DebbieO
Tiz so wonderful to have you here Tiz is an absolute marketing Guru from a business called Amongst. Absolutely love her branding and so I wanted to get Tiz to come and have a little bit of a chat about her experience using Brand Archetypes and Brand Personalities in her business because she’s a marketer and a lot of people think that brand personalities is only used for designers but we know better don’t we tiz? Welcome!
Tiz
Yes thank you. Thanks for having me it’s exciting.
Debbie
It is exciting, it’s great to have you here!
Tiz
So ask me whatever you want, yeah.
Debbie
So basically the first thing I wanted to find out, well tell us a little bit about yourself, how long you’ve been in business, that type of thing, your kind of customer that you you tend to work with.
Tiz
The thing is people get trapped into, I need some marketing and they’ll go straight to the tactical sides of marketing without sitting down and thinking okay well what am I trying to say, who am I trying to say it to, and how do I want to say it, because what I say to people all the time is no one actually cares about what you’re selling in that sense. Yes, they want that service or product that you provide, but they can get it anywhere. People are buying because they connect with you, your message. There’s a synergy or a similarity of values maybe, so how do you communicate those things and you know I’ve got a lot of ways that I can help people with that and Brand Personalities is one of the tools in my toolkit to help people figure that stuff out for themselves.
Tiz, Amongst
Okay, so uh I’ve been in business well since about 2013/2012. 2013 um but then rebranded and remodeled my business about 2019 to Amongst which is where I am right now and I primarily work with small businesses uh to help them understand the foundations that they need in their marketing before they go and talk to providers like yourself Debbie. You know web developers, copyrighters, social media people so that they can actually have the right conversations and get what they really need, so in other words I’m helping them understand who their customer is, who their ideal customer is, what their messaging is um, and also build a bit of confidence around their own budgets and their own circumstances so they don’t feel the pressure of doing things. That is, they might need to wait a little bit more to do, and maybe do things that are a little bit more with within their budgets and their resources and have that confidence to move forward.
Debbie
Yeah and I think that’s so valuable because when it comes to your um you know, marketing your business, there’s so many different rabbit holes you can go down if you don’t have a really clear idea and structure around that you could waste a heap of money and also not even be reaching your right audience.
Tiz
Uh you could, and a lot of people do, me for one have done, I’ve done the exact same thing in the past, so I’m kind of coming from lived experience as well, um and the thing is people get trapped into, I need some marketing and they’ll go straight to the tactical sides of marketing without sitting down and thinking okay well what am I trying to say, who am I trying to say it to, and how do I want to say it, because what I say to people all the time is no one actually cares about what you’re selling in that sense. Yes, they want that service or product that you provide, but they can get it anywhere. People are buying because they connect with you, your message. There’s a synergy or a similarity of values maybe, so how do you communicate those things and you know I’ve got a lot of ways that I can help people with that and Brand Personalities is one of the tools in my toolkit to help people figure that stuff out for themselves.
Debbie
Yeah so can you talk about that a little bit more about how you actually use that in your business, because you’ve been quite successful in using that in your business.
Tiz
Yeah so unlike maybe some other people that use Brand Personalities I don’t necessarily use it as a lead generator to bring customers to me, I actually use it as a tool with the customers I’m already working with, so for example when I’m going through a workshop or a program or I’m working with a small business, um I’ve got a bunch of exercises I do to help extract those things. Like you know, what’s your messaging, what are your values, who’s your customer, and then one of the exercises is let’s do the brand personality test and see what archetype you are and how that fits in with the messaging, and or how it can actually enhance your messaging, or how it actually helps them be freer to be who they need to be when they’re talking in their marketing to other people.
Debbie
Yeah because I think that that’s an important piece of this puzzle isn’t it? Because a lot of people think that their brand is just their logo, whereas we know different, and when it comes to marketing if you don’t have a tone of voice, if you don’t know how you’re pitching up, how you want to make people feel, it’s very difficult to really hit home with your message. And so have you got any examples of people that you’ve worked with where you’ve kind of found out what their personality is, and gone okay great we can now focus in this direction and have a bit more cut through.
