J Nichole Smith, The Psychology of Colours – InnovaBuzz 367

J Nichole Smith, Niche Branding Expert

In this episode, I’m really excited to have as my guest, J Nichole Smith, marketing specialist, artist, and author. Her purpose and passion are to help petpreneurs find freedom and fulfillment by building brands instead of just businesses. She is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs avoid poverty and burnout by finding their unique and sustainable competitive advantage and using it to stand out in an incredibly saturated marketplace. She believes your business is not your baby, it’s an experiment, and it exists to support you, not the other way around.

In our discussion, Nic talked to me about:

• Finding and articulating your Why through Why Mapping
• Building an audience around your Why
• The psychology of colour and how it applies to your business

Natasha Vorompiova in episode 311 introduced us to Nic.

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Show Notes from this episode with J Nichole Smith, Niche Branding Expert

Key points and takeaways from this episode include:

• Selling an idea or a feeling is more powerful than just selling a thing.
• Finding your purpose, clarity, and alignment with what you want to do is vital to success.
• WHY Mapping is a process that helps you discover and leverage your valuable skills and resources.
• A niched brand is all about being able to leverage what you’ve got that makes you hard to compete with.
• A niched brand is a category of one.
• WHY Mapping helps you find and combine two things that are most opposite into one core offering or identity.
• Selling your WHY instead of what you do makes it difficult for people to compete with you because you don’t fall into just one category. Similarly, it allows you to charge whatever you want because there is no standard rate for the thing that you do, which is weird, wacky, and unique.
• Selling your WHY instead of what you do is the key thing that makes marketing more human.
• When you have that natural authenticity and you’re really focused on the human side of a business, it makes marketing more fun. It’s a way to really tap into what you’ve got and naturally use that.
• Marketing is just starting conversations. It is showing up to help rather than sell, and trying to turn that into action, whether it’s a click, a like, or a buy. And, when you know who you are and why you do what you do, and you’re tapping into something that is literally your favourite thing to do, it makes marketing so natural and easy.
• The four central elements of a brand or a business are your WHY, your WHO, your WHAT, and your WHERE.
• Be clear about what you believe in and look for people who believe in that. 
• Build an audience around your WHY before you even know potentially what you want to sell. This whole process necessitates being able to effectively communicate your WHY.
• Your brand statement is the answer to question about what you do. It’s a language that you create, memorise, and use over and over to communicate why you do what you do instead of just saying your job description.
• Language is key but what’s even more important is being to able communicate more quickly with more emotion.
• Language is just the third greatest thing. The first greatest thing you have to create to communicate more quickly and more emotionally is colour. The second greatest thing is imagery. This practical and tangible trifecta allows you to both understand and communicate your WHY in a way that you don’t have to explain or educate people. 
• Using colours in your messaging gives you a great first impression. 
• The human brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than texts. In the world we live in now where we have only 2 to 3 seconds to capture someone’s attention, it is important to grab people first with colour and imagery before they even have the time to read anything. A headline is important but so is the colour palette.
• Applied colour psychology is looking at colour physics or in other words, the harmony of colours. It is all about making sure that they are all in the right group and that it is the right tonal group for your brand personality. 
• Blue triggers us mentally. It is either soothing or insinuating. Red triggers us physically. Green is balance. Yellow triggers us emotionally. 
• Having a great photo of you is important if you are a coach or a mentor. Make sure that what you are wearing, your background, and the environment that you are in, all fit your colour group quite perfectly.
• Branding is a blend of art and science. It is magic. It is the combination of using all the very practical and tangible tools that science can provide, as well as all the intangible and beautiful things of energy and art. You need to have both to have an effective business strategy.
• Do good. Be real. Find happiness and build a brand that matters.
• Finding freedom and fulfillment instead of just creating a job for yourself is a conscious choice that you have to make. Building a brand instead of a business is the perfect strategy to achieve that.
• Mindset is the first law of entrepreneurship. 
• You have the freedom to spend your time however you want, and you can fund your freedom so that you can spend your time in the way that you choose. 
• The idea of a Minimum Viable Product is to listen and throw something out there. Test it out before you heavily invest in the name or branding. See if it resonates, get feedback, and build it into something bigger.
• Start thinking of yourself as a visionary leader. It’s what you need to be in order to grow a business that will actually fund your freedom. Acknowledge that you want that freedom and start giving that to yourself. It’s a choice that you can make now even if you’re not making any money in your business. It makes it a lot cheaper, easier, and faster to scale when you accept that it is part of the deal. 

The Buzz – Our Innovation Round

Here are Nic’s answers to the questions of our innovation round. Listen to the conversation to get the full scoop.

1. #1 thing to be more innovative – Let go of perfection. Make room for mistakes. Learn how to lean into your intuition. Take risks.
2. Best thing for new ideas – Listen to your audience. Listen to their problems and imagine the best possible perfect solution to their problems and create that. 
3. Favourite tool for innovation – Mindset and energy. Sleep, exercise, mental space, and structures. Nothing gives more freedom than structure. 
4. Keep project/client on track – Find support above (coaches/mentors), around (community), and below (hire people to outsource, and delegate).
5. Differentiate – Find your WHY. Sell why you do what you do instead of what. Be an entrepreneur who likes your life. 

To Be a Leader

Notice when you’re snapping from that creative space to a reactive space. Keep the difference between creativity and reactivity. When you notice that you are being reactive, take a stop. Pause and do something that can get you back to that creative space, because ultimately, that is where the magic happens.

Reach Out

You can reach out and thank Nic through her website and Instagram.

Suggested Guest

Nic suggested we have a conversation with Dr Romie Mushtaq neurologist, mindfulness teacher, and keynote speaker. So Romie, keep an eye on your inbox for an invitation from us to the InnovaBuzz podcast, courtesy of J Nichole Smith.

Links

• Website – J Nichole Smith
• Magic Maker Podcast
• Twitter – @JNicholeSmith
• Linkedin
• Facebook

Do you know your brand personality? Take the quiz to find out and articulate your personal brand in a more meaningful way. 

Cool Things About Nic

• Her clients include many of the major players in the pet industry such as Purina, Petco, Halo, Halti [Company of Animals], OMH Wellness, and Victoria Stilwell Positively.
• She holds a Master’s Degree in Marketing from Kingston University of London.
• She hosts weekly online TV and Radio resources for petpreneurs at workingwithdog.com.

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