Outsell Your Competition: Personal Branding, Sales Strategies, Imposter Syndrome | Kay Miller

What happens when you combine a memorable nickname like "Muffler Mama" with the art of personal branding? Join us as we uncover the unique journey of Kay Miller, a trailblazer in male-dominated industries and a number one Amazon bestseller. Through her lens, we learn how personal stories and experiences can transform self-doubt into self-confidence, creating an uncopyable brand. Host Michael Morrison also shares his own story of overcoming challenges, including a traumatic childhood ordeal, to highlight the power of personal narratives in entrepreneurial success.

Entrepreneurs, especially those who identify as introverted, will find solace and inspiration in Kay's insights into relational selling. She challenges the traditional notions of the "know, like, and trust" factor, revealing how empathy and genuine interest can be the pillars of a thriving business relationship. Kay's experiences in earning respect in traditionally male environments provide a blueprint for anyone looking to carve out a distinctive space in their industry. Her practical advice on leveraging listening skills and focusing on product value presents a fresh perspective on sales strategies.

As we broaden the discussion, the episode touches on aligning personal and company brands, understanding customer needs, and fostering long-term client relationships. Kay shares how entrepreneurs can thrive by honing their unique characteristics and aligning them with their target audience, making their brand truly unforgettable. From storytelling tips to aligning core values with business goals, listeners are offered actionable strategies to navigate a competitive market landscape and build a brand identity that resonates. Don't miss out on the additional resources and special offers that promise to further enhance your branding journey.

Kay Miller: Uncopyable Best-Selling Author. Podcast Host. Speaker. Consultant. Trainer.

Website: https://www.beuncopyable.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/millerkay/

Podcast: https://www.uncopyablesales.com/podcast

Books: https://www.instagram.com/farbeyondmarketing/

Email Sign Up: http://beuncopyable.com/5-emails

Email: kay@uncopyablesales.com

#PersonalBranding #Entrepreneurship #RelationalSelling #KayMiller #MufflerMama #Uncopyable #SmallBusinessTips #BuildingConfidence #BusinessGrowth #SalesStrategies #BrandIdentity #EntrepreneurInspiration #OvercomingChallenges #StorytellingInBusiness #UncopyableBrand #SmallBusinessCoach #EntrepreneurMindset #BusinessSuccess #MarketingStrategies #LeadershipTips #PodcastForEntrepreneurs #IntrovertSuccess #CustomerRelationships #TrailblazingWomen #AmazonBestseller  #SmallBusinessPivots #BusinessPodcast #MichaelDMorrison #BOSS #BusinessOwnership #OklahomaCity 

Chapters

• 0:00 Personal Branding and Sales Success
• 11:37 Building Know, Like, Trust in Sales
• 19:33 Entrepreneurial Branding and Sales Strategies
• 29:30 Sales and Branding Strategies

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivots podcast. We have another special guest from around the world and, as I say, week to week, only the business owner can say their name and the business like they can. So introduce yourself, please, and your business and just a little something about you and one good thing about that name is I never have to spell it.

Speaker 2: 0:29

So that's a good thing and a bad thing because it doesn't stand out, and I am the co-author of a new book called Uncopyable you, and I should say it's Uncopyable. You Create a brand that gets people to know, like trust and, very importantly, remember you. So this is all about personal branding and, as we just talked briefly, really that's a tough thing to do to really stand out in today's world, and so I've got some killer advice to help you the personal, you know, solo entrepreneur or business owner to do that.

Speaker 1: 1:09

Fantastic. Well, let's introduce the show. We'll come back and we'll get started, and we're also going to find out why you're also known as the muffler mama. So we'll be right back. Welcome to Small Business Pivots, a podcast produced for small business owners. I'm your host, michael Morrison, founder and CEO of BOSS, where we make business ownership simplified for success. Our business is helping yours grow. Boss offers business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at businessownershipsimplifiedcom.

