The importance of brand alignment with Chris Beltran

In today’s episode I am speaking to Brand Transformist, Chris Beltran on
how to stand out as a personal brand.

We are talking everything from identifying your voice brand through your
messaging to how to design your podcast cover art.

Chris shares with us the exact framework he uses to help 7 figure
entrepreneurs on how to stand out as a personal brand.

By the time you finish listening, you’ll know:
• The 3 essential ingredients every personal brand must identify for
their brand
• The biggest mistake most entrepreneurs are making when creating
content and their brand assets
• How to align your brand with your voice and your audience

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SHOW TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to the voice of your brand podcast episode number six. In today's episode, I'm speaking with brand strategist and transformers Chris Bell Tron. That's coming up next, ready to go behind the scenes and learn what it really takes to stand out as the voice of your brand. I'm Catherine back voice actor and voice coach. And after 20 years of being the voice of other brands, I'm here to show you how your voice is your most powerful tool to creating the impact, influence and income you desire. The world is your global stage. So get ready to uplevel your voice and your personal brand. This is the voice of your brand podcast. All right, let's get into today's episode. And I'm so excited to talk about this topic of branding of being the personal brand of your business because I think it's so important. You know, when I talk about voice to my students to my audience, it's about finding your voice. If your personal brand, you've got to stand out and use your voice. But for me, I never really put too much attention into the visual aspect of being a personal brand. So having Chris on the show and having this conversation with him boy did it open my eyes to what I was not putting enough attention to in my business. So we're gonna dive deep into that in this conversation with Chris. But just to give you a little bit of a background about who he is Chris Bell Tron is a brand transforming fast. He is an award winning creative director and graphic designer who has worked with some of today's top online entrepreneurs, six and seven figure online entrepreneurs like James Wedmore, Jim Fortin, and moms with hustle just to name a few. He is also a leading expert in personal branding and has worked with notable TEDx speakers, best selling authors and world renowned influencers. What makes Chris stand out and makes his work so great is he helps online experts become more intentional with their branding so that they can gain the trust, they need to charge what they deserve. I love that. So let's get ready to take your branding to the next level. Let's get this interview rolling. Welcome to the podcast. Chris. It's so great to have you here. Thanks so much for joining us. Unknown Speaker Of course. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to have a conversation about branding. I can talk about this all day every day. So Katherine Beck Okay. Here's my first question for you, because I popped on your website, and I noticed that you call yourself a brand trance transform just Yes. What does that mean? Unknown Speaker Yeah, so you know, my tagline is that, you know, I really help entrepreneurs and small businesses transform their brand from looking and sounding generic, to iconic. And this is the big distinction I think that successful brands have in their marketplace is that they sound and look unique, right? So that's what I do is I help, you know, again, entrepreneurs, or rising entrepreneurs and business owners really tap into how they can bring that uniqueness to life through their branding. And that could be through messaging and visuals and things like that. Katherine Beck Very cool. How did you get into this? Unknown Speaker Yeah, that's a great question. Loaded question already. Katherine Beck I just cut to the chase, Chris. Yeah, right. Unknown Speaker Well, you know, I've always been creative. So always taking art classes. As a kid, I was always drawing and things like that. So graphic design, and that kind of was a natural thing for me. So I studied graphic design and at Long Beach State, California, and then I moved into photography. And then from there from college, I landed pretty much my or I really created my dream job. I was hired as a designer, kind of like an assistant designer. And at this corporate company, they're a promotional drinkware company. So they've worked with brands all over the world. And they basically put logos on drinkware. So if you're looking at the NFL, you know, sports bottles, things like that. So they were the company behind the scenes, putting the logos on all this drinkware anyways, what I came into this, when I came into this company, I was kind of almost like a production designer. So I was just kind of sticking logos on different templates and things like that. And I was like, There's no way I can survive here. Because this there's no creativity with this. This is all just kind of autopilot type of work. So I basically asked them hey, do you guys have a photographer for all the product photography that you guys need? They said no. So I ended up helping them build a Studio. And then I became their main designer and then moved up my way to creative director within a short period of time, I'd say about a year and a half, we're kind of doing all this. And then I started designing their ads for their magazines and different things. And the rest is history, right. But I started