[00:00:00.000] - Candice Coppola (Host)

The wedding industry is saturated, making it really hard to market your business in a new way. My guest on today's episode of The Power and Purpose podcast is going to help you break out of this sea of sameness and start owning your story in your marketing. You're here to grow a business, but not just any business. You want to grow a profitable business with purpose, a business where you wake up every single day driven to serve your customers and make a difference in your own life. I'm Candice Coppola, published author, business coach, and your guide to building a profitable business with purpose. Join me here every single week as we explore how to build and grow your business with purpose. Get ready to dig in and have meaningful conversations about the strategies and techniques that will help you build your dream business. This is the power and purpose. Welcome back to the power and purpose podcast. It's me, your host, Candice. And on today's episode, I have a special treat for you. Aleya Harris is joining me to talk all about how you can break out of this sea of sameness that we see inside the wedding industry with the power of storytelling and why you should be including storytelling in your marketing.

[00:01:33.790] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Aleya is the founder and the owner of Flourish Marketing, an agency dedicated to helping service based creative entrepreneurs reach their full potential through you done with you and done for you marketing education, strategies, and copy writing solutions. She's a firm believer that business owners should make good money doing what they love. She uses her position as an industry thought leader to share tangible revenue growth tools. Now, Aleya has made it her mission to transform small business owners from invisible and overwhelmed to sought after and confident. Her decade plus long career, which included being a chef, owning a catering company, and also being a marketing executive for a major food service corporation, has all provided her with a multifaceted approach that she uses to create actionable strategies for passionate entrepreneurs like you. Long story short, Aleya knows what she's talking about. She has a long background in marketing, and she's also worked in the wedding industry. She understands the nuances of our crazy industry and how we can market better. What I love about Aleya is that she's also story brand certified. She's a certified story brand guide, meaning that uses Donald Miller's story brand framework in her marketing strategies.

[00:03:06.620] - Candice Coppola (Host)

If you're not familiar with Donald Miller's story brand, not to worry, we're going to get into it a little bit inside of today's episode. Without further ado, let me introduce you to Aleya Harris, my guest on today's episode of the Power and Purpose podcast. Aleya, welcome to the show. I'm so excited you're here.

[00:03:24.180] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Thank you so much for having me, Candice. I'm excited to be here.

[00:03:27.980] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Well, good. I'm glad we're both excited about today's conversation. You are the storytelling master. I know that storytelling and marketing is really important to you. You have this incredible background, which I've already explained to our listeners. You come from the wedding industry. You understand the nuances from your time as a caterer. We are your people. You know us well. You are one of us.

[00:03:54.060] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Yes, I am you. You are me.

[00:03:59.120] - Candice Coppola (Host)

What I love is how important you see storytelling in your marketing. T hat's what we're going to talk about today, the use of storytelling in your marketing, why it's important, and why you believe it's the great differentiator from your competition. The wedding industry is looking... Everybody looks the same, I feel like. I scroll on Instagram. Wouldn't you agree?

[00:04:19.840] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

I feel like... Oh, my gosh, yes. I think it's to the point where I want to ask planners, Aren't you all tired of doing the same thing? I know. I know it's not totally in their control because couples come and they're like, I want this exact same thing I saw on Pinterest five million times. But at a certain point in time, you have to figure out how to be the leader of the conversation, not just an order taker.

[00:04:42.260] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I totally agree. I feel like even skill, the wedding industry, everybody's doing the same thing. They're all following the same pieces of advice, too. They're buying the same courses. They're learning from the same people. Maybe I'm guilty. I'm part of the problem.

[00:04:56.740] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

I know. I'm like, Well, as an educator, I know I'm part of the problem, but I want you to find your unique story.

[00:05:05.800] - Candice Coppola (Host)

That's what we're going to talk about today. This is why I feel like the use of storytelling is such a game changer because in the sea of sameness, as you describe it, your story is what can really differentiate you from others, right?

[00:05:20.300] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Absolutely. And it's not just any old story. So let me tell you a quick story. When I was in high school, I was a championship tap dancer, really good.

[00:05:35.580] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I.

[00:05:36.900] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Could tap with the best of them, me and my crew. I've been tapping for years. When I went to corporate, though, did I put that on my resume? No. Me being a championship tap dancer did not make it to my LinkedIn profile either. Why is that? Because Because it certainly makes me unique. It's something that most people aren't and haven't done. But does it make me uniquely suited for the person I'm trying to talk to, the audience I'm trying to capture? Not really, unless I was really niching down to doing marketing only for tap dancers.

