How to Confidently Market Your Brand with Bec Chappell

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Janine: Welcome to this week's episode. Today, we're talking all about why being the world's best kept secret serves absolutely no one. There's so many of you out there that are absolutely amazing at what it is that you do. You've built your expertise after years and years of doing your work. You're the master at what you do.

And yet so many of you Are at [00:01:00] risk of being the world's best kept secret. And we're talking about how you absolutely have to show up, even if you are scared, because this is not about you. It's actually about your clients and they need to see you. They need to understand who you are. What it is that you do and why you can help them.

You are running a business. You are in the business of business. And part of this is showing up. On today's conversation, I'm joined by the amazing Bec Chappell. She has been called a branding gatekeeper. She is oddly data focused for a marketeer and she herself has transitioned from working in organizations to now building her own very successful agency, where she also had to learn to quit being the world's best kept secret to show up.

And she shares today how showing up has helped her build the business that she wants. Enjoy.

[00:02:00] Bec Chappell. So awesome having you on today's podcast. How are you today?

Bec: good. How are you? Thanks for having me.

Janine: I am good. I'm so excited about this conversation we're going to have because what I want to talk about with you is this concept of stepping into spotlight versus remaining invisible. And it's something that I've personally witnessed you doing over the last three years of really owning your spotlight and stepping into your space.

And as a result of that, the impact that it's having on your business and your positioning is phenomenal. So really excited to have you here. I don't know about you, but I find that there's so many women in business that are bloody awesome at what they do. They've had years and decades. And, um, there's a lot of experience.

And yet they're the world's best kept secret. It's, it's insane. It's like they, they don't want to let other people or their target clients know what it is they do. And for [00:03:00] my opinion, what I've noticed is it's either because they've built a business almost accidentally based on referrals or, actually don't have any database.

They don't have any email lists as a result of that, because they've been so reliant on people coming to them. But then the result of not. sharing what they do about not marketing what they do from a place of authenticity. Their positioning is absolutely buggered and they're not getting the right clients in.

I'm curious, Beck, from your perspective, do you see this in terms of so many people in business being the world's best kept secret and not positioning themselves and letting the world know what they do?

Bec: Yeah, completely. I think most of the clients that come to me, in that kind of, space, that's probably one of the things that they talk to me about and they're very nervous to do it. there's this real, well, what are people going to think of me? And I think they're making it really about other people than about themselves and the knowledge and the things that they need to be telling the world because They have great [00:04:00] knowledge.

I really think it comes from a place of fear. And for a lot of the people that I work with, probably this, the world that we've moved from was this real, I am my brand that I work for. And if I speak out or if I have an opinion or if I highlight myself, firstly, I'm egotistical or secondly, I'll damage the brand.

So there's this real, fear around stepping into your own knowledge and actually just owning this opinion space and, you know, bringing yourself to the world. And you can't be the best kept secret and have the impact that you want to have. Right? Like it's, it's the two just don't go together.

and as you said, like I went on this journey myself and because I came from corporate background and I was, you know, CMO, marketing manager, all of those great things. And I knew a lot, but I didn't feel like I knew a lot. Cause when I, I exited, the corporate world, like I came out with a lot of imposter syndrome.

I came out and I know that gets thrown around a lot, but. My confidence was pretty low. I didn't feel like I knew [00:05:00] more than anyone else in my space. And I really questioned what the knowledge that I had and from this journey of me starting there, but then to now just being like, Hey, I've got this opinion and I'm sharing it.

I'd love the conversation about whether you agree, disagree. I'm not. going to be offended if you disagree. We're going to have an open conversation about it, but from actually sharing my opinions, I cannot believe the amount of people that come back to me and they're like, thank you for that. And they actually genuinely thank me.

And I think. what a gift to be able to, give my opinion or, you know, if it helps that one person and creates that ripple, the change that someone needed to hear to change something in their business. Well, what a gift.

Janine: Yeah. And you mentioned a few things there that get in the way, imposter syndrome, fear, lack of confidence. Personally, I don't think that ever goes away. you still have imposter syndrome and fear and lack of confidence? Cause I know I do. It's like, sometimes I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Bec: [00:06:00] Yeah. Like sometimes, but I do think it's a muscle, right? And you do build it. And I think, I don't know if it's an age thing, but I also feel like I've gotten to a point where I just don't care either. Like, I'm like, if someone disagrees with me or someone wants to, come back at me, it's like, That's okay because my opinion is not coming without facts and data and experience.