Tiz
So there was somebody I was working with in a workshop and uh their business was, so you know you’ve got Sip and Paint, (yes right) but they do graffiti and sip. So it’s graffiti art (yeah) while you, you know have a glass of champagne (amazing), and her and her husband own the business. Her husband is the Graffiti artist, and um he’s quite well known in the industry, and uh he’s got a bit of a reputation. And I guess she’s kind of working from the marketing perspective ,and I think she was struggling a little bit about who her customer was and how she needed to portray herself, but also within the industry, like you know how she felt positioned with other people within the same graffiti type industry, um so when she did the the test she actually came up as the Entertainer which was not what she expected to see.
Debbie
What did she expect to see? Because this I always find this curious.
Tiz
I think she expected to see the Creator given they do that sort of thing, but she didn’t expect the Entertainer and I said well but that’s exactly what you’re doing, because whilst you are creating graffiti art, and you know there is a place for graffiti art because they create in things, but what you’re doing you’re building this business where you know they’ll do team building events for example, or you can have groups that just go there who want to do something different, um but you’re actually entertaining those people. And she, it actually surprised her and she started thinking differently about her messaging and how to actually speak to her client, the ideal client in their marketing in terms of let’s entertain you rather than let’s help you be creative yeah.
Debbie
And you know that’s an amazing insight for them because yes what they do is they are creative, so that’s what they do, but how they do it they bring clients in, they entertain them, they get them you know to relax have fun light-hearted play, whereas when you’re focusing on the creativity a lot of people find the stress around that going ‘but I’m not’ (and intimidation yes yes), yes exactly and so by switching that focus it’s a really interesting way for them to position their marketing position, their personality to now really talk about the entertainment side of it, the fun lighthearted side of creativity that a lot of people really don’t focus on yeah.
Tiz
And then how and then, that kind of expanded to well how to, how to make her husband for example the face of that business more in a more um direct way with with their messaging about entertaining people. That’s exactly what they’re doing because the question for me was, do I have to be an artist or do I not have to know how to paint or draw to come in, ‘oh no no no anyone can do it’, but when you talk about creativity like you said I’m going, oh gee that’s not for me, um I I couldn’t possibly paint something with a spray can, but when you’re going entertaining, straight away that barrier is dropped for me to go well it doesn’t matter what it looks like I’m just having fun.
Debbie
Yeah I love that, I love that, and suddenly then it makes the connection piece so different, (correct) if they were simply talking about what they do, because what they do is what all their competitors do, the whole paint and sip does all that type of stuff as well, it’s all the same what (correct) now the how creates that magic now doesn’t it?
Tiz
Yeah yeah, I just really like the whole um brand personality pieces as part of my arsenal, I guess to use with my customers or my clients because it’s also a really nice surprise for them because they’re not expecting to do anything like that, as well, you know. I try to come from a place too where I try to make things very interactive and engaging to get the the message across of what I’m trying to show them, so for example when we talk about messaging, I’ve come up with some really fun exercises that we do together, you know rather than just try to ask them a whole bunch of questions about what their messaging is, because a lot of the times they have no clue. Right, so I’ll do some exercises around for example, their belief state, what do you, what do you believe, or you know when a customer comes to you what do they want, and let’s not talk about the physical product or service that you provide, let’s talk about what it is that they actually want, but I like I said I have a bit of fun and then when I bring the brand personality test into the mix they get quite excited about it. They really enjoy it, um and sometimes they actually struggle answering the questions, which is really cool from my perspective because you know you have to be very specific about what which one you want to choose in your answers because they go ‘but I’m this, but I’m also that’, okay but just strip it back a little bit so we have a little bit of fun, so it doesn’t take like when I try to do this with them, like I would probably allocate maybe an hour I will sit with them to actually run. Now I don’t prompt them about how to answer the, like which way to answer, but I try to talk them through it you know, eliminate the ones you know you’re definitely not, with the responses and then whatever’s left, come on you got to choose one, choose one, choose one, um and then let them go through it that way, they love it!
Debbie
And you know what I find is that when customers or clients are really struggling to figure out or pinpoint, you know they can’t really make up their mind, that offers me as a service provider an opportunity to step in and to say to them ‘this is where you have a little bit of conflict, this is where we need to work through to figure out where you’re lacking in your understanding of your own personality, because obviously those gaps are coming up in the the lack of your branding, or the lack of your marketing, or whatever they’re looking at doing.’ If they are unclear about theirselves can you imagine how unclear their customers are about them.
