906: Start Fresh Without Starting Over: How to Evolve Your Brand Without Losing Your People

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2:11Your brand should evolve because you're evolving. Let's make sure your audience grows with you, not without you. I'm Jenna Kutcher, your host of the Gold Digger podcast. I escaped the corporate world at the age of 23 with nothing more than a$300 camera from Craigslist and a dream. Now I'm running a seven-figure online business that feels even better than it looks all from my house in small town Minnesota with my family. Here, we value time as our currency. We mix the woo and the work, and we are in the pursuit of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love. I've always loved turning big goals into reality, and I'm here to help you do the same.

2:52This isn't just a peek behind the curtain. Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle practical, no-fluff marketing strategies and host honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence. Pull up a seat and get ready to be challenged, inspired, and empowered. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. Lately, I've been feeling like I'm on the cusp of something new, like change is in the air, both personally and professionally. And maybe you're feeling that too.

3:28Like you're not quite where you were, but not yet where you're going. When that happens, your brand has to stretch and shift right along with you. This episode feels incredibly timely for me, and I hope it's hitting right on time for you too. Today I'm walking you through how to evolve your brand with intention, whether you're pivoting your offers, rewriting your mission, or simply feeling that internal nudge that something's shifting. This is the episode for you. I'm going to share the exact steps I take from content audits to messaging tweaks to make sure your brand keeps up with your growth without confusing your audience or losing momentum.

4:03When I first aired this episode, I got so many DMs, so I wanted to bring it back. If you're in a season of growth, reinvention, or just craving a fresh start, pull up a seat. Let's talk about how to bring your audience along for the ride. Let's dive in. So the first place to begin, if you are on the cusp of this evolution or transition or pivot, is you have to get really honest about what is your mission statement. In fact, you probably should rewrite it. Now, a lot of people skip this step when they're building out a business. They don't have a plan. They're not really thinking big picture. But when we're talking about a mission statement, what it really is, is this very solidified vision of what it is that you do, who you serve and how you do it.

4:50So if you've never written a mission statement, even if you're not on the cusp of a pivot or this evolution, please, please, after you listen to this episode, take the time to answer these questions so you can get crystal clear. This is a great exercise if you're someone who doesn't know how to answer the question, like what do you do very succinctly. So here are some questions for you. What is my core purpose? Who is it that I'm going to serve? And what are my guiding values? So how am I going to do it? So it's what, who, and how. If you can get that down to a concise sentence, that is your mission statement.

5:26And a lot of times when brands go through this evolution, they don't take time to start right with the why, right? The what, the who, the how, and the why. And that could really tether you and anchor you in as you start to experience maybe growing pains, or you're kind of feeling that disconnection as you're starting to pivot and change. So example, my mission has changed and pivoted a ton over the years from being a wedding photographer to teaching other photographers, to serving small business owners, to helping women wake up to their lives. I feel like my brand is only going to continue to evolve.

6:01And now I like welcome and usher in that evolution with open arms. I keep pivoting. I keep evolving and I want to stay aligned with my values every single time. And so often it just looks like a very small redirection or course correction, and maybe just pointing slightly in a different direction. I recently had this experience where I actually got really quiet with myself. This is something that's very hard for me to do, something that I wanted to get better at. And so I got really quiet with myself. And I came to this conclusion that what I ultimately want in this stage of business and what I want my mission to be is for others to experience peace, just peace in the pursuit, peace in their lives, peace in their businesses, feeling that level of contentedness that I recognize that so many achievers and strivers and high performers never allow themselves to feel.

6:58For me personally, entrepreneurship has unlocked this feeling of freedom and peace and ease in my life. And my mission today, like what I want my mission to be is like, how can we help other people wake up to the reality of their lives, but also to pursue and experience more peace. And it's really interesting because when I got quiet with myself and kind of like unpacked all of that, my first thought was, I don't want to have to market peace. Like peace is not something you should put a price tag on. And so I came to this conclusion that in order for me to really embody this mission, I have to embody peace.

7:37I want it to be something people experience when they experience me, when they hear my voice, when they take a program, like I want that to just be so deeply woven in. And so the first place you want to start is getting really clear on your mission statement. Again, it's what is my core purpose? Who is it that I'm serving? And what am I going to serve with or through or by? So again, it's the what the who and the how. And then again, if you want to get even deeper, like seven levels deep, go to the why. Because I feel like if you're really going to follow through on this evolution, you have to have a really strong why that you feel so compelled about in order to make that pivot.

8:16So the next thing that I want for you to do is to do a full audit of your public facing content and make sure that it's still relevant. Now, a lot of times when brands evolve and pivot, it's not like you're like scrapping every single thing and starting fresh. Sometimes it is that, but most of the time it is a slight redirection or course correction. So what I want for you to do is to create this comprehensive list of all of your brand assets, including things like logos, taglines, color schemes, typography, marketing materials, and digital assets. And again, a brand is so much more than those things.

