Moore Style - Building a Powerful Brand: Capital, Image, and Funding Essentials

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Want to transform your brand from good to unforgettable? Discover the power of image management and how it can unlock new business opportunities as we continue our branding and funding conversation wi...th Branding Coach Samantha McGinley and Business Funding Expert Haley Hoppe. Today, we explore how managing your image is crucial in building a brand that stands out and attracts the right opportunities. Samantha shares the top three strategies for building your brand, while Haley offers practical advice on building credit and obtaining capital to grow your business. We also touch on maintaining image and brand consistency and why it’s essential for long-term success.If you’re looking to refine your brand and elevate your business, this episode is packed with more expert tips and actionable insights. Tune in and take your brand and your business to the next level!“I think the whole idea around branding identity starts with knowing your message, knowing your audience, and all the aesthetics and everything. Then, you really have an established brand identity.” ~ Samantha McGinley In this Episode:- Top 3 branding tips to grow your social media- Defining your brand identity- Understanding the 4x4 Color Analysis System- Must-wear colors for stage appearances- Why quality beats quantity in clothing- Key wardrobe essentials- How capital works for your business- Building credit as a young entrepreneur- Finding success in business and lifeConnect with Samantha McGinley:🌐Website - https://polariscreatives.com/📷 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/samthebrandingcoachConnect with Haley Hoppe:📷 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/itshaleyhoppe/Connect with me here:🌐Website - https://celestemoore.com/👤Facebook - https://facebook.com/profile.php?id=100078179075595📷 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/celestemooreimage/TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@celestemooreimage▶️YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@celestemooreimage

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Oh, my gosh. Can we just talk about that for a second? Because we just saw Celeste speak last night at this amazing event that was in a resorts world. And I have to say, like some feedback, some just like positive feedback. The room just moved up towards the stage when she got on. You're listening to MoreStyle, a podcast to help you transform your image and transform your influence. what would you say your top three things are to grow social media from a branding perspective i would say it depends on how fast you want to grow first off first and foremost because like
Starting point is 00:00:36 you need to know how quickly you want to grow in engagement and followers but first you know before anything when you establish that you're like okay great if i want to grow in you know four months it's possible but you have to post a lot you have to post a lot you have to be consistent about it you have to be real about it if you're ready to like for like slow steady growth then i would say that's easier to manage but all depends on goals i would say to really understand how you're going to grow on social media is going to come from the standpoint of understanding your audience understanding what they need and what they want from you for example i had a dear friend who i met actually in new york and we were talking about
Starting point is 00:01:12 literally whom his page was growing but it was like stunted and he got he got engagement but not a nut and i was asking him i was like okay do you post on your stories and he was like no like i mean like i repost or i post motivation and i was just like well your your followers don't know why they're there they watch cool shit and i was like and like are they supposed to buy something if they're just like if they're there for a person and that's fine but there has to be some sort of goal like you're like it's a kind of just like teaching kids right like you have to teach people why they're there to like to follow you because then if they want to leave or if they want to stay that's up to them but that's the most important
Starting point is 00:01:54 thing so when you understand your message you understand like what you're talking about then people are going to follow the line behind that so i would say understand how fast you want to grow understand the people that you want to talk to and then also understand like your brand as a whole like i talked about understanding your what why and how what are you offering how are you like how are you giving it? How are you presenting that to people? And then why did you start your business? Why are you there? What's the ultimate reason? And once you have those things, all of those things together, then your growth definitely can come. That's great. Is there a certain platform that you see grow faster than others? Because people ask all the time, right? I think it's just
Starting point is 00:02:29 maybe you can answer that and shed some light on that. TikTok. TikTok is the fastest growing platform right now. And if you can utilize that and show your authentic truth, then do it. I would say that you cannot post the same way that you can post on Instagram because like in Instagram you can do b-roll you can post like seven to eight second clips of you just you doing something in very long captions nope not on TikTok TikTok does not like that at all so you have to post consistently two three four times if you really want to grow and that I mean that every day like if you post consistently two three four times every day for 30 to 60 days on TikTok you can see massive amounts of growth and as long as you're engaging with other people on the app liking other
Starting point is 00:03:11 things. Because ultimately, if I were to say anything, each platforms want you to stay on their app longer. The whole point of social media is to be on it longer. So if you can do that, kind of engage with it more and be an intentional around it, then you can grow pretty quickly. Okay. And one last question for you. If people are struggling with their brand identity, what are some things and what are some pointers that you can give them that would help them to identify their brand identity? I would say start with building out your customer avatar. Excuse me, because you have to know and define who it is that you're talking to first and foremost. So why I do this is because of a mentor of mine. I asked him, I was like, what is the thing that