listening to podcasts like this, you know, where I started to learn a little bit more about the online space. And this is, you know, I don't know, maybe five, five to seven years ago. So this was kind of when this was really taken off. And, yeah, I just started to learn more about how I can start to leverage my skill set, and help other small businesses and entrepreneurs, rather than just this one multimillion dollar company, where I was working at. And so I've kind of utilize all these big grand strategies, and now teaching my students and clients the same strategies that we use for them to, to help position them in front of the right people. Katherine Beck Wow, that's so exciting, very interesting. And really intriguing to me, because I recently rebranded myself my podcast, and I know for a lot of people that can be a really sticky point is the whole rebrand, you know, you've put yourself into one position, it's really hard to then pivot and then show yourself in a different light. How important is the design aspect then to that rebrand? Unknown Speaker Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I look at design as adding visual value to your content or to your brand. And what I mean by that is like, if you look at like a house, especially right now, the housing markets crazy where I'm at in California, but, you know, you put some new paint on the house, you do a little tweaks here and there, and this house will jump in value, right. So there's visual value that you add to your own brand. And that's very important, because you want to make sure that the visuals match up with the quality and the value that your business provides. And you also want to convey clearly what you actually do. So the branding, visual branding, because there's a lot of different aspects to branding, and maybe we can cover those different aspects. But branding are visually, the visual images is just one part of your brand, right. And that's kind of like the packaging of your brand. But there's also your voice, your branding, voice, and messaging and things like that. So the visuals are very important. But but at the same time, if you're just getting started, I don't want to say, you know, invest 20 grand into or 10 grand into just your visuals, because there's some other foundational pieces that you'll have to get clear on, before you even get to that visual side. Katherine Beck Hmm, interesting. Okay, so there's different aspects of brand. So some people might think it's more of a visual thing. But there's other things going on as well. Unknown Speaker Yeah, so the first thing is your audience, right? You got to get clear on your audience, you got to get clear on their desires. And then you got to look into your brand stance, how are you different in this marketplace. So all of these things start to help you convey how you're different in the marketplace. And then once we understand that, then we can start to bring these words to life through the visuals. But we've got to get an understanding of what your your brand is all about, before we even get to that visual stage. Katherine Beck Right? So first establishing what it's all about. So you can clearly communicate that to your audience. That's fascinating to me, of course, because this podcast is all about voice. So once you have a clear understanding of those key aspects that you want to communicate, then you bring that into actually being the voice of your brand, right? Unknown Speaker Absolutely. Like I kind of kind of described us as your brand's kind of like a book, right? I can't design the cover of the book if I don't know the story, right? So we got to develop that story for your brand, develop your brand stance and things like that. So then when we get to the visual side, we know what we're creating it for, you know, what's going to resonate with your audience visually, whether that be your colors, fonts, and things like that your logo. But again, once we understand what your brand is all about, then we can actually create some visuals that will resonate with that and align to your audience. Katherine Beck And does branding work differently for different types of entrepreneurs, for example, obviously, you've got a lot of people in the online space. I'm coming from a background of working with a lot of creative types, actors, voiceover artists, hosts, dancers, all sorts of different sorts of creative entrepreneurs. Does that structure or work differently for creatives versus people in the online entrepreneurial space, for example? Yeah, that's Unknown Speaker a great question. I don't really think so I think the main thing is, as long as you can clearly communicate transformation, that's what makes your branding very impactful. So whether you're a solopreneur, or you're a million dollar business, it all comes down to how you can clearly communicate the transformation that you're going to provide within your business. So once we understand that, you know, say, say you are personal or you're working with artists, you know, just a single solopreneur artists, right? Well, they have a distinct style and, and things like that personality. So we want that to come through in the branding, as well, the visuals and whatnot. Katherine Beck Oh, very interesting. You know, I often hear from entrepreneurs where they're really hesitant to really show up and be the voice of their brand. But why is it so important for them to clearly understand their brand and really bring that to the forefront as their business? How is that? How is that going to help them? Or how would that hold them back if they're not really putting the attention into brand? Unknown Speaker