8:52But a lot of times when we're doing this public facing inventory, that's where we want to start. So you want to kind of start as to like your website, your blog, your social media platforms, any platforms you create on your podcast, your YouTube. I personally, whenever I do an audit like this, I always start at the hub of my brand, which is my website. And generally speaking, I do an audit every like six months to just make sure everything is still in alignment. But I also do kind of a refresh every year. And so that kind of welcomes that evolution, that next phase. And so I love to do this refresh after the audit where I'm looking at things like copy, photos, offers, timing.

9:38And again, most of the time it's not this full like start from the ground up, gut the whole thing overhaul, but more so just freshening up the vibe, the energy, the design. One thing that I love is that my website is based on a template. So it's actually really easy. It's not this huge months and months and months long project for me to like add pages or update the vibe or change out the colors or the fonts or the images because we're working off of a template. So if you want to check out the template that I use for my website, go to jennacutcher.com forward slash tonic. That's T O N I C. It's jennacutcher.com forward slash tonic.

10:15These are the templates made by my web designer. And my website currently is based off of one of these templates. So when I recently did an audit, I caught a few things that I was like, Oh wow, that's no longer in alignment. So I used to have like on my website, like talking about margaritas and things. And like, I have not had a drink in well over a year. So we removed all alcohol references. I went through and removed photos of my kids' faces because we haven't shared them in months. And we made that decision moving forward to not share their faces on our content. I updated some of my favorite things.

10:47I shifted out my top performing blog posts to put more current top performing blog posts. I updated my about me section. We have this fun timeline on my about me section. So we updated that. We updated my team section and their images on the website. So again, it's just a refresh, a redirection, making sure that that initial feeling that somebody gets when they land on your content, whether it's your website, your blog, your social, it is all in alignment with this new or redefined mission that you started with. This podcast is brought to you by Mercury, banking that helps entrepreneurs do more with their money.

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13:32And so I have shared this strategy so many times on this podcast, but I'll quickly review it. So I have this strategy that I've been teaching for years. It's been written about in marketing books. It's called the JK five strategy. Essentially what it is, is that allows you to build a true brand, a true recognizable brand, that personality behind what it is that you're selling. So the JK five strategy means that you have five different content pillars and you are using those pillars to share different content on your platforms, meaning that you are giving someone a reason to follow you even if they are currently not on the market or even aware of what it is that you sell.

14:12So many times business owners create their business and then they create an account and all they do is talk about what they sell and it gives people no reason to follow them if they aren't even aware that they need this thing or if they don't want it. I discovered this very early on as a wedding photographer where I realized if I only post wedding content, I am only attracting people that likely only need my services once when they get married in a very small area in Wisconsin who are planning a wedding in the next year and need a wedding photographer. That is such a niche audience. And so when you do the JK five, it means that you have five different content pillars and only one of them is what you sell.

14:52So for me, some of the different topics I've shared about over the years, macaroni and cheese, puppies, yoga pants, home decor, health and fitness, motherhood, miscarriage, body image, marriage. I've shared about so many different content pillars and my content pillars evolve as I evolve. Whatever I'm excited about in this stage of life is what I want my content pillars to be. So I want for you to think about what things can I talk about other than what I sell that will allow me to connect with my ideal audience to build that know, like, and trust factor, and to ensure that what I am building is a true brand and not just a business.

15:30A brand allows you to pivot and evolve. So this is why this is so important. So I want for you to evaluate your content pillars if you already have them or redefine what they are going to be. And again, if you don't really know, one exercise that's super easy to do is to scroll through your camera roll on your phone and notice what you are naturally taking photos of maybe it's food, maybe it's books you read, maybe it's fashion, maybe it's home decor, maybe it's your workouts, like whatever that is, that's likely going to kind of help signify a brand pillar. Another exercise that can help with this is to imagine if you had a magazine, what sort of topics would you cover in that magazine, right?

16:09Like no one's going to buy a magazine that is only about one thing and only has articles on this one thing. And so what would you want inside of your magazine? And how would you cover just different categories that would bring people in and connect with them without feeling like you're constantly selling? And so for me, I've had to shift my content pillars as different stages and seasons of my life have shifted. And I constantly love to evaluate, like, are these still fitting? Is this still exciting to me? Do I still love sharing about this? Am I still creating that deep level of connection that I want to on these different specific pillars of my life.

16:43And I also love it too, because it just puts you more in a position to serve people without always selling. And so that is the next step. Do you like fast paced and packed with value stories of successful entrepreneurs from failures to aha moments to what's working for them today? If so, you will love Entrepreneurs on Fire hosted by my friend, John Lee Dumas. Entrepreneurs on Fire stokes inspiration and share strategies to fire up your entrepreneurial journey and create the life you've always dreamed of. There are recent episodes about starting an RV rental business, the future of real estate, and how to cultivate a mindset of resilience have all got my wheels turning on how to generate more revenue and fulfillment.

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18:45That's choosejoy.co slash golddigger and get 20 % off any labs. Choose Joy and feel like you again. After you've adjusted your content pillars, I want for you to look at your content strategy. So inside of your inventory that you are going to do, it's like forensic style inventory as you start to peel back the layers of what you are doing, how you're doing it, why you're doing it. I want for you to look at your current publishing schedule and where it is that you're publishing. So what platforms are you showing up on and see if there's any room for you to start shifting your content or shifting to a newer strategy.