Speaker 1: 1:49

All right, welcome back to Small Business Pivots. Today we have Kay Miller, a number one Amazon bestseller book, also known as Muffler Mama. But let's start with your upbringing, because I know a lot of business owners have mindset issues, right, so they feel like they're not qualified to be a business owner this, that or another, and so sometimes when we're listening to podcasts, there has to be something we can relate to. So for me myself, I was kidnapped by gunpoint as a small child, kind of grew up as an introvert, you know, and kind of faced those challenges, wasn't very studious and you know, and some business owners they just think I'm too dumb to do this or to be successful. So what are some things that how you grew up and then how you started adulting so that you got to where you're at today.

Speaker 2: 2:37

Well, I'm happy to answer that, but I have to ask is that true? Were you kidnapped at gunpoint?

Speaker 1: 2:43

This is life. So, yes, it was when I was a toddler, yep, born into a domestic abuse family, had an abusive biological father. My mother tried to protect us and took us, my little brother and I, to her dad's house. My grandpa and he came over there and kidnapped us, or kidnapped me, the oldest, by gunpoint, and so then we were put up in foster care. So kind of a strange little story. So I was. I grew up in that kind of atmosphere, a private, oh, I would say kind of we went by a last name, alias when I was growing up. You know, we didn't have the Internet and stuff, so, but people would try to track people. So there was, it was kind of an eventful life, but it also kept me very timid and lack of self-doubt, nervous of other people, you know those kinds of things.

Speaker 1: 3:40

So, yeah, absolutely know those kinds of things. So, yeah, absolutely so. For me that was a huge challenge to build my self-worth, to believe that I could be what I want to be and not what somebody else was trying to make me. So, yeah, absolutely, great question, thanks for asking Wow, well, great answer too.

Speaker 2: 3:55

You know, I mean, that's horrible that it happened and it also explains a lot. Yeah right, exactly, just kidding, but I have nothing like that. But in my background.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Everybody has a story.

Speaker 2: 4:09

Yeah, I do, I have a story, but I grew up in an incredibly normal family, especially compared to that, but not an entrepreneurial family. So my dad as in as it was back in the day a lot of times he worked for one company his entire life. He met my mom at this big. There's a real retailer in Seattle it's out of business now, but it was around for a hundred years called Frederick and Nelson, and they had a cafe, a cafeteria actually in the basement, and he met my mom there. She was a waitress and he was a bus boy. So, anyway, that's the kind of big, exciting stories I have in my past.

Speaker 2: 4:52

But I did as a kid and teenager I did like entrepreneurial things and partly because I liked money and I don't know what my allowance was back then because I'm 65 years old now I think it was a quarter a week. So that went further than than it does today, you know, of course, but I wanted to buy things, I wanted to have things, and so I wanted to make money. And until I got into the babysitting years, which you know were not that great, anyway, I wasn't super excited about being a babysitter, but I loved to sell things, and one of the things. Do you remember the little toy called Creepy Crawlers? Are you old enough to remember?

Speaker 1: 5:39

that I do remember the name. Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 5:56

Yeah, so you poured this glue stuff into a metal tray and put it in the name yes, absolutely. And at first just sell to my parents and my relatives. And I noticed the further you get out from your nuclear family, the more you can charge, right? Your parents are like what we feed you You've already learned sales at that point.

Speaker 2: 6:15

And then, as I got even older, probably the best business model I had and I also wrote a book on sales Uncopyable Sales Secrets had and I also wrote a book on sales Uncopyable Sales Secrets One of the best business models that I had was to sell penny candy. With a neighbor of mine and he would go to the store and back then again, olden days, you could buy candy at 7-Eleven for a penny and then we'd sell it to the kids who were too young to go to 7-Eleven. We'd sell it for two cents. That's a pretty darn good profit and I mean, you know, unfortunately we ate quite a bit of our inventory. So that was, you know, there was a lot of shrinkage, as they call it retail. But you know, we made money and it was fun.

Speaker 2: 7:02

And one thing I really liked about that was that we had really happy customers. I mean, there was no need to market or advertise. We had word of mouth, no pun intended, but you know, the kids told other kids and so we had that that going and and I ended up earning enough money to upgrade from my super dorky Raleigh bike to a 10 speed, actually a 12 speed bike, and I earned that money by selling candy. So you know, and I you know, dennis I'm sure loved me too, and all your friends, oh yeah, yeah, all my friends.