Yeah, you know, it's just the, in my opinion, it's just a foundational piece, you'll need to create content and to, you know, have things to talk about, like on podcasts and things like this without having a foundation for your brand, it's going to be really hard to communicate what your brand and business does. So these are the pieces that a lot of people kind of skip over. And they'll just jump into designing their website or going straight into having a logo designed. And what happens is, a designer is playing a guessing game with with you because they don't understand what your brand is all about what you're trying to go for what your style is your theme, anything like that. So there'll be a lot of back and forth. And sometimes you'll get something that it's not really in alignment to what you're looking for. And that's because they're putting their own spin on your brand. Because you haven't had the opportunity to create a foundation for them to work from. Does that make sense? Katherine Beck Totally makes sense. And, gosh, it makes like your life so much easier, too. Because if you start with a brand, like you said, then you've got your content, then you've got your podcast topics, you've got your framework, exactly your business, perhaps your online program, it all builds from that one first step, which is clearly defining your brand. Unknown Speaker Yeah, exactly. Yeah, without without that you are kind of, I see your Canva hacking your way through through the market. And just kind of doing some things together, seeing what sticks. And what happens is you become confusing. And I always say, you know, a confused mind doesn't by so if you're not clear with a lot of these aspects of your brand, again, first, I have a method called the aim method aim. So this will be really easy to remember, three areas that you want to focus on audience alignment. So you want to understand, again, what are your audience desires? What are their pain points. And what's what's going to really resonate them with them on an emotional level. Because once you do that with your messaging, they feel understood, and now they're willing to trust you with whatever product or service you have to offer. The next phase of that is intentional imagery, you want to be intentional with your imagery. Instead of looking all random and things like that, like I said, Canva hacking your way through this, the more intentional you are with your your imagery, the easier it is for someone to is easier for you to gain trust. And then also for you to create consistency with your brand. You know, people start to recognize certain colors and fonts and just the overall theme visually. And then the other part of this is meaningful messaging. So want to make sure that your messaging is really connecting on that emotional level. It's not all about benefits and things like that. And features. It's really about how are you going to connect on this deep emotional level that that really starts to trigger, you know, their desires and in a future that they can see with your product or service. Katherine Beck That's so good. That's, that's great. It really simplifies it as well, when we think it can be so overwhelming. conceptualizing our brand, but if you can streamline it to those three areas, it makes it much easier, doesn't it? Unknown Speaker Absolutely. Yeah. And it's it's interesting. You know, I've worked with small business owners to multimillion dollar business owners and this is a lot of A lot of what I do is, it's funny because a lot of clients say it's like brand therapy, because we're talking this stuff out. And we're uncovering a lot of the things that my clients want to convey. They just don't know how to communicate that yet. So once we dive deep into these conversations, you know, my process is not here, here's a questionnaire and I'll read your answers, and then I'll create something for you. It's more of a collaborative experience. So we got to talk things out. And when you're in that, that flow state, you can communicate very authentically, right. So that's where I'm taking notes and things like that. So this process is not just again, you know, put some words together, and we have a whole brand, you know, we got to talk these things out if you really want to be intentional with what you're putting out there. Katherine Beck This is very eye opening for me as well, I love it. And so I was gonna ask you like, what are some of the mistakes that people are making with brand? But I've already realized it's the what do you call it? The Canva? Hacking Unknown Speaker Canva? Hacking? Yeah. Katherine Beck And so it's basically just going in there and picking and choosing templates, and not really having sort of any consistency, or alignment with who you are just choosing what looks nice. And Unknown Speaker yeah, that was it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the bottom line is, like, if you're, if for visually, if you are, even with your messaging, if you don't have any guidelines to work within write, if you don't have a specific colors, specific fonts, a specific style of imagery, it's, you are going to have an inconsistent looking brand, right. And I don't want to say, you know, finding templates on Canva is a bad thing, because you can customize those templates, I even do. But we want to make sure that though those have your brand colors and your brand fonts and things like that. So you know, you can kind of look at this as like, I look at like a website, or your social media presence is like the icing on the cake, right? That's the last thing that you're going to produce. But there's so many different layers