Episode 1 – Discovering The Five Keys

Transcript:

Welcome to The Five Keys, Unlocking the Power of Your Brand. This podcast is designed to give you the tools that you need to create a successful and dynamic brand. I’m Elizabeth King and I’m going to be your guide on this journey.

My name is Elizabeth King and I want to welcome you to my very first podcast, calling it The Five Keys, Unlocking the Power of Your Brand. I am here today with a few of my friends who were asking me how did I get started in this and why am I doing a podcast, which is nuts. And for that matter, why am I an entrepreneur, which seems even crazier to me. But before I get into all of that story, let me tell you a little bit about me and how I got here. So I’ve been in public relations for over 20 years. I started in special events. I’ve done writing, I’ve done fundraising, and you name it in PR. I have done a little bit of everything, but I never planned to be an entrepreneur.

That was just never, in my wildest dreams, something that I thought that I wanted to do. but, you know, life happens and things change. About eight years ago, my husband died in a car accident, two weeks after my 35th birthday. I was in an a really great place in my life. I had two children, they were three and four. I had a job that I loved. I had a husband that was wonderful and he died in a single car accident very suddenly and my world shattered. I was on one path and I thought I knew where my life was going and I had had it all planned out and suddenly it was no longer an option. You know, Sheryl Sandberg says in her new book, Option B, Option A is no longer an option, so let’s kick the shit out of Option B.

And I kind of took that to heart. I had a hard time. I struggled for a couple of years after Scott died and I kind of lost my way. Thankfully, I had an amazing support system and I had a job that I could be successful at, but I kind of realized that something needed to change. My kids needed more of me. I needed more flexibility in my schedule. I needed to be able to give my kids what they needed. I still needed to be able to grow as a PR professional because I love communications. And so I started looking for a job that could give me some more flexibility and I couldn’t figure out what that was. Then I met with a recruiter one day and it kind of changed my world.

He took one look at my resume and goes, you know, you’re never going to be happy unless you start your own business, right? And I just looked at him like he was crazy. And about two weeks later I was like, yeah, I’m gonna start my own business. I think he was right. Every time I see him, I still blame him for me being an entrepreneur now. And he laughs, but it was the best thing I ever did. You know, it is crazy. It is hard. It is awesome. I have met amazing people. I am able to use my crazy skill set that I’ve learned over my career to help other business owners grow their businesses. And that’s what I love. I love communications. I love teaching people what I know. But I’ve done so much in the nonprofit world that whatever I do, I need to feel like I’m making a difference.

And so that’s really how I got to be where I am right now, which is telling you about what it is that I do. And so let’s talk about The Five Keys. So communications is a process. You know, there’s kind of a tried and true process that everyone goes through, but I just call them The Five Keys. They are assessment, goal setting, messaging, planning and evaluation. And these Five Keys, when you follow them, can create amazing campaigns, amazing things that will create a brand for you that will launch your business, grow your business, attract your ideal customers, help you create a business that you never dreamed that you could could achieve. And that’s what I want to do. I want to use the things that I’ve learned to help share with you so that you can build your businesses.

And so in our next episode, I’m going to start going into The Five Keys and what they are. I want to focus on assessment because I think this is really where most people screw up. They don’t take enough time on the front end to figure out what is my company identity. They want to jump into all the fun stuff. Let’s create a logo, let’s go build a website. Well that’s great and you have to have those things, but unless you know who you are and why you do what you do and what’s important to you, you can’t really build a good solid brand if you don’t know who you are. The flip side of that is you also have to know your audience. Figuring out who are your ideal customers, who are people out there that are aligned. Things you want to be associated with, things that you’re doing and figuring out where they get their information so you can create a solid communication plan that’s going to attract them to you. It’s not, let’s go find them. It’s let us help you figure out how they find you. And so in our next episode, we’re going to talk a lot more about assessment and I look forward to sharing more with you about what I do.

Thank you for listening to The Five Keys: Unlocking the Power of Your Brand.