Tiz
And also, um one of the things I do a lot of work with my clients is about your ideal customer, and we’ve all heard this before, I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times, ‘anyone’, who’s buying your product? ‘Anyone who…’ it’s like oh my God, NO! Anyone who means no one’s listening, right, so by doing the brand personality test too and getting that personality or that archetypes helps them to be a little bit more laser-focused about who they’re actually trying to attract, and who they’re trying to connect with, so that’s the other really good thing. The other thing I found quite interesting too, um sometimes I’ve worked with businesses because with the results of the test you get, obviously you know um traits about the personality, and you know ways that you could speak and messaging, also get colours that you could potentially use and imagery and all those sort of things, what’s been really cool about this, um and it’s happened a couple of times they’ve done the test and then whatever the archetype is, and they look at the colour, like the colour range, it’s actually already in their branding. Yeah you know maybe not exactly, but very close and it kind of gives them some validation which to me is really cool, because somebody over here is saying to them you need to change your branding, right yeah, it’s maybe you don’t, or you need to change,maybe you just need to tweak it a little bit.
Debbie
And maybe it’s just about messaging, or maybe it’s language or so…
Tiz
The great thing about the the test is it actually validates some people really well too, so that’s why I really like it, yeah fantastic.
Debbie
And so when you’ve been working with clients that have used the test, what is/has their feedback been? Have they enjoyed the process? Do you find more of a connection, you understand deeper, like what is, what is the outcome?
Tiz
Definitely they they do enjoy it, even though they do struggle sometimes with it, but it’s, a it’s a good struggle if that makes any sense? Because it forces them to really think, right? It forces them and that’s why I like to go through it with them rather than just send them the link to do it on their own, right? Yeah, and when I say with them, I’m just, I’m just watching and I’m saying ‘okay next question’, and I’ll read the question and they sit and they go ‘oh’ and they go ‘oh that one’, and then they go ‘oh no, no, no, that one’ and then they go ‘oh damn, which one?’ So then that’s where I help because if they did it on their own they might just go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Yeah, right? Whereas me sitting with them, it helps me, or helps them to really think so they do get a bit frustrated, but absolutely love it in the end.
Debbie
But I think also, and this is what I found with my own clients, that having you there you become a bit of a sounding board (correct), they talk through a lot of stuff that they might not normally have even thought to think about.
Tiz
Correct. And for me in the process too, because I do a lot of other things as well, like uh, a lot of other exercises and work with them when we get to that point of the the test, the brand personality test for me, it’s actually validating some of the work we’ve already done, and it kind of helps them to connect the dots a little bit more as well, so that’s from my perspective as a provider service provider, right, um I find that its a really good tool for me as well (yeah). And then you know obviously, I can send them information so that they’ve got it on board, and you know I say to them ‘okay so now if you’re with all the work we’ve done, if one of your things is that you need to rebuild your website, or you need to talk to a branding person, or you need to go to a copywriter, you can send them all this information that we’ve put together like about who your customer is and you’re messaging, but you can also send them this information about your archetype to say this is me. This is my business. This is who we are.’ So that helps those providers do a better job for them in coming up with whatever they need to come up with.
Because I do hear a lot of cynicism out there where people have spent money on marketing activities and it never works, or they don’t get me, or they don’t this, and that you know they don’t, they just didn’t understand. And my response to that usually is well you know what? You can point the finger, someone showed me this, you can point the finger and say it was their fault, they didn’t get it right, but when you point that finger that way, there’s three (fingers) pointing at you right (yeah). So what did you do? My question always is, what did you do to give them the best possible opportunity to get the outcomes that you wanted? (yeah right) Because a lot of the times, without understanding those basics, but and you know not knowing the personality of your brand it’s going to, you know people like yourself, it’s going to make it hard, you got to guess some of these things, and you don’t want to be guessing right? Or you know social media people, I’ve had so many people going ‘oh I had these social media, they’re making posts but they just didn’t get me, the posts just weren’t right’. I’ll go ‘well, did you tell them what you needed?’ ‘Yeah, they sent me a brief’. I go, ‘did you fill it in?’ ‘Oh I sort of’, and I’m like ‘well you didn’t really give them the chance to do the job right, so now with the you now sending them what your brand personality is, sending them your messaging, sending them, you know who your ideal customer is, then if they’re still not getting it, then you actually have the opportunity to say ‘listen, I’ve given you all this information, what else do you need? If you still can’t get it, I’m going somewhere else.’