Speaker 2: 7:40

So. So I thought, boy, sales is fun. I mean really if you can sell the right product or service. And that's a big part of my philosophy in sales and as an entrepreneur or business owner is it's not forcing someone to buy something they don't want to buy. That never works, unless you know, maybe if you're selling solar or you're selling you know, I don't know, one time I bought a huge crate of grapefruit from a door-to-door sales guy and you know, and he would never, never came back. So you know you can pressure someone into buying something once. But I'm sure you, as a listener, are not trying to do a one-on-one sale. You're in this for the long game and so you know the mindset around sales is just, it really is super important. It's extremely important because if you are helping someone solve a problem or helping them achieve something that they want, what's wrong with that? In fact, I like to call selling helping, because if you're doing that, hey, you're you, hey you're doing good by doing good, right. So that's kind of where it came from.

Speaker 2: 8:51

And then I did go to college and I graduated with a degree in business, because my husband, my dad, my dad split the cost of college with me and he said I'm going to give you four years and I want you to come out with a degree that will get you a job. So that was my. You know, those were my marching orders. So I got a degree in marketing, thinking that it would be really cool to be in marketing, but unfortunately you had to be an MBA for marketing really, or some experience, and unless you found a company that was dumb enough to hire a recent college graduate to help you with your marketing. So I ended up with a sales job. So I was actually my first job. I was the only female outside salesperson they had ever hired. So that was a very interesting experience and I did very well. And so I was hired away by Walker Exhaust. It still exists today and it's a line of automotive exhaust products. So it was a very glamorous product line. So it was a very glamorous product line Mufflers, catalytic converters and pipes and things that make a car not pollute as much and make as much noise. That was my product line and at that point I was not the first woman ever hired, but I was one of just a few and I went on to become the number one salesperson out of the whole company National Salesforce, and so, as just one of three or four women, that was a big, huge deal.

Speaker 2: 10:35

And I know we're getting. We want to talk about small business, so I don't want to dwell on this too long. But the story, one of the stories that I feel was just really so critical to my success, was the story that gave me the nickname Muffler Mama. And so you know, here I was what 25 years old by that time, maybe very young and didn't know anything about cars, you know, except for driving one, of course. Then they didn't have backup cameras, so I had quite a few accidents, but they were all going backwards, so that's no longer a problem. But I went to one of my distributors and I said you know, I really don't know about exhaust products, so I want to go into one of the muffler shops and I want to learn how to do this myself. So who can I talk to about that? So they gave me one of their customers that they thought would be good and open to this idea and they were excited about the idea.

Speaker 2: 11:37

Really, my experience as a woman in male-dominated fields has been really interesting. I feel like men are sometimes they're whatever reluctant, reticent or reluctant at first because the credibility issue or whatever. But so many of them through my career have really embraced and helped me. So this customer I went in and I said will you teach me how to weld, how to install a muffler? And they just got a huge kick out of it and they said, of course. And then they looked down at my shoes which were penny loafers I think at the time and they said you need to go to Red Wing Shoe Store and get some steel toe boots. I'm like what. So I did and that whole story is in my book Uncopyable Sales Secrets, and actually some of it is in Uncopyable you as well, because that gave me this nickname, muffler Mama.

Speaker 2: 12:38

It earned me huge respect with customers and prospects and the people on my sales team. You know the other salespeople and sales management. So one day that I spent in a muffler shop which, if you read the story, it was pretty comical, but it has. How many years later, 40 years later, it's still with me and it's part of my personal brand, and so that story is something that when you're listening, you as a listener, I really encourage you to dig in and find the stories that you have in your past or that you can create. That will make you stand out, make you unique, make you uncopyable, because the way that your story unfolds will be different, even if someone else has that similar story. How you make it personal is a critical part of your personal brand.

Speaker 1: 13:40

Absolutely, and we talked earlier about people buy from those they know, like and trust, and so, just like you were talking, I love. Well, let me back up. I love the way you framed sales. Sales is fun, right, and I know for business owners most business owners hate sales, so this is going to be a great conversation and very helpful tool for them, and sharing your story is important for them to hear because it is all about your past experiences.