So I think it's about actually you don't build that sort of confidence from not doing anything. confidence is not a destination. It's not a place that you get to. I'm confident now. You create confidence the same way that you create happiness or anything else in your life. It's through the things that you do.

And it's through the things Really scaring the shit out of yourself by putting something into the world that is terrifying. It is terrifying to have an opinion because an opinion guarantees that someone will have a different opinion to you. And that's okay. If all of us had the same opinion, the world's not moving forward.

Janine: Yeah, you said that about taking action about just getting on and [00:07:00] doing something and, you know, you now run your own successful marketing business. You're a, you're an expert in terms of advising people on marketing strategy, a business that you launched smack bang in the middle of COVID. When you couldn't even get out and do business development and the reality, was that the world was a little bit tricky then financially.

but you've subsequently built and you've reinvented yourself. you've built this. marketing, strategic advisory business, what are some of the things when we go back to taking action, what are some of the things that you did that scared the bejesus out of you, that actually looking back now with the very things that enabled you to get noticed, that took you out of that comfort zone, that made sure that Beck Chapel wasn't the world's best kept secret.

Bec: All of them? All of the things? No, I think the first one was actually admitting that I'd launched a business, right? Because I was like, well, what if [00:08:00] this fails? But like, well, what does failure look like? Talk to me about what failure looks like. Cause in my mind, there's no such thing like there's, there's trying and then there's other people that just aren't trying.

Right? So there was the actual announcing that I'd, I was in my own business. And had I have not done that, I wouldn't have landed my first 8K a month client, right? Like huge success in actually just. Talking about the business from the get go. one of the other things that I'm very open about is the fact I built a business that didn't make me happy at first.

about, I feel like it was 2 years in. I mean, it all feels like a bit of a blur now because the last 3 years has been quite manic, but. Maybe 18 months in, two years in, I realized I didn't really enjoy the work that I was doing. I had on paper, I was incredibly successful. The business was turning over a lot of money.

Like it was amazing to go from 0 to what I had gone to pretty much overnight. you know, it looked really great on paper, but me, myself and I, I was overworked. I was so stressed. I was miserable. I was being abused by like people that had, you [00:09:00] know, a question in contracts. And I just, it said yes to a whole bunch of clients that were the wrong fit for me or had burned through other marketing agencies.

So a huge thing that really scared me was saying no to a lot of people. And you gifted me that saying that for every single time we say yes, we're saying no to something else. so actually. At that point where on paper, doing super well, heaps of money, earning a lot, I cut like nearly 20k out of my revenue, like overnight, like gone.

And I made that decision just as the economy started kind of shifting too, like, and just as I'd bought a house, like it was, On paper, it looked like a crazy thing to do, but for my mental health and for my happiness, which happiness is a key measure of success for me. I had to do it and I also had to be honest and honor what I knew I was really good at.

And once I shifted, I was able to start producing content, talking about things that I knew I was an expert in. I had proven that with my. You know, my skills [00:10:00] and expertise from my corporate world. And for whatever reason, I haven't taken that into my, business life for God knows what reason.

But as soon as I shifted and changed, there is, there is 100 percent a period of time where the shift and change needs to build momentum. So I had to be out there constantly saying the same thing, being a bit controversial, talking to people, networking, telling people that I'd made this shift. Because if I didn't do that, firstly, well, I wouldn't have gotten any clients.

but secondly, also just to be known in the space and actually build a bit of a profile for myself. I had launched my podcast, so I started shifting my podcast messaging to this, started getting guests on and just made a whole bunch of, I guess, really big. Commitments to the business and to myself that were terrifying because it did mean like stepping into something that I do have a real opinion on because I do have the facts and data and I've got a lot of opinions on the way things are done.

And, you know, even recently, I was on a retreat and one of the girls turned to me and she goes. you're never afraid to [00:11:00] say what you think online. How do you do that? And I was like, cause I know that I'm not saying it from a place of negativity either. Like I'm not saying it to attack anyone and I'm not saying it to tear anyone down.