[00:06:18.560] - Candice Coppola (Host)

It's true, though. No, it's totally true. It's a great example.

[00:06:22.640] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Yeah. So you want to differentiate yourself. But often when I start that conversation with someone and I say, Well, pull in all of you into that story in order to break out and showcase how you're different, they get lost in their own story. It's about list all of the things and then let's see where you overlap between you and the person that you're trying to talk to.

[00:06:48.880] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Yes. I'm excited to dig into how we can tell our story and tell better stories. But would you mind just setting a baseline for us? Why is storytelling one of the great differentiators in marketing right now. Why do you think it's something that we really need to pay attention to?

[00:07:03.980] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

There's a couple of things. Narrative based marketing or storytelling marketing operates the way that our brain operates. When we think of information, when we think of building relationships, when we think of connecting with our world around us, we do so through story. You can sit here and list bullet points of facts and figures and people will remember none of them. But if I come to you and I'm like, Oh, girl, let me tell you what happened the other day. You're like, What girl? What? Already you're hooked in because you know that a story is coming. Gossp is always a natural thing for many people. And it's a storytelling device to get you hooked in. Why do you think reality TV is so popular? It's like problem after problem after problem. And problems hook you into the story and keep you involved in that story. When you're using a problem or narrative based approach in marketing, the problems that hook you in are your ideal client's problems. And you say you're having this problem, well, let's solve it. Well, but that means you also have this problem, well, let's solve it. Well, that means you have this problem.

[00:08:17.040] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Let's solve it. And like a good movie, things keep coming and happening and evolving so that the reader is hooked in by the time that they're done reading the narrative you've constructed, they can't help but purchase from you. That's why story is effective. Without some type of framework, your website just follows in what you think you're supposed to have like a big girl. I know that big girl businesses are supposed to have an About page, so I'm just going to sit here and write about myself.

[00:08:46.800] - Candice Coppola (Host)

It's so true. I see it all the time. The homepage is like, premiere wedding planner. Nobody cares that you're the premiere wedding planner. It just sounds so boring. There's no personality. There's nothing that leaves me feeling connected to you. It feels basically like a template, like a copy and paste.

[00:09:05.740] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Like a copy and paste. And it's interesting because I'm a fan of copy and pasting, but not copy and pasting the actual words or the feeling from someone else, but copy and pasting using a framework. The framework that I use to tell stories is a story brand framework that's outlined by Donald Miller in his book Building a Story Brand. You should buy it. I bought it. I was so hooked. I became certified in it and flew to Tennessee for five days. I've been certified for three years now.

[00:09:35.600] - Candice Coppola (Host)

That must have been an amazing experience, P. S. That must have been such Yeah.

[00:09:39.390] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

It was. It was like, Oh, what? By that point in time, I had been a marketer for 10 years. t that five days, it's like, What the heck have I been doing for the past 10 years? Because what I was doing was working, but it was a lot of effort. I had the benefit of working with really large companies with multimillion dollar marketing budgets. So you had, if you throw enough money at something, you're going to figure out, it's going to get resolved.

[00:10:08.480] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Exactly. Yeah.

[00:10:09.060] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

No, you're correct. When you work with smaller businesses and you're not like, Why don't you just put $100,000 towards that and call it a day? It doesn't work that way. So you have to know actual tools and techniques that work more effectively.

[00:10:22.440] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Right. So you're story brand certified, tell me, can you explain to our audience who maybe aren't familiar with a story brand and what this means? What it is?

[00:10:31.180] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Sure. Story Brand is based off of the hero's journey, which was an old, old, old book that was written by Joseph Campbell called A Hero with a Thousand Faces. In that book, he had done research across the world and realized that humans have a pretty templated way of telling a story. You start off with a character who wants something real bad and something gets in their way. They're like, Oh, no, I can't solve it. Oh, this sucks. I need help. Then a guide enters in who's done it before, who understands their struggles, and they're like, No, you can do it. They give them a plan. They're like, Here's what we're going to do. If you watch a movie now, now, any movie, you're going to hear. Here's the plan. Any TV show. This is what we're going to do next, because that's what the guide does. Then they tell them the steps, they lead them to success. But there's always something in the story of, Well, but if you don't do this plan, imminent danger is right around the corner. T hat is basically how people tell stories. Disconnected societies that grew up in isolation from one another ended up telling stories in the same way.