19:23Maybe there's something that you've just always done and you're kind of sick of doing it, or it's not actually yielding results. Or maybe there's something that you've wanted to try. Like you've wanted to try a podcast or you've wanted to do more Instagram lives or whatever that looks like. Do a little evaluation. What content is exciting to you? What do you love creating? How can you create more intentionally? Are there ways that you can use the content that you're already creating in different places. One tip here with this whole episode, but also with this piece of it, the content strategy, don't abandon what's working.

19:57Whenever I think about pivoting and evolution and getting to where you want to go, I think a lot of times we are so quick to just like abandon everything, right? Like we're like, I have this new idea, this new passion, this new business I want to do. We just want to like toss everything out that we've decided we no longer want. and I don't want for you to abandon what's already working. I want you to leverage it and then start slowly evolving. So for example, if you are going to go in a new direction, maybe you've already been using the JK five strategy in your business. Maybe you just take out one of the pillars that isn't resonating as well and insert in the evolved pillar of where you want to go so that you're still kind of sharing what people are already enjoying what they know you for, but you're starting to change the conversation thoughtfully.

20:43So again, don't throw out what is working. Use it as leverage to get to where you want to go. So in your inventory, look at what you are doing and try to connect every piece of your content strategy with a real measurable result that will help guide your decisions more than just being like, oh, this content performs well. It gets a lot of likes and comments, but if you're not actually tying that to a real result, it can make that content creation process really challenging and also just really annoying. And so look at that content strategy. That's something we've been doing a lot this year. We've been working with a measurement marketing team so that we can see every single effort and the result it yields.

21:21So before we go into creating anything, whether it's a blog post or writing an email or even a podcast episode, we say, what is the goal of this piece of content? How will I measure it? And then afterwards, it allows us to say, okay, one week from now 30 days, from now 60, 90 days out, did it do what it was intended to do? If it's yes, awesome, keep going on it. If it's no, do we want to optimize it or do we want to scrap it? What does that look like? And so again, you want to invite data, insight, numbers into this conversation as you start to look at your content. Next, speaking of data and insights, sit down with your numbers and start to evaluate what offers you have and where you want them to go.

22:02Keep in mind here, being a business owner is not as complicated as we make it out to be. To be a business, you need to have an offer, which could be a product, a service, or some sort of digital item. And you need to exchange it for currency, whatever that looks like. And so you want to evaluate your offers and figure out, do I want to go deeper on them? Do I want to evolve them? Do I want to scrap them and let them go? You want to get really crystal clear on, are these going to change or are these still working? Are these something I want to leverage as I move forward or do I want to let go? And I think that's a really good question.

22:37And so as you start to kind of dive deeper into this explorative phase, you want to think about what lights you up, what type of work excites you, what makes you grown, what work makes you not look forward to the day, what offers are generating the most revenue for you? What offers are underperforming? Are there any new offers you want to create? Are there any offers you want to stop selling? One thing that I think is really important in this process is entering it both from that like feminine standpoint of like energetically, but also the masculine standpoint of like financially, right? Like having a mix of both of those things of like, okay, this one offer is generating 90 % of our income.

23:20How can we maybe go deeper or get that into alignment versus letting that go. And maybe this one is getting 10%. Do we want to optimize it or do we want to just like scrap it? And so again, this year doing all of the measurement stuff and really understanding what is driving our results, what is driving our revenue has helped me have more informed decisions around what do we want to go deeper on and what do we want to let go of? And I think that so often entrepreneurs, because we're so multi-passionate, because we love creating, we love the art of creation, we often try to go wider instead of going deeper.

23:57And so we start to create more offers and we're not actually really evaluating Pareto's principle, which says that usually speaking, 80 to 90 % of your results comes from 10 to 20 % of your work. So I always imagine like if entrepreneurs got really serious about knowing their numbers and knowing, oh my gosh, this one offer is generating 80 to 90 % of my results. How do I go deeper on that? we would have a lot more peace and contentedness in our life and our business because we weren't always creating new things and launching new things and not actually knowing like what our efforts are leading to in terms of results.

24:35I recently did an annual planning session with one of my team members, Marissa, who's like my right hand. And I started asking people in my life and also in my business, like our accountants and our measurement team and the people doing our automation, I was like, Hey, if you were me and you were planning out your next year, what things would you look at? Like, what have you noticed in your area of this business in terms of trends? What's working really well? What maybe isn't working well and gathering all of that insight to bring into consideration as we start to plan out. And so with an evolution, again, I don't want it to just be like a night and day.

25:15Like all of a sudden you're like, all right, I'm changing. Here's the thing. Turn off the light switch on the thing that's been working and turn on the light switch on this brand new thing. I want for you to take what has worked for you, leverage it and start to move forward with informed decisions. And so this year, instead of just kind of mapping out the year, like we've done in the past where we're just like, well, this is just what we do. And this is why we do it. We're actually bringing in data and insight and saying, okay, this is helping us inform where we want to focus and what we want to do.