I'm saying it because this is the way I see it. And I'm open to the conversation back and forth about it. And I want to start the conversation. Cause you can't have change or can't change the way people look at an industry without conversation. Okay.

Janine: And that, conversation, that, that showing up, is what I have witnessed with you from moving in that shift from hiding to actually showing up and standing for something. I talk a lot and you've heard me say this, as we've worked together, it's positioning, positioning, positioning. You've got to own who you are.

What it is that you stand for and how you can help other people. and what drives me in my work is I, get so frustrated at the amount of incredible women that are out there that [00:12:00] are hiding and not actually helping the very people that they want to help. They're getting frustrated because they've got no leads.

But it's actually their challenge because their potential clients don't even know they exist. And it's this whole thing about being brave enough to get out there. And I love that comment that you made of it's like a muscle. It's like, you've just got to get started. One of the things you started was you mentioned it at your podcast.

And I don't know if you remember. But I remember a conversation with us, with me, and you were going, I think I might do a podcast. I went, awesome. And then you went, I don't want to make it a really long podcast. I went, awesome! And I remember you going, I think I need to make it about five to ten minutes. I went, awesome!

What name are we going to call it? And Marketing Espresso came out, and that's the podcast. What has that done for you? If on reflection, when you look at that podcast, and, you know, I think you, publish episodes on a weekly basis.

what has that podcast done for you? Because to me, that [00:13:00] is one of the classic, tactics, techniques in terms of have a voice, have an opinion, share it with the world.

What has been the impacts of that podcast on your business?

Bec: Well, I think if anyone went back and listened to the first few episodes, it'd be pretty embarrassing.

Bec: And that, that was really what it was, because I'd, I'd actually gotten the idea for Short Sharp To The Point, because a lot of podcasts are obviously quite long and long winded and, they'll talk about marketing and the theories behind it, but it's not like, Hey, this is how you do it.

And got the idea because I was, I heard an ad that was like, Oh, we're your accounting podcast in five minutes. We'll tell you how to do your accounting. I'm like, it's genius. Like, why is no one doing that for marketing? So I was like, you know, and sometimes the greatest ideas are not necessarily ours, but there, there's someone else's that we can morph and change.

Cause like, you know, not all ideas are. Completely original. They can be, adapted ideas from other industries that we love. Right. And I think one of the things that's done for me is it's forced me to [00:14:00] keep going. Like, as in to keep having that opinion, to keep saying what I see, to keep gifting, knowledge to, to the people that like, maybe can't necessarily afford me or can't afford to get marketing in their business because they're just in startup mode and they really want to have success.

And for me, it's, It's, very selfish because I get to talk to some pretty cool people and pick their brains. So very selfish because I use that for myself. Um, but secondly, it's selfish in the fact that it's my give back and I know that it helps people because they tell me and I was terrified to put it into the world.

I mean, I've also, I will say my delight of risk is probably not normal. and I am one that I will say I have probably a level of confidence that is. naturally a baseline probably higher than the average person. And I think it's because of what I've been through in life that it's like, I've just learned not to necessarily care and to have a go.

And if you don't have a go, someone else will, and then you'll be resentful of them having a go. But the truth is you just didn't have a go. And I think, you know, my very [00:15:00] first episode, I think two people listened. My second episode, maybe three, and the reality is most people that launch a podcast or most people that start something, they do it seven times.

Okay. And then they just give up. Like I, that's actually like a statistic around podcasting. The average podcast, I think has about seven to 10 episodes and then the person just gives up. And it's because we don't, we have this want in life now due to social media or whatever it is, like, you know, I'm sure there's many psychologists that can tell you a lot more, they're a lot smarter than me and the brain that can tell you why we want this, but this instant gratification, and if we don't think something's working instantly, we don't have the a hundred K followers.

We don't have, you know, 20 K months or. We just give up because we're like, Oh, I'm not good enough. And we convince ourselves because we already have this underlining story. The negative bias, and it's probably telling us like, Oh, you're not good enough. You're never going to do this. You know, John, your manager, and when you were 18, told you, you were crap.

we get these stories that we develop over our life. And when we launch a podcast and three people download [00:16:00] it, you think, Oh, that's the proof that I'm not good enough because only three people listened. And I tell you now, like it's taken me. I'm up to 200 episodes.