[00:11:45.500] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Story brand takes that hero's journey framework and applies it to marketing. Simplifies it a little bit into the seven steps that I just talked about. You want something, you have a problem, you have a guide, you have a plan, you have success and you avoid failure. All of of those elements end up being factored into all of your marketing decisions and your marketing copy from your website, your social media, email marketing, flyers, sales conversations. When you put them into the story brand framework, really particularly leaning into the problem that your ideal client has and coming from their perspective with them being the hero of the story, not you, that's when you begin to see higher conversion rates. I didn't become a story brand certified guide just because I thought it was super cool. I became a story brand certified guide and continue to renew my membership, which is several thousands of dollars per year because it works. It actually, when you use narrative based marketing, gives the person the ability to say, I am here in this place that I really don't want to be. And because you've outlined this story so clearly, I can envision where I'm going to be if I work with you, so I'm going to buy from you.

[00:13:03.610] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

It's called narrative transportation.

[00:13:05.440] - Candice Coppola (Host)

My question, and I know this is running around in the heads of our listeners right now. So, okay, I get it. I need to tell better stories in my marketing, and I understand, but I'm not a good writer. I don't know how to write. I sit down at the computer and words are not my friend. They don't come to me. I suck at it. What would you say to the person listening who wants to tell better stories but they just don't feel like they are equipped to tell or to write stories in their marketing?

[00:13:34.760] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

There's a couple of things. One, just hire someone. It is a shameless plug because at Floor's Marketing, we do copywriting and strategy. But truly, if you're coming at your business from the perspective of being a CEO and business owner, hopefully by this point in time, you have realized that you do not need to do everything. It's so funny to me that people assume when they dawn the mantle of entrepreneur that they're supposed to be good at all the things. One of the last things that they give up is marketing. Most people don't assume that they are a great bookkeeper just because they're an entrepreneur and they're not like, you know what I am now? Well, a legal expert. I'm going to write all my own contracts from scratch. We don't do that. But when it comes to marketing, you just think it's super easy. I've seen people write social media posts all the time. I can do that. I write social media posts for my account about my cat. I can do it for my business. It's not the same thing.

[00:14:31.460] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

No, it's not. My first advice is to hire someone. My second advice is to make it simple. If you are not in a position to hire someone to help you with your marketing and your copywriting, do not overcomplicate it. You really just need to think about who am I attracting? What is the bait? How am I attracting them? How am I hooking them in? And how am I building the relationship? That information can be almost so simple that you think that it's not going to work for for example, say you're a wedding planner who specializes in LGBTQ weddings. What's the problem? The couples want someone who specializes in LGBTQ weddings and is going to make them feel wonderful throughout the whole process. What do you do? Well, you are a member of the LGBTQ community and you have 10 years of experience as a wedding planner, you can help. Lean into that. What is that? How would you talk to them like a normal human being? Take some of the bravado away, the fluffiness, the feeling of the need to be perfect, and lean into just being radically authentic. How can you show up so much like yourself that it doesn't really matter if the comm is in the right place or not.

[00:15:46.880] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

It doesn't really matter if you use... If you put the the quotation marks, is it a double quotation? Is it a single quotation? It doesn't really matter. If people understand and feel that you are showing up as the exact person they need to get the transformation they are looking for. Then copy writing will come because you're writing about just who you are.

[00:16:11.440] - Candice Coppola (Host)

What would you say to the person who thinks your story is stupid? It was like, This is great, but I don't have a cool story. My origin story, how I started my business, isn't all that exciting. I'm not a very exciting person. I don't really do a lot. I don't have a lot of hobbies. I don't have a lot of interests. I'm just not that exciting. T hey read stories. Maybe they hear your tap dancing story and they're like, That's cool. I don't have a tap dancing story. What would you say to the person who feels like they don't have a story to tell?

[00:16:39.960] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Firstly, it's very funny to me because most of my clients come to me with that exact same issue. I would like to tell you, I don't care who you are listening, you are more interesting than you think you are. And you are unique. I like to picture people like this. Have you ever seen the movie Soul, Candice?

[00:17:00.840] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I don't think so, no.