Speaker 1: 14:09

I believe you know, for me and my story, that could have been the complete opposite. I could have not been adopted and grew, grown up in that lifestyle for the, and probably behind bars. I mean, that's where my biological dad was all the time. From what I hear, never met him, but you know our stories could have changed. And so, for me, my story, I can empathize with business owners because I know what it feels like to have self doubt. Am I doing this wrong? Why is everybody else doing this right? But so, using your past experiences, your story is critical. But let's talk about the know, like and trust part, cause we were talking about that before and you heard somebody say that that's not important recently and I you and I were like what? Because I'm all about know, like and trust. I'm not going to buy from somebody A I don't trust and then B I don't like because I don't want to see you again.

Speaker 1: 15:00

Right, right, so let's talk about your book and how that all plays out.

Speaker 2: 15:04

Yeah, and just I'm going to tie that back a little bit to the muffler story because that became part of my branding promise that I wanted to really know and understand not only my product but my product from the customer's perspective. And you know that showed my commitment, which is still part of my branding promise. You know, I want my customers, my clients, the people that I work with, to succeed. And now, who doesn't want to buy from somebody that has that attitude? Now, as far as the know, like and trust, when I think of know, I don't think of someone that you know from a networking meeting or someone that you heard on a podcast, or maybe even somebody that you have a relationship with. It's what do they think about you when they think, okay, I know Kay Miller, well, what do I know about her? I know that she's an authority, that it's really important for her to be at the top of her game and for her to use all her skills to help me. So it's not just know, as in being an acquaintance. As far as the like part, the like part, one thing that I always refer back to is a book that you've read everyone listening you've read how to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Well, to be liked, maybe you don't have to be liked to be, you know, sell someone something, but when your name comes up on their caller ID, do they say, oh my gosh, can't wait to hear from Kay. Or do they think, oh my gosh, yeah, it's Kay, again Voicemail. So so liking is important, because what if they like your competitor and they don't really like you? Even if, everything else being equal, they're going to choose someone they like. And the interesting thing about getting someone to like you is to follow the advice in that book, to be likable, which basically means to be interested in the other person and a good listener. And you know we talked before the podcast and of course, your job in this podcast is for you know, to make me look good and for me to share my information. But I have a podcast too and I'm going to give it a little plug Uncopyable Women in Business.

Speaker 2: 17:32

So I exclusively interview women, and when you hear me interviewing other women, you'll see it's the opposite. You know I don't want to. You know, have that be all about me and my story. I want to draw them out. So, obviously, listening to be interesting, all you really have to be is interested. So it's simpler than you think.

Speaker 2: 17:56

So if it's that easy, why not? You know, be likable. You know, when I'm friends and with many of my clients and customers, we have that kind of relationship where they say, oh my gosh, I just had my first grandbaby. Let me send you a video, you know, and I ooh and ah. And it's genuine, it's not fake. But you know, we talk more about their lives than my life. So being liked is very important in my book. Now, trust there's no business without trust, absolutely. That's why I feel like you really need to show your customer that you are invested in their success. And then the book that we just wrote, my husband and I co-authored. I should give him credit. His name is also easy to spell Steve Miller. And if you're old, you know what the Steve Miller band is. And now I can't believe how many youngsters I'll say you're a youngster if you're maybe under 30,. Who's the Steve Miller band?

Speaker 1: 18:58

Look it up, it's awesome. Yes.

Speaker 2: 19:00

Yes, so the last part of this book title is extremely important.

Speaker 1: 19:07

You're listening to Small Business Pivots. This podcast is produced by my company, Boss. Our business is helping yours grow. Boss offers business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at businessownershipsimplifiedcom. If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and share it as well. Now let's get back to our special guest.

Speaker 2: 19:58

Now let's get back to be memorable. And that's part of that story idea. And if you are an entrepreneur, small business owner, that personal brand is very likely the company brand. You know, when I worked for Walker, when I was an outside salesperson, I represented the company and that was their brand. But I didn't just have a company brand, I had my own brand. Oh my gosh, I had my own brand and that was extremely important to my success. So, as you think about yourself and your business, that you present to prospects and customers, really to stand out and be memorable is what really gives you the edge to draw people in and make them want to do business with you.