And now I'm like, yes, this thing is growing. And there's a belief in me behind it. There's always been a belief. I started doing ads and selling my planner off it. You know, like the first time I sold that planner, I was doing laps of my house. My dog was like, what the hell is going on? And I'm like, mama made a sale.

and it's like, people that are, that you think in the world are doing really well. Usain Bolt said it, I trained for four years for seven seconds or whatever it is like that famous quote. And it's like, yeah, like we give up so quickly and so easily because our LinkedIn post didn't do this or, and we just convinced ourselves we're shit because.

It's the algorithm. Like, literally, maybe the algorithm didn't put you in people's things because you've never posted before. Like, it's about time in the saddle and it's actually about that consistency. I say the word consistency all the time, because if you're not disciplined to [00:17:00] be consistent, you will not get the results.

The people that, you know, get the results and get the wins. They are disciplined and consistent. and it's one of the hardest things you can do in life is be disciplined because it requires you showing up on the shittest of days and, overcoming your own demons to get there.

Janine: that point about Usain Bolt is the exact reason why I get so frustrated that these incredibly talented women with decades of mastering their craft sharing it, aren't building their positioning. It's like, you know, your stuff.

And this is why I wanted to talk to you because you've, you've lived and breathed that through the development of that podcast, this negative bias thing. before we sort of get onto some, tips that you have, you can share to help people get started. So I think that negative bias presents itself as people just don't show up.

They're just too scared and so it takes them forever and a day to write a newsletter, or to write a post, or they procrastinate about what the article should [00:18:00] look like, should I send out an email, do I do a podcast, should I do this, should I do that, it's, like, oh come on, just get started, because until you get started, you don't have the data to see what's working, but what, what are the mistakes What mistakes do you see happening?

You talked about lack of consistency. You talked about lack of discipline as an expert in marketing. What do you see as some of the biggest mistakes that business owners are making when it comes to marketing?

Bec: okay. Firstly, we follow too much of our competition and we get stuck going, they're doing better than me. They are doing better than you on social media, my friend. Doesn't mean their bottom line is better than you. And also, once again, they're having a try.

That's why you're feeling intimidated by them. You could be them or be better. But the reality is we get stuck looking at our competition. To the point we freeze and then we forget we are not our competition anyway. and I think, look, my lessons around discipline have actually come more from my life than anything.

and my own marketing, right? Cause I think if we want anything in life and, probably the [00:19:00] lesson for discipline. Really came for me this year when I did a marathon, because I was like, if you're not showing up on race day and not dying, literally, like, you could give yourself a heart attack if you haven't trained for that.

If you've not been disciplined enough to train, and I think it's the same in our business. You are not showing up in 10 years time with a really highly successful business. If you've not been disciplined in showing up for your business, but showing up in the right places and not getting caught up in the marketing overwhelm, there's a lot of it.

A lot of chatter out there about where you need to be. You need to look at your people and it's not about you. I think the other thing that business owners do too, is we get caught up and we're like, Oh, it's not perfect. It's it's not, I want to be on Instagram or I want to be on LinkedIn. It's not about you.

Stop making it about you. And if your business is about you, then you're in the wrong business. Cause your business should be about other people. and the people that you serve and the people that, you know, you want money from at the end of the day, like they're not going to want to spend money with someone that's making it all about them.

And I think also like [00:20:00] getting caught up in the belief that we don't know enough or someone's smarter. There is always someone smarter than us, there's always someone better than us that's going to exist, right? Like, that's just the reality of life, but the winners in lives are the ones that have a go.

you know, I was never going to run the fastest marathon. My God, I was slow. but it doesn't matter. Like I had a crack, you know what I mean? I'll have a crack again next year because I'm an overachiever and it's quite painful. But, I think it's the people that have a go. and we can get caught up saying, I'm not good enough or, and have all the excuses under the sun.

you know, you always talk about the blame, we get caught in the blame triangle and we get stuck there. And it's really easy to be stuck in blame because then we don't have any accountability. And I've been there myself. my God, have I been in blame and even this year I found myself there again.