[00:17:01.950] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

It's a Disney movie. You're going to see it. You're going to love it. You're going to cry. It's like for me, a little bit like on the level of up. Long story short, even before the movie Soul came out and in the movie Soul, which is why I like the depiction. They're little spirits, little babies. They're up in the clouds and they have a set of assignments that only they can live out. In my version, you're shown your assignment, the bullet points of the things that you're supposed to do here in this planet, and then they put it on your back. So it's there and you might catch glimpses of it in the real world. You can't really see it. And then you're tossed over from the heavens into a body. And you're supposed to figure it out. But every single assignment is unique. And if you don't fulfill your assignment, I miss out because I need you to do what you are here to do. Your goal for most of your life is to figure out what the heck that assignment is and to live it out.

[00:18:01.450] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Right. So when you tap into that radical authenticity piece that we were talking about, you will unearth things that you might... It's usually the thing in your brain that you're like, But I do this, but no one's really interested in that. Hard stuff. That's what.

[00:18:17.580] - Candice Coppola (Host)

You tap.

[00:18:19.540] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

I'm an organizational geek. I have all my colored pencils in a certain order and they'll file down neatly. Nobody really cares about being organized.

[00:18:29.540] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Are you kidding? Tiktok is waiting for you to share that. I follow a couple of people. I call them timeline cleansers. They just bless my timeline with joy.

[00:18:40.630] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Yes.

[00:18:41.740] - Candice Coppola (Host)

One of them is a Western wear enthusiast. I'm not a Western wear person, you guys, you know that. I don't need to explain that.

[00:18:50.680] - Candice Coppola (Host)

But it's so innocent and so sweet. He describes his outfits and it's just such a timeline cleanse. It brings me joy. I think it's just so wonderful to see people sharing something that is exciting to them. He has thousands of followers, way more followers than I do. There is somebody for everybody.

[00:19:11.550] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

There's somebody for everybody and you are that somebody for somebody. That's right. Also, I brought up tap dancing, and we brought up Western wear, but I want to be very careful. When you're talking about your story, it's not that I like pumpkin spice latte and pugs and those type of hobbies and random interests. It really, truly is how has your story created the human being who you are now to the point where you are fully equipped to solve a problem for specific person. When you're talking about your story, you're really talking only about the intersection of your story and that of your ideal customers. When you're telling a story on your website or you're telling the story in your marketing, the story you're telling is not really yours. It's your ideal customer's. When you get to talk about yourself is in the role of the guide, in the role of that mentor. And you're really just leaning into, I understand what you've gone through because I've gone through it and I've helped other people gone through it. You're being empathetic and you're leaning into your authority piece. I've been in this business for 10 years.

[00:20:23.550] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

We've served over 100,000, however many clients. I've been featured in Brides magazine, New York Times. I know what I'm doing. Other people have told me that I know what I'm doing so I can help you. That's when you really lean into me, me, me, I, I, I. Otherwise, your story is all about service. How can you help solve a problem? How do you solve that problem better and more uniquely than anybody else? When you articulate that, then people who are really, truly narcissists with short attention spans, that's who I say you market towards. Everyone wants to know, Is it about me? Well, you made it about me five seconds ago, but could you just, I mean, just for me, make it about me again? Would you mind? Can you make it about me again in the future? And you're going to make it about me in about 10 minutes again, because otherwise, I'm not listening to you. When you have that in mind that that's who you're marketing towards, you're constantly saying, Yes, I can solve this problem. Yes, you will be okay. This is what will happen if you don't solve that problem. I don't want that for you.

[00:21:28.450] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Let's move forward. It catalyzes a different type of reaction and moves people in a way that shows them that you are integral to them being successful in their story.

[00:21:42.560] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Hey there, friend. Real quick, I want to share with you how you can sign up for a free trial with Honey Book. Honey Book is everything you need to get business done. And it's trusted by over 100,000 independent businesses just like yours to manage projects, book clients, send invoices, and most importantly, get paid. If you've been looking for an all in one solution to manage your customers, I want to invite you to sign up for a free trial with Honeybook. Go to candice coppola. Com honeybook to learn more. And when you sign up for a free trial using the code purpose, you'll save 50 % off of your first year's subscription. Honeybook is what I used in my business as a wedding planner, and it helped me land every single sale. It's what helped me build a six figure wedding planning business. It's also what helps me today in my business. Go to candice coppola. Com honeybook to learn more and with the code purpose, save 50 % on your first year's subscription. What I hear you saying is you're using your stories or even stories from other clients or from your career as a vehicle to tell the story of the person who should be hiring you to solve the same problem.