that you're going to need to focus on. Like I said, you know, those three layers that we talked about. And there's all the ingredients, we're going to need to build that cake to bake that cake, which are like I said, your fonts, your colors, and all of these other elements. So you got to have the ingredients before you start baking your cake, which would be that website or whatever it's going to be. Katherine Beck So even in your fonts, like you can be specific with your fonts being aligned with your brand. Like there's certain fonts that work better for someone than another person. Unknown Speaker Absolutely. It's pretty crazy to think but fonts actually evoke emotion as well. Katherine Beck What okay. Unknown Speaker So if you look at, let's say, like a very whimsical font, right, very curly letters and things like that, that's gonna feel very feminine, right? Yeah, very feminine, very light, especially if it's white thin lines and things like that. So that's going to invoke certain emotions that again, are going to feel a little more feminine, soft, whimsical. And again, these were called trigger words like just words, what words can we use to describe the look and feel of something compared to if you look at my brand, I kind of use like a brushstroke for some of the things that I and you'll notice my backgrounds have brushstrokes and things like that. So what does that convey? That's going to convey more creativeness and free flow and, and expressiveness and things like that. So if you look at other fonts that are very traditional looking, which are called Serif fonts, so they have like the points at the end of the fonts, those are going to feel a little more luxurious or a little more established or traditional. So those are the types of things that are connected to those different types of fonts. Katherine Beck That's so cool. And so then it's the same for colors as well. So certain colors, like how do you figure out your brand colors? Unknown Speaker Yeah, well, there's definitely a process but take this for an example. You know, this is you know, red is not going to be a car that dentist use, right? For obvious reasons, right? We don't want to convey blood or anything that's in that realm. So what what do most doctors and dentists what kind of colors do they use? White, white, what's another color? Katherine Beck Maybe? I don't know, silver and gold, Unknown Speaker silver, gold, probably blues. You do like light blues, you know, baby blues, things that convey purity, purity, almost like water, things like that, especially with the dentist. Right? So so that's kind of once we start to identify, you know, what do we want to really conveyed with these trigger words, that's where I always start trigger words, then we can start to kind of build a visual library through a mood board. And I'm sure you've heard of this before. And this doesn't mean, let's just pick a bunch of pictures that we like, this is being a little more strategic. And what what what images help communicate these words that we're using these trigger words. And so once we have those image images, what I like to do is I like to kind of dissect these images, and look for patterns within the images like, oh, this color comes up a lot, ooh, this, this type of pattern or style comes up a lot. This font is coming up a lot within this mood board. So that's how we start to kind of identify what are the ingredients of your brand that we can start to use now. Katherine Beck And that's how you really distinguish yourself as a brand amidst all these generic brands or generic entrepreneurs out there, right, Unknown Speaker right. Yeah, I would say so. Katherine Beck So cool. This is all very fascinating. It's it's a whole new worlds that I've never really thought about until I rebranded and I would assume that I'm probably not the only one that there's a lot of people out there don't really think about it right. Until, what like, When did people normally come to you to to seek your expertise? At what stage? Unknown Speaker Yeah, I'd say it's a variety of stages. But I will say that branding is kind of the last thing on a business owners priority list, which it shouldn't be there first. And the reason why it is their last is because they think it's just when I get to a certain level, then I can look a certain way. Katherine Beck And so if you're just sorry to interrupt you, that's exciting. So if we do the opposite, like let's say you're just starting out and you make brand, your first priority. How can that transform somebody? Somebody's business right from the get go? Instead of waiting till the end? Are they saving a lot of time? By doing that? I bet. Unknown Speaker Apps Absolutely. I mean, the clarity you're gonna have going through a process like this is it's almost, there's no price point you can really put on it because you're coming out the gate. looking and sounding unique, and you're you're coming out of the gate with almost like a strategy to, to attract the right people into your business. Without doing that you're, you're kind of fumbling your way through your business. And you're gonna get kind of hits, or moments of, oh, wow, this person I attracted this person, but it's not consistently right. And so why am I not able to attract the right clientele all the time? Well, it's because you're not clearly conveying who you're who you're perfectly for. And so that's what starts to speed up the process. As far as, in my opinion, growing your business really quickly is attracting the right people, the right type of clientele. Katherine Beck Exciting for someone who does a podcast as well, if you're looking to grow your