials and resources that are readily available, even waste streams. They have exciting plans for next year, which include their first show and some big projects.KEY TAKEAWAYSSane talks about how Studio M’s values - Knowledge, Integrity, Adventure, Love and Simplicity - are so important to the brand and why they continually revisit them to stay on track.Studio M has developed Erth, which is a new sustainable material made from cow manure. Cow manure is an abundant waste product of the agricultural industry, and is currently associated with environmental concerns. Studio M has decided to do something about it.The design style of Studio M is very much influenced by natural environments. Sane tells Danielle why this is so important to them and their clients and the mental and physical benefits of providing them with a space that echoes the environment.BEST MOMENTS‘Nature is our biggest inspiration and not even just in terms of our values but when it comes to design too’.  Speaking about the new material Erth, which Studio M has developed ‘The purpose of Erth is to create a new demand for a material that is considered waste and that is causing environmental concerns. Talking about design elements in projects that describes Studio M ‘It’s attention to space, how it’s laid out. It’s the colour palette that screams Studio M. Those elements that are speaking to the inside/outside’.ABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time consulting and working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract and retain their ideal customers.GRAB YOU 3 ACTIONABLE STEPS FOR BRAND GROWTH: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05WORK WITH DANIELLE TO BUILD THE BRAND STRATEGIES YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS TO GROW: https://calendly.com/d/48p-6ck-vy4CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/SUPPORT THE SHOW: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/danielleclarke This show was brought to you by: The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle interviewed Ezequiel Abramzon, is a global creative leader and brand strategy consultant with 30+ years of experience in creativity, branding, innovation and entrepreneurship. Ezequiel is founder of Lalo, which helps take startups with brand strategy. They talk about how branding is a key part of a startup's birth.Ezequiel became a global creative leader while working as an executive at The Walt Disney Company for 22 years, where he helped develop brands such as Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar in Latin America and Europe. After many years of living a corporate life, Ezequiel is back in the independent world to help transform your business through brand building.KEY TAKEAWAYSEzequiel was always a fan of Disney and told his teachers at high school he would work there one day. When Ezequiel joined Disney he was responsible for creative marketing. From this he led hundreds of people and built 8 figure businesses within Disney where he found himself interacting with entrepreneurs, which led to the next phase of his career. He has completed countless trainings on creativity, innovation and branding, including Brand Architect certification with Marty Neumeier’s Level C.Ezequiel knew that when his journey with Disney came to an end he would either be an entrepreneur or work with entrepreneurs.Having a brand strategy helps startup’s navigate the early part of their journey and marry it with the long term perspective for their company. Ezequiel believes that startup B2B’s can learn so much from long established B2C brands. They may be different on the surface but the essence is very similar. BEST MOMENTSDiscussing how Lalo helps entrepreneurs - ‘I always say I’m in the business of clarity and confidence. Strategic clarity leads to operational confidence. Because if you are strategically clear you know who you are and what you need to mean to people”‘Unless you have hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars you can’t rush brand. If you are starting your company unless you have all that power you have to trust time’‘Demand excellence in everything you do. Quality on your onboarding, the product and your relationships. Understand what quality means for your business and customer’.‘Having no budget or lack of resources is not an excuse for not pursuing greater quality. If your website looks crappy it’s not because you don’t have money, it’s because you didn’t figure out how to do it right’.Ezequiel LinkedIn Twitter InstagramABOUT THE HOST - DANIELLE CLARKEDanielle Clarke is a Brand Strategist and University Lecturer. She spends her time working with health and wellness business owners to help them attract their ideal customers.GRAB YOU FREE E-BOOK: https://danielle-clarke.ck.page/b1043e5d05CONNECT WITH DANIELLE ON LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-clarke-brand-strategy-consultant/This show was brought to you by The Media Insiders Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.