[00:23:11.770] - Candice Coppola (Host)

So the art of storytelling is really telling the story of the person listening. When you take yourself out of it and put them in the driver's seat, them as that main character energy, that's what hooks them, that's what gets them to pay attention. Because you're right, I don't care about why I care about you, but I care about me more, but I care about.

[00:23:33.230] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Me more. Yeah, you always care about you more. Think about it in a very basic level. Say you have a headache, and if the Tylenol box was all about like, Well, back in 18, whenever they were founded, we had a dream. And you're like, Oh, my God. Miss me with that. I just want to know if you're going to fix my headache. I don't care about your grandpa and how he started this company with two bits and a dream. I want to know if you can fix my headache. All problems are like that, whether they're physical, mental, emotional. All problems are felt like that. If you can address how someone is feeling about their problem in your marketing copy, you will help encourage them to make a purchase.

[00:24:18.940] - Candice Coppola (Host)

What are some stories that wedding pros can tell in their marketing or some examples of stories maybe you've seen with your clients or stories that you think are really relevant right now in the industry at large, just in the time period that we're in?

[00:24:33.390] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Well, first of all, I go back to what I was saying before, your story should be unique. The very first thing that you need to do is to get real with yourself and figure out who you are and how you plan to show up in the world. There are some general themes because your story fits into a larger global regional story. We are coming out of a pandemic. There's a great resignation. There's a fear about people spending money. There's also a fear around... Well, not a fear, but a reckoning. I've realized who I am, and I don't like this, and I don't want to deal with that, and now I'm standing in my own, but it is a scary place to be because people have come a little bit more into their own and they don't really know what to do with that information. I really want to plan this wedding. Before the pandemic, it would have been an all white wedding. We would have had orchids in the bouquets, tall center pieces, and short to break up the ballroom, which will be in a hotel. But now, after the pandemic, where I've been sitting here with my future soonly wedding our living room and we realize that we actually want to burn it all down and we want to go for the most colorful wedding ever and be rainbow theme, but we're terrified of what everybody's going to think, how are you going to enter into that story and tell them that who they are now is wonderful and who they've always been is great and they could interject more of that and they don't have to follow the mold.

[00:26:08.960] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

There's lots of general themes out there. I caution you, though, you do not have to talk to all of them. Pick one that resonates the most with you. If you are really speaking to a DIY type of audience, for example, and you're leaning into the now's the time to be mindful of where your pennies go, I can help you do that, then that's where you lean into because that may speak to your background or your set of specific skills. Don't feel the need to tell everyone's story. If you get a client who comes to you and it's not a problem that you solve, you can't figure out how you fit into their story, tell them, I have some recommendations for you, but I'm not your person. Go with God, my friend.

[00:26:56.440] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Not your guide. That's right. I'm not your guide. That's it.

[00:27:00.030] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

There's such power in that. There is such power in that. Especially because a lot of the times we say that when they're like, Oh, they can't afford me. No, they can't afford me. And you're just really turning down people on price. But if your marketing is right, you'll start to notice that the people that come to you are within your price range. And then you're like, Oh, well, but I actually don't want to work with you. Am I allowed to say I don't want to work with you because I don't solve that problem? Yes. Give yourself permission then to expand what your boundaries are and change them and shift them to fit your story.

[00:27:35.280] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I'd love for you to give our audience permission to tell the same story more than once because I feel like entrepreneurs and wedding pros, creative entrepreneurs, we operate from this belief that we need to constantly be inventing new content, new posts, new topics. Listen, there's always so much you can talk about when it comes to weddings. There's a lot to talk about, but there's always so much you can talk about. And isn't it okay for us to tell the same story over and over again?

[00:28:04.760] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Not only is it okay, but it's recommended. I have some tough love, Candice.

[00:28:10.100] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Oh, we need a pep talk. Let's go.

[00:28:13.260] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

No one really knows you. And all of you, all you all listening out there, you're not as I was like, What?

[00:28:18.870] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I think you are.

[00:28:20.760] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

But you're right. No one really... Oh, but Aleh, I have 3,000 followers. Okay, first of all, half of them don't really see your content that regularly. And my favorite posts of people posts, I'm back. I was on my social media hiatus, and I'm back. I'm like, Girl, I didn't know you were gone.