podcast, right? Because like you said, your everything's aligning from your audience to your voice, and that gives you the content that you need that's matching the look of the podcast and what you're speaking about. Have you worked with podcasters on their their brand? Oh, of Unknown Speaker course. Yeah. I've definitely designed plenty of podcast covers from an array of different podcasters I know James Wedmore, Jim Fortin Brandon Lucero, Dr. Shannon Irvine, she has a really good podcast, so a lot of different podcasts. And again, the principles of what I do or this are the same or the framework of how we create all of these visuals are the same whether we're designing a podcast or designing a full rebrand it's really we're following the same process. Katherine Beck Yeah, and I can only imagine that that would have increased their downloads increase their subscribers because it really is from what I understand in podcast world is about that podcast art and it's got to stand out right amidst all the different podcasts out there what it how is yours going to in a moment's notice, going to catch the attention of the listener and want them to subscribe and listen regularly to your podcast? What is it about that podcast art that grabs their attention and wants them to click on it? Unknown Speaker Exactly. This is where that that saying a book is judged by its cover rings true. Is that people People see a specific color cover on the podcast page all that, you know, you'll see all these different podcasts, podcasts, you know, color fonts, the host being in front of the, you know, having their face on there is also really great, depending on the podcast. But can you communicate a story through that podcast cover? And if you can clearly do that someone would go, Oh, wow, this podcast is about this. I'm really excited to listen, and then you have their attention. So we want to make sure that Katherine Beck like, what did Chris think of mine? Because it's the Canva hack? Unknown Speaker Well, you know, and branding is always evolving. So you know, once you do something, you know, like, you did your own podcast covered. Great. Well, that's that's to get you started, but you can evolve that into something that's even more clear for your audience to resonate with. Katherine Beck Correct? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. Now I'm thinking, Oh, my gosh, just mine convey? Talking about? I have no idea I'm gonna have to come seek your your expertise, clearly. Unknown Speaker Sure. Yeah. I mean, you can always even, you know, do a poll with your audience. Hey, guys, you know, this is what the cover I want to convey with this cover. What do you guys think, and this is also a great way if you if you are rebranding, or if you are doing anything to your brand, to share that with your audience, this is the easiest way to create content is when you document and when your audience feels like they're a part of this process, they become more committed to your brand. Right? And so if they're more committed to your brand, what does that mean? You know, they're going to be more likely to buy from you later on. So yeah, tell part of the process. Yeah, Katherine Beck sure. Is. I'm curious about you, how do you use your voice in your business? Unknown Speaker How do I use my voice, um, like, my physical voice or just my like, voice as far as like messaging? I would definitely say not enough, is enough. I'm usually behind the scenes. And I kind of prefer that, you know, to be behind the screen and working and kind of elevating everyone else's brand. But as far as how do I use my voice, you know, definitely getting on podcasts like this. I do a lot of guest trainings for other, you know, part of other people's communities and things like that. And, you know, your voice becomes a very big part of your brand, especially if you are a personal brand. Because if you are behind the scenes, and never in front of the camera, or never out front of your brand, it's going to be a challenge to get people to like and trust you. Right? Yeah. So doing things like this kind of speeds up that process of gaining the trust, you need to really charge what you deserve, whatever that's going to be with your services or products or things like that. So I always kind of just remind myself, you know, I've got to do a better job of getting out there and using my voice more. Yeah. Katherine Beck Well, you're doing a great job on this podcast. Thank you so much, Chris. It was so amazing to chat with you. It's been incredibly informative for myself, as well as for my listeners. So thank you very much. Unknown Speaker Well, happy to share and appreciate you, hey, you know, invited me on the show. And yeah, hopefully we can do this again sometime. Katherine Beck Awesome. Thanks. Thank you so much, Chris, for all of your wisdom and insight into branding. Make sure if you found some value in this interview to hop on to Instagram and let Chris know. And remember, if you are ready to stand out as the voice of your brand, it all starts at the beginning. With that hook, check out my new free guide the 27 hooks and how to save them, all you have to do is head over to Katherine beck.com. Forward slash 27 hooks and it's yours. And coming up next time on the show we are diving deep into it's not just what you say. It's how you say it. Now make sure to share the show with all your friends. Let them know what's coming up next week and invite them to tune in with you to learn how to speak up and stand out as the voice of your brand. Until then go on, get out there and share that powerful voice of yours with the world. And I'll see you back here next time.