Speaker 1: 20:44

Absolutely. I agree with all of that. So whoever said they didn't agree, I disagree with them, right, good, it's so important. It's so important because you are the face of the business, and so it's kind of what do they say back in the old days? Heard it from the horse's mouth, or you know something like that. It's like if I don't trust the owner, I don't trust the company, Right, so?

Speaker 1: 21:08

or if I don't like the owner, I don't like the company, or know, like you said, that brand reputation you know, I may not know this person actually, but I know people that know them and if they tell me stories and they all kind of align, I'm going to kind of go with their story in some form or fashion. So tell us about the book and how an entrepreneur, where can they get started? Because I know a lot of business owners are like myself when I was younger. I'm not an introvert like I was I had to work on that but a lot of business owners are introverts and that's why they don't like sales. How can we help them with the tools that you share in this book and resources?

Speaker 2: 21:50

Well, I like that you bring up that point. I don't like sales. I'm an introvert. So many business owners start a business because of their passion. Now I'm an entrepreneur. My husband and I have worked together for over 30 years in business and and believe it or not, we're still married. We've been married for 38 years. So I am an entrepreneur and our, our business was always based around business goals. But what if you like candles, you want to start making candles? Or you know you want to teach yoga or something else. I mean, it could be something totally unrelated to business. And you think I don't like sales. I'm not a salesperson.

Speaker 2: 22:33

Well, listen to this. I've got some news for you. If you don't sell your product, your brand, your service, no one else is going to. That's got to be your number one priority as a business owner. And I just listened to something it might've been. It was on a podcast. It might've been your podcast. I'm just going to say that Someone said you know I do have the gift of gab, and that always kind of makes me chuckle.

Speaker 2: 23:01

I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, because, guess what, I have the gift of gab big time, but I think sometimes that works more against you than for you Because, as I said, listening is more powerful in selling, listening and pulling out details. So if you are an introvert, you are, I think, more naturally a listener, and that's actually an advantage. And also, as an introvert, you don't come on so strong. You know, I listen to various business podcasts and I'm not going to call them out really, but but some of them are just, they're so pushy. They talk about how they give the client you know, here's the deal and the client says, well, I can't go that high, you know, can you? You know, give me something better? It's almost like the used car thing where they say, well, let me call my boss and see if I can get a better deal, and then they just go out to their car for a minute or whatever. They hang up the phone. Oh yeah, I talked to him and I guess we could give you a little better deal if we do something different on the terms To me, who wants to buy like that? I don't want to buy like that. Introverts, if you're listening and you're an introvert, it's probably going to take less discipline than someone like me, or maybe what Michael's turned into extrovert, that we've got to hold ourselves back. So you know it is hard. You have to do things you're not comfortable with.

Speaker 2: 24:33

In fact, I just talked to one of my consulting clients and she needs to sell a product. She's taking a product to a trade show and it's a big piece of equipment and so she wants to sell it in that area rather than ship it back. So we use this really cool program. It's called or I did, I did it for her no data, no business. So if you look that up, you can actually pick a geographical region and list the kinds of businesses that you want in that area. So she got that list. Well, time is of the essence. There's no time to be emailing or sending things or whatever. And she said I'm just going to have to pick up the phone and do some cold calling, and she hates that. She hates that. Well, fortunately, she just listened to one of the first podcast episodes one of mine with a woman named Connie Lefferts. Now Connie is in her 80s now and still runs a very successful business. And Connie talks about her first sales job was going door to door selling cancer insurance.

Speaker 2: 25:40

Oh, my and she said you know that's worse than like being one of the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, you know, to get the door slammed in your face, but she's also she's not an extroverted person, so it doesn't really. It's more about about do you care about what you're selling? And she said you know if it wasn't right for them. Next is you know the word you. Who's next? Uh, but she did it more by listening and talking with that person and until she got burned out on that, she was very successful.