With all the work we’ve done, if one of your things is that you need to rebuild your website, or you need to talk to a branding person, or you need to go to a copywriter, you can send them all this information that we’ve put together like about who your customer is and your messaging, but you can also send them this information about your archetype to say this is me. This is my business. This is who we are.
Tiz, Amongst
Debbie
Yeah for sure, and now Tiz you’ve actually been, you’ve been a licensee now for well over a year haven’t you? (yeah yeah yeah) So as a licensee you get to embed the test directly on your website, you get access to all of the tools, that type of stuff, (yes) you could use it as a lead magnet, but in your case, it’s more of an engagement tool (correct) with your, with your team? You’ve also joined the Brand Archetype Academy.
Tiz
Yeah no that that was pretty cool, like at first, you know I thought okay I know this stuff, I’ve been doing this for a while, but it was really cool because I actually learned a lot of things by being in the academy that I didn’t consider or think about, um the way you go through each of the personality archetypes was really cool, because it actually brought some things for me to mind that I went ‘oh I didn’t consider that, how do I bring this on’, for example I think in one of the sessions we had I talked about the fact that I was doing these one-to-ones with people, but then I was in a situation where I was doing it in a group (yes), and I did it once in a group and I felt like I wasn’t, I didn’t, I don’t know, what’s the word for it? I didn’t give it the best chance that I could within the full group, and then the feedback I was getting from yourself in the academy and just the stuff that I picked up on the sessions that we did, I did it in another session with a group, and it was just so much better, like it actually hit the mark so much better, so now I’m much more comfortable and confident myself, not only to do it one-to-one with people, but to do it in a group, when I say a group I’m talking maybe five to six, eight people yeah, because I don’t know if I’d want to do it more than that anyway but the the academy is really good and the other part of the academy that was good, was actually meeting all the other people (yes) and listening to the different ways that they would use, could use, have used, the process and even the questions that they’ve come up with like, okay it’s always great to learn about different scenarios right?
Debbie
And I love the fact that we had so many different disciplines as well so we had you in marketing, we had one of the ladies was in branding, someone else was a photographer, personal brand photographer, someone else was a copywriter, you know showing how if we all understand how these brand personalities work together, we can create really robust brands, because when somebody is building, doing the strategy around the brand and using personality then it goes to a copywriter who understands. Means when it goes to a photographer who can now create amazing photography that is oozing personality, this is when we really start to create these amazing brands. That it makes marketing such a joy, doesn’t it?
Tiz
It does. The other cool thing was there were people from actually different parts of the world too, so that was kind of nice to be able to connect and hear feedback and listen to their circumstances and situations and uh the questions they came up with which were interesting because they obviously like different cultures might deal with things differently so that was pretty cool as well, yeah.
Debbie
Yeah it was fantastic, so I’m really glad that you were on the Academy that you’ve learned so much that you are one of our licensees. Thank you so much for joining me.
Tiz
Thanks for having me, absolute delight chatting to you!
Debbie
I always love chatting to you, no, it’s good it’s fun and, and I really appreciate you being part of the process.
Tiz
Yeah I guess we met a while ago and then I guess through us meeting you introduced me to the whole brand personalities concept which I thought, wow, this is actually quite a cool way to help people understand things sometimes. It can be a bit of a challenge when you’re running a business and you have to look after everything. This is just a real easy way to help guide people through understanding.
Debbie
And and you know I think most people understand what a personality is so if they’ve got that framework and they’ve got that structure, and they know my personality is the hero or my personality is the caregiver, it gives them a framework in which to stick with, in their lane, which means that it takes out a whole lot of extra stuff that you don’t even have to worry about because you know exactly how you are supposed to pitch up, how you supposed to behave, how are you supposed to treat people, and how you connect, how you communicate, how you get yourself out there.
Tiz
In everything that you do, yeah it’s amazing on every platform! But um, thank you.
Debbie
Thanks for, thanks for joining me on a Friday afternoon, I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Tiz
Well, I’m going to see Shakespeare in the park tonight.
Debbie
Oh wonderful that would be nice!
Tiz
Yes thank you very much, well enjoy.
Debbie
Cheers Tiz, bye.