Starting point is 00:03:54 you did when you first started your brand? He's like, well, I had to think about the person I was talking to. And he told me this whole person, he's like, Sam, I don't want you to do this with like AI or anything that you can. He's like, I just want you to be creative. Like, you know who you're talking to so can you just like write it down like pull it out and so i did and so like my avatar ideally her name is janine and she is she's 20 years old she's 20 years old she has a salon but she is like renting a chair right now but she wants to be okay she just moved from corporate world wanted to move back like had to move back home with her mom and it's just unhappy so she's just like i need to market and they need to grow and they need to expand my book of business so in
Starting point is 00:04:36 order to do that you need someone like me that's my avatar so really i think the whole idea around brand identity is starting there it is it starts with knowing your you're knowing your message knowing your audience and then all of the aesthetics and everything are kind of like literally i was talking about this the other day with someone kind of like febreze like the finish touch to things that's how your aesthetics come in like for like for breeze is like if you've ever as a power of habit it's actually like an amazing marketing story for breeze originally started in like the early like 90s okay and like if not late 80s but it was literally trying to be marketed toward people with smelly homes and they were like okay if you have
Starting point is 00:05:19 a smelly home you can do this but then they realized that when they were going to talk to people that nobody knew they were their home was smelly because you don't smell your own fur oh yeah i've heard of this i've heard of this like you getting used to the own you're like the stinky trash can in your house or whatever exactly yeah and so after they did multiple studies they so they handed out like febreze to like a different kind of people and then it was like their last hem to things and they actually met a housewife and the housewife was just like i just like love Febreze it's the finishing touch and so I like the finishing it so that's their whole marketing now it's just a finishing touch to when you're home and everything like that so when you think
Starting point is 00:05:59 about that as like aesthetics that should be your Febreze that should be the finishing touch I like that so when you put it all together messaging audience and then you're Febreze the final spreads and you really have an established brand identity I love it I love it That's really cool. That's so awesome. Thank you. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here next to you and all I can think about. What a beautiful shade and stuff.
Starting point is 00:06:25 It was so insulting. And how I love this color on you so much. Your eyes just, she just comes. Do you say a beautiful shade of summer? She's a, I'm a shade of, she's a shade of summer. I just keep looking at her eyes and she's animated and she's in her element talking about her business and her passion. and then the color just
Starting point is 00:06:45 makes it go it's a time when we should talk about the color orange absolutely I wish you had orange on right now I don't what's with the color orange let's talk about the color orange my favorite color and so when we were doing
Starting point is 00:07:01 the whole process of like the virtual color analysis and everything I was like so let's kind of wear orange like I have orange in my closet like I love orange is a five such an aesthetically pleasing color but i also just like love orange like i have a jack-o'-lantern tattoo that's orange and it's permanently on my body but you're a halloween baby yeah yeah i'm born on halloween
Starting point is 00:07:24 so i was asking her like can i wear the color orange and we literally got in like a little tip about why is this not good this is her orange her orange is more like a watermelon it's like an orange pink okay okay that's just so everybody can wear it's not really burnt orange either it's definitely not burnt orange orange color palette she's like the orange that i thought it was a pink yeah it's water it's a pink orange that's it okay but she's like this is watermelon okay anyways so after the virtual color analysis so on her you after i do a four by four color analysis on you there's 16 seasons and she is in the summer category but the darkest of summer categories and in the color wheel that i provide there's like what's so poetic a shade of summer
Starting point is 00:08:10 she's like shaded summer and so because she's wearing the right color against her in iron like everything about her she's glowing whether she's wearing makeup or not and and then you were just glowing because you were in your element of passion and it was just like beautiful shaded summer well i went like i used to be blonde obviously i was blonde blonder blonder very blonde yeah like very much so your color brighter and um she was like well have you ever thought about dying your brown i was just like my natural color i just did not have been thinking about it though and so like it would be cheaper maintenance but it'll care so much cheap maintenance minus the grays but it just brings out it's just so the white what the white hair or whatever
Starting point is 00:08:54 posture out and so just coming back to those colors that make you really vibrant and alive and like healthier and younger and all the things i mean why would we want that celeste what is your feelings with the color black oh so black does a couple things black should only be worn in the winter season so there's like four winter seasons on certain people and only for certain occasions what do you mean by four winter seasons okay so there's 16 color seasons okay and everybody falls within one of those seasons of the 16 and uh winter it plot if you're wind what's that complex Oh, it's very deep. It keeps going and going and going. But when we get to that category, the subcategories, and then it's not every one of them. Some of them can wear most of them. Okay, let's just put most of them. But what black says, it is elegant. It is like black tie events. There are certain times when you should wear black, but then there's a lot of times you shouldn't because it allows you to fade into the background and be quiet. So think about all the people that are behind the scenes with things like women, like, okay, he's like, that's why I wear black. Or people that get their hairdressers, right? They're wearing black, not just because of the colors that stain their clothes, but they don't want to take away from their client.
Starting point is 00:10:17 so there's all ways when you should actually wear black and a lot of times when it's not for your skin eye and hair or personality it will literally um make you look tired and old and washes you out and then just literally just think of death not yeah it's really interesting that you said about death too like when i was really deep into like yogic sciences and studying yogic sciences like black was the color that absorbs everything uh-huh right so it's like don't wear that through the airport you know like all the energy that you're going to be getting yeah it just like absorbs from like the yogic science yeah active right and then black for funerals like in india they don't wear black for funerals they wear white they wear white because
Starting point is 00:11:00 white is the most reflective and it embodies all color and it expands your auric field i love that so white is like white is kind of luminescent though you for like what's your feelings on white because it's all walks into a room and they just they kind of command a room when they're all in white i mean what do you what's your thoughts and like white cream so white because it also is my favorite color right does allow you to come white does allow you to come forward but it's unassuming like it doesn't you're just there still it's it's think about color color is not white or black color is energy and that doesn't have energy around it so if you want to come to the forefront white is great but there's nothing else from that there's no energy protective
Starting point is 00:11:45 too yeah and maybe it's like a kind of a shield right right well let's look at red yeah that you're wearing today right it's the most commanding and powerful color it can mean it and every color has like a negativity and a positivity too and red could be like oh passion in a good way in a bad way or it can mean you're i've seen that as a bad way or it can be too much or it's too much of a color yeah so it depends on what your message is and I think that when you look at all colors I think that's really the most important is the message you want to send to whoever your audience is so that because that's the first thing we notice it happens in a second before our brain can compute what we're seeing and what we're feeling because energy is you're getting some
Starting point is 00:12:30 type of energy from in a some in some type of way and so it there's all ways and and times to wear certain colors so let's say if somebody is like if you're working with like speakers for example right like what kind of I mean I guess it would like you work with skin tones and stuff like that too right yeah kind of match them that way but what would be like a good commanding color for a stage yeah without being distracted I guess yeah that's a good so again it matters who your audience is if yeah if you're talking to a bunch of art people or people in that type of creative space then color is great because but yes this the color has to represent not only your personality your hue your undertone and your you know the value that because some people can't wear as
Starting point is 00:13:20 bright of a color because that's not who they are right and it it all ties into place but like who is your audience so who are you speaking to but bright bright colors in general on a normal audience is too distracting also shiny anything shiny is going to distract us yeah no sequence not a you know but if you're like at a ball like yeah of course you know we're a sequence but like so you just have to think who your audience is what is your message um but usually darker core colors and core colors are like they're all different but just think of like navy burgundy like hunter greens like a teal could be her core color so it's something that she you can build a capsule wardrobe around but it's also when it's you're you're the person that they want to see
Starting point is 00:14:03 and hear their message not necessarily like i'm seeing your suit or i'm seeing the glasses right well we were talking about that we were having a really good conversation about kind of like how you were your outfit yesterday was almost like a leaning blonde and so we were talking about how color can be one of those things like a focal point in an art piece art obviously they say