Speaker 2: 26:12

So cold calling or doing something that you're uncomfortable with, sometimes you just have to do it. I mean, I can't believe how many you know. I really tune into people who say they're not confident and some of my most successful guests say oh, I have imposter syndrome. You know I'm doubting myself. I hear people interviews with Hollywood celebrities. Oh my gosh, I never think I'm going to do it right. I can't watch myself on film things like that.

Speaker 2: 26:42

So all of us none of us feel like we can take on the world every day, and there might be an exception to the rule, but really I think deep down all of us have those insecurities. So a big part of it is saying okay, what is important. And if you take the focus off yourself that's another big key for me and say, okay, if I'm nervous, it's because how do I sound, how do I look, how am I doing? And if you start thinking instead of the person, okay, how do I want to help you listening on this podcast. I want you to get something out of this that will help you grow your business, help you be more successful. So that is a way that you can get over that introverted part. So there's a very long answer to your question.

Speaker 1: 27:29

No, that's great and I do want to, you know, because we're here to help people and impact small business owners, and I do want to give them a couple other tools that we offer. And that is DISC, DISC certified. So if people don't know what that is, that's predictable behavioral traits. So if you are coming across like that pushy salesperson or whatever, it just teaches you how to recognize those traits so you can kind of adjust your communication style. And then you mentioned the Carnegie book. But something that really helped me was Toastmasters. I did it for a couple, three years and it really brought me out of my shell, I will say for the introverts, though if I don't continue to practice that memory muscle in my head, I will go back to an introvert. I did kind of relapse a little bit during the COVID years because there weren't any events to speak at.

Speaker 1: 28:22

I speak in front of large audiences now with no problem, but if I don't continue to use those muscles, that introvertness will never go away. So those are a couple of tools to help business owners, because I know it can be frightening. I remember when I first had to sell the very first time and it freaked me out, you know. But let's talk about your book real quick. How can it help people? You have two books and how does that help business owners?

Speaker 2: 28:50

Well, I do want to touch on a couple of things. I like your your point about the disc profile, and of course there are different. You know a lot of different Myers, briggs and Enneagrams and and any of those that can help you read people. And then also using your own intuition to read people, and I'm also I've been in in Toastmasters I went a long time ago actually, and this is kind of funny because I've always been interested in humor and I entered in a humor contest and I bombed, and so it's. You know it was humbling but it really taught me a lot. Like you said, a lot of it's just being comfortable in front of people. So, as far as my books, as we touched on, sales is something that if you're a small business owner, entrepreneur, it probably isn't in your ilk. It may be if you're lucky, but it probably isn't. So my sales book really gives you the approach I'm talking about Finding out about what your customer needs or what will help them, things like saying I'm not going to sell you something unless I really believe it will work for you and walking away from a sale boy. Talk about building trust. You know, no, I'm not going to sell that to you Listening, getting to know them, doing what you say you will, which I am just always shocked. I'm sure you experience this too when someone says, hey, thanks for calling me back or thanks for following up. You know, some of those being brilliant at the basics go a long way really. So so this my sales approach, which got me to number one and has helped us build a very, you know, profitable business all these years, has been more just of a relational type of you know back and forth, and all my sales career I've always been in long-term potential clients. You know sales that could happen over and over again. I can sell new products to them, they could refer me to other people and if they like me, why wouldn't I say you know? Do you know anyone else who's in your position, the position that I've helped you with, because I'd be honored if you would refer me. And if you do, you better believe I don't. You know I want to make you look good. I won't do anything to make you look bad. So you know for me saying, talking about your branding promise, who you are in the uncopyable sales book.

Speaker 2: 31:23

I talk about a woman who said you know I give white glove service. So what does that tell you? White glove service that sounds great and she delivers on that and so that's why people buy from her. And in the sales book I have an example of someone who said his product is not the lowest price product but he knows about every manufacturer's rebate, he knows every new product that's coming out and if they can't get their product he's been known to hand deliver it to them, drive his truck out, you know, in the snow. And so he says what will a better price do for you if you are out of product? And actually one of the things he says sells is toilet paper. So hotels, industrially he's like how's that going to help If you're out of toilet paper? At the Hilton in the middle of the night? A better price is not going to save you. So those are all things to think about as you look at sales in a totally different way.