And I was like, you need to slap yourself a bit back. Like the reality is if we bury our head in the sand as well, I think that's the other thing I see business owners do. I've done it myself, bury our head in the sand and we're like, it'll just go away and it'll work and [00:21:00] I'll get referrals from word of mouth and it'll all be fine because it seems all too big and scary to look at our serious, the situation in front of us.

Or to dream for the goals that we want, I think really setting down on paper what it is that we want could be really scary, like really scary, and setting the goal of having an opinion piece or showing our face and recording a video or whatever you need to do for your business to attract your ideal client can feel really scary.

And it should, because you care. If you didn't care, you wouldn't be scared. So this, the fear is exciting, right? Cause you care.

Janine: Yeah. And that point that you made, I had an interesting conversation only this morning with somebody, literally it was, what should I do on LinkedIn? And I went, I'm not even going to answer you. And they went, why? I said, because you've got no clarity on who your client is yet and what their problem is, nor therefore understand where they're [00:22:00] playing.

So I'm not going to tell you. to go on LinkedIn or Instagram or Facebook or wherever until you do that work because all you're going to do is waste money. and it's that whole piece of your, as you've said, be attention out versus attention in. It's not about you. It's about helping your clients as much as you possibly can.

So I love that. Thanks for sharing. If, people listening to this. That are feeling like this is one of their key strategies that they need to do. Like they know that they're good, they get great results for their clients. they've got good products. They just are not getting enough, new opportunities coming in.

They are that world's best kept secret and they know they're hiding and they're being invisible. as somebody that works in this space, what would be your top? Three pieces of advice to get them started. what would you suggest to do?

Bec: I [00:23:00] think anyone that's making you feel like you can't do it, firstly, unfollow, don't engage, like just remove yourself and bring yourself back to you and what it is that you know, and you've done this exercise with me before. Do the timeline of your career. If you're looking for that, like. Where to start with the messages that you have, or the stories you need to tell, do that timeline, like, what are the things that have happened?

And what are the results that you've happened? And very quickly, you'd be like, I'm kind of cool, and start your content from that place. The other thing is, you need to treat your business like a business. We treat our business like it's a second thought. oh, it'll just keep running. I've got to, I've got to do that paid client work.

And it's probably the number 1 Challenge for people to get into their head and, realize their business is a business and they have to treat it like that. It is not, the partner. That's just going to put up with them. Not being around. It's not going to continue to grow and thrive without your time and attention.

And that's just the base reality of it. my business, I [00:24:00] actually set aside time for my business and it's a non negotiable and sometimes I let my boundaries slip and I've noticed I've done that recently and. The business suffers, but when I just recently went away, I had content going out the whole time.

My emails written to the end of the year. My podcast was already recorded till December in September. So, being really disciplined with treating your business like a business, you would not let your client. Slide and sleep and not have success. So why would you do it to yourself? It's, you're affecting your clients by not looking after your own business.

And then I think the third one is, Just start small. it doesn't have to be like straight out of the firing line, five posts a day, or, you know, by the billboard. But once you've done that piece of where your customer is, what they need to be hearing, which all comes through, I think from my, kind of my first point, like, you know, know thyself, stop following competition and all that.

Just start small. a single post a week. If, if LinkedIn's your place to play, right? A single post a week is better than nothing. [00:25:00] And the visibility of that is fantastic. Like it's better than nothing. So if your baseline is nothing now and you want to grow from that. It's those small incremental steps because once you start it, it's like anything you learn to ride a bike the first time.

Well, for me, it's still hard, but for normal people, that aren't scared of gravity, you'll ride it the first time you'll need your training wheels. And then suddenly it just starts getting easier. And I think once you start getting in flow with your messaging and don't overcomplicate it, this is probably actually the fourth thing is like, don't overcomplicate what you need to say.

Just. Say the same things over and over again. And you say this often, like get bored with your own message. Because if you're not bored with it, your audience doesn't even know about it. And we, we make this mistake of thinking that everyone sees all of our stuff. And, you know, I think we all think in our heads that we're superstars and we're influencers and you know, a hundred thousand people are seeing our stuff.

But the reality is like, even if you had 2000 followers, you'd probably be lucky for 200 people [00:26:00] to see it on average because of algorithms. And also because we're in, we are in a state of like content overload. Now we have chat GPT where people are. You know, just pumping content out through that. and so we're overloaded with content.

So you're better off posting once a week with really high quality content that actually comes from you, not ChatTPT. And, that is your point of difference. You already know what you need to say.

Janine: Hey, I want to, you just mentioned something there that I do want to capture before we have to let you go chat GPT content and you talked about where in content overwhelm, you also added to that conversation, you quickly went past it of putting, like, add your own stuff. And this is something that I've seen you do, it's something that I work very hard on, it's my writing, it's my opinion, it's, it's what I think. And I've seen it with you, I've seen it through the clients that you work with, and that content stands out.

share your [00:27:00] thoughts on ChatGPT, and how to use it if you're going to use it to your advantage, and almost what is the non negotiable with it?

Bec: Yeah, look, I actually had a really great chat with this while I was away with, a content creator called Jay Warne. she's so highly, like, knowledgeable in the, the Instagram space and she absolutely kills it there. And she uses it, um, she has this amazing thing inside her actual club, but it's like this tool on how to use ChatJPT to get, prompts to what your clients need to be hearing and I actually think using it for that sort of thing is fantastic because it gives you, it's almost giving you a bit of market research.

but she would then say, but you have to create original content. and I, I just want to like, you know, shout her out for that because I think that way of thinking of using AI is incredibly powerful. And I know a lot of content creators are using it that way. It's like. Let it guide you in what your people need to hear, but you need to be really good at your prompts for that.

it's a constant learning, right? And, but I think I did a [00:28:00] test earlier this year where I was using an AI tool to completely, create content from my podcast because I was like, here we go. This is sick. Like it's gotta do my LinkedIn articles, it's gotta do my newsletters. No content for Beck Tick.

and it did it, one week I would write it, the next week I'd get the AI to write it. The week that AI wrote it, no engagement. Nothing. And that was because people can subconsciously tell when it's AI, even though that was actually transcribing my words, like from my podcast.

Because people are not, they're attuned to what they're reading, and whether it's Your work and your attitude and you know, the more personality I put into my posts and the more ified they are, and the more my voice they are, the more engagement I get. And the more people like, oh shit, she said that.

so I think yes, you, there is great ways to use AI to help you in your business. There's no doubt about that. And help you in your marketing. I think you'd be silly to turn away from AI altogether, but it's about. Not everyone also, and I [00:29:00] really want to say this because I think there's an overwhelm, like, I'm not a good writer.

That's okay. You don't have to be a good writer. You can still create video content. You can create a voice memo and have it you know, transcribed for you. There's ways that you can get around this now, You can get someone to ghost write for you, and just them know your voice and things like that.

We can't do that if you haven't set up your brand right. So there are ways around it. If you are terrified of writing or you're terrified of producing content. but you know, you got to choose what works for you as well. What you know, I love writing. It is my. Absolute outlet. I get the most amazing thought bubbles just pop in when I'm midway through a client work and I have to, go on to Beck stuff.

And that's why for me, yes, content creation. It is challenging, though I still have blockers as well. And I find that when I get those blockers, that's when things, you know, you do use AI to give you a little prompt and be like, okay, what can I talk about today? Or, I look at my pain points. I'm like, okay, well, what does my client need to hear today?

Janine: and again, it just comes back to your client, which is what I [00:30:00] know you and I connect on. Beck, this has been an awesome, awesome conversation. I think you epitomize everything that I am constantly banging onto my clients about around owning your space, getting really clear on who you serve.

understanding your clients and then being brave enough to step into your spotlight and be you and bring you, show up as you, have that authentic voice. And even if it scares you, put that opinion out there versus being beige and bland, that whole thing about being a flamingo and standing out and, you know, congratulations.

Cause I know It's not always been easy for you, but to witness that growth and to witness the impact it's having on the clients that you're attracting into your business is awesome. And I think the message for everyone listening here that you've shared is you've got to show up. You've got to treat your business like a business, which requires you to show up to serve your clients.

That means you [00:31:00] to have discipline and to understand that the discipline and the consistency trumps everything. It's those that give up that end up not building what it is that they set out to do in the first place. So Thank you for sharing. Thank you for, for being you. I will make sure I share how people can get hold of you.

You are amazing. Thanks so much, Bec.

Bec: Thank you so much for having me.