[00:28:41.640] - Candice Coppola (Host)

It's so honestly so true. Or like, Sorry, I haven't been around a lot. And most people aren't paying that much attention to you. As much attention as you're paying to yourself, they're not paying the same amount.

[00:28:52.460] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

So true. So true. So in that thought, it's a little bit Drury, but you got to work harder than you think that you do to gain someone's attention. The statistic, which I'm sure you probably have heard before, is that someone needs to see you seven times before they even really realize that you exist. So if that's the case, you need to be hitting a drum beat. It is a... If you're on a boat, like a Viking boat, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's like a steady drum beat to get across that ocean, get the oars rolling in the same way, build that momentum. It's not a jazz song where it's like the tempo might change, and then you get a solo from someone, and then all of a sudden someone's scatting in the background. No, this is not where you get creative.

[00:29:48.920] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Steady, steady, and consistent.

[00:29:52.230] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Exactly. Think about the real relationships in your life. The people that you value the most are the ones who show up for you, who you know will be be there who are pretty much the same, where they grow, they change, how they develop over the years. But that ride or live that you've had for the past 15 years, no surprises. You know that if you have a high point, you call them. You have a low point, you call them. That type of relational consistency is the same type of consistency you need to apply to your marketing because marketing is just the actions and activities that it takes to build lucrative relationships. The relationship building part, you really know how to do. The problem is a lot of the times we put all the fancy words and mumbo jumbo around it and we get lost. All you're doing is building relationships. Then how do you build relationships, Beth? Oh, girl, did you hear about what happened? Oh, girl, let me tell you this story. Let me tell you about my day. My boss did the... You're telling stories to build relationship. You do the same thing in your marketing with your business.

[00:31:06.100] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Such great advice. I'm curious, my last question is how can somebody begin to craft their storytelling narrative and fix their marketing message? S o somebody listening to this right now and listening to our conversation, they understand their message doesn't need to be perfect. They probably just need to start writing or start creating and things will come to them. They know they can tell the same story over and over that they shouldn't center themselves, center their customer. What's the next step they can take to start fixing their marketing message and to get things together?

[00:31:37.680] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

I do it in three steps and I put it into my flourishing Empire framework. First step is to get real. The the second step is to get clear, and the third step is to get connected. Your urge when you're like, I'm going to get my story straight is going to be to whip out your computer, whip out a Google Doc, and get typing. I'm going to need you to back away. In order to get real, you have to do that internal work. I am a big proponent that your energy as who you are as an individual needs to be calibrated before you can go out into the world. If it is not, what happens is you end up telling a story that's really not you, but you're like, Oh, well, I'm stuck with it now. I've been telling this story and I don't feel like it's really me, but I might as well keep going. T hat's an uncomfortable place to be in. Or you start telling a story that no one cares about and people can tell that it's fake. So they're like, Okay, whatever. I'm glad that that's good for you. I'm going to move over here for someone who's less creepy because you feel really inauthentic to me.

[00:32:41.100] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

I encourage you to meditate, whip out your journal, do a SWAT analysis on yourself, figure out the core of who you are before you can translate that into story. If you need help with that, I have a freebie. I have a freebie for most things.

[00:32:58.060] - Candice Coppola (Host)

That I talk about. I love that. Good. It. Sure. We want it. We want it right now.

[00:33:02.410] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

It's called the recalibration guide. You go to flourishmarketing. C o recalibrate. It's a 30 plus page guide that has journal prompts, internal exercises, mantras, resources, reading that you can use to help you get real. Once you're like, Okay, I got a pretty good idea of who I am, and it's not what somebody else told me, but truly what I feel like I am. Then you use the story brand framework to translate that into your clear messaging platform, the problem that you solve, who you solve it for, how you solve it better than anybody else. You buy the book, you go by building a story brand. You might go into business made simple. Com and take the courses online. You will see yours truly in some of those courses. And you figure out how to put yourself into that clear messaging framework. A lot of people stop here because truthfully, Candice, it's a lot of work already. If you feel like, Oh, that sounds exhausting. I mean, it can be just straight up mean honest. But if you stop here, you're going to lose because you knowing yourself and having a clear message about yourself doesn't matter if you're not able to make the connection and translate that into words that make people buy from you.

[00:34:23.420] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

You need to take that messaging platform and put it on your website, put it into your social media, put it into your email so that people can see you and make a connection. I think about people as different colors, different little colored lights all over the world. And you have the blues and the greens and the pinks and the yellows. And And our purpose in life is to find our crew, our click, our squad. So all the little pink lights are looking for all the little pink lights. But if you're a little dim pink light that's not really sharing your story and you're over in the corner, no one can find you. You need to turn up the wattage on your light. You need to be like bright fusha shining from like it's the Great Wall of China. You can see it from space. You are that bright light that other people gravitate towards, other people are attracted towards. And the way that you do that is with a clear story that resonates uniquely with your ideal client and solves a problem that they have been truggling to solve on their own. And they need you to help them do it.

[00:35:30.430] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

So you get real, you get clear, and you get connected to start building your story.

[00:35:35.040] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Oh, I love this so much. How can somebody listening who's like, girl, I get it all. This is great. I just want to hire Aleya to do this for me. How can they do that?

[00:35:45.260] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

First of all, Candice, I'd like to say that those are my favorite people.

[00:35:47.910] - Candice Coppola (Host)

They are my team. Love you. Love you.

[00:35:52.600] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Love you, future clients. You can go to flourishmarketing. C o, not. Com, dot c o, and you just click schedule a call. Where you'll hop on a call, we'll talk all about you being confused about not knowing who you are, which is really what most of my discovery calls are, and it's okay. Then we're going to hop on. We'll do some strategy around that, and we'll translate that into copy for you so that you can present yourself into the world with this greater sense of freedom, this greater sense of purpose. Being connected with what you do every day revitalizes your passion. You've been in business for 10 years, 15 years, and you're like, I'm so tired of going through the motions. So then stop. Figure out the core of who you are and do things differently. People in the world will appreciate it. Your business will appreciate it. The people who work for you will appreciate it because it will feel easier, more spacious, and a lot more fun. So flourishmarketing. C o, schedule a call.

[00:36:54.320] - Candice Coppola (Host)

I love it. I totally agree. I think sometimes we need a bit of a Renaissance in our business. We get lazy, we get complacent, we get disconnected. In order for us to go the next mile or the next distance in our business, we need to revitalize things. We need to reconnect with why we do what we do. A lso, sometimes it changes. Our purpose changes, our reasons for why we do what we do changes. I think it is actually really normal to switch up your messaging, not a lot, but from time to time when things change in your life and you want to move in a new direction.

[00:37:28.690] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

Absolutely. My big thing is we create radically authentic messaging strategy and copywriting that transform leaders to legends. You're already doing good. Marketing is not about not doing good and like, Oh, I need to rescue myself, which is how a lot of people treat it. Then it's like, Why did you not make me $5 million in five minutes? It doesn't work that way. No. You're already a leader, but you're wanting to... When you're gone or at the end of your career, someone's going to throw you a big fat party, and everybody is going to come and they're going to grab the mic and they're going to tell your story back to you. Now is your time to craft the story that they will tell. What are you saying?

[00:38:11.600] - Candice Coppola (Host)

We're going to end on that note. We're going to end it right there. Aleya, thank you so much for being so generous today and sharing all your insights on storytelling and how our audience can craft better stories, better narratives for their business. I'm going to link all of the things that you've mentioned inside the show notes so they can go and follow you, find you, and pick up this great freebie you have and also hire you because clearly they need you in their life.

[00:38:37.920] - Aleya Harris (Guest)

I agree. Thank you so much for having me, Candice. This has been a lot of fun. I love talking about storytelling. I want to.

[00:38:46.650] - Candice Coppola (Host)

Thank Aleh for being such an amazing guest on today's episode of the show. I've linked to all the things in the show notes for your convenience, so be sure to head to blog. Candice coppola. Com to get the latest on everything that Aleh mentioned in today's episode. I want to know, on social media, what stories are you going to start telling in your marketing? A re you going to take Aleh's advice and start using the power of storytelling to separate you from the competition? I want to hear from you. As always, I'm here to remind you that there's so much power in your purpose until next time. Thanks so much for tuning in to this week's episode of the Power In Purpose podcast. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and consider leaving a review. Head over to powerandpurpose podcast. Com to access all of the resources and links mentioned in today's episode. That's powerandpurpose podcast. Com. I'll see you next time.