Speaker 2: 32:23

And as far as the branding book, I think it's really important to know yourself. You talked about the disc profile. You know, do the disc on yourself, obviously, so that you know. You know who you are and take some time to think what is important to you. And of course it can't be making a bunch of money. That can't be number one. Of course we hope that comes from number one, but number one is what are my values and how can I use those to help others and to build my business?

Speaker 2: 32:52

And then you think about what we call your moose, which that's your target market. And it comes from a story of if you were a moose hunter and you went out into the forest and you started, you know, trying to hunt bear or deer, or, you know, rabbits or whatever, any of that time that you spend with them trying to pursue that animal is not going to help you get your goal. It's going to actually take away from your goal. You know it's that opportunity cost. So, finding out what's important to you, finding your target market and then tying the two together, how can I, you know, meld those together in a way that's meaningful? And then, of course, you have to find out what's unique about yourself. What about you will appeal to your moose. One of them is a story like I call myself Muffler Mama. People call me Muffler Mama, and that represents something that is very memorable orange my husband and I, that's our branding color. You'll never see us without some orange on, and if you have to ask. It might be our underwear, so don't ask. So if we can't see it, we know what it is. You don't want to know? Yeah right, so you know. But it could be language like the moose. You know what is it.

Speaker 2: 34:11

What can people say about Kay Miller that they can't say about anyone else? Well, they can say she's muffler mama. They can say she's where's the color orange? You know moose is her lingo. If you look up any of those two on the internet, I will come up. No one else will come up, and with a name like Kay Miller. You know that's not going to help me. If your name is very unusual, that might help you, but I encourage you listening. What can you say about yourself that can't be said about anyone else? And it's like a recipe. It's not one ingredient, it's how it all comes together and what you stand for as your brand is. You know it's. You know the recipe and what different components you can use and to represent yourself and to be memorable and meaningful to your moose.

Speaker 1: 35:06

Very nicely said. Well, we've just barely dipped our toe in the water, but I think we've piqued some interest to where people probably want to know. Where can I find out more about you and do you have resources to offer our listeners?

Speaker 2: 35:19

Well, I appreciate that you liked the interview. I've enjoyed it very much and, yes, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Miller Kay, so just Miller and then Kay. I do have a gift, a free gift for you. Of course, I'm asking for your email and you might hear more from me, and if you don't like it, you can unsubscribe. But I have a five email series called the five steps to building a profitable personal brand. So five different emails that will get you started on that journey and then, if you like what you read there, you know you'll learn more about the resources that that I can help you with. Our website is beuncopyablecom and I am k at beuncopyablecom.

Speaker 1: 36:09

Very nice. Well listeners, I hope you sign up for the email series I know I'm going to. I always end our shows with a question If we were in front of an audience of small business owners, all sizes of business, years of business what's one thing that could be applicable to all of them? It could be a quote, it could be a book they need to read, or just some insights of helping them.

Speaker 2: 36:34

Well, I'm going to go back to that Dale Carnegie book because it's so simple and it's such a good reminder. All of us who's more interesting than us was into botany and he asked him. He said I know nothing about botany. Well, they spent the whole evening talking. The botanist was telling Dale Carnegie everything that was involved and the next day he reported to the host of this dinner party. Dale Carnegie is so interesting, he's such a great conversationalist so that even though we hear over and over, you need to listen. I love that book and that story because to be interested is to be interesting.

Speaker 1: 37:30

Very nicely said. Well, you've been a blessing to many. We appreciate your time.

Speaker 2: 37:35

Thank you, and thank you so much to everyone listening. I do wish you all the best. Thank you, and thank you so much to everyone listening. I do wish you all the best.

Speaker 1: 37:40

Thank you for listening to Small Business Pivots. This podcast is created and produced by my company, boss. Our business is growing. Yours, boss, offers flexible business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at businessownershipsimplifiedcom. If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and share it as well. If you need help growing your business, email me at michael at michaeldmorrisoncom. We'll see you next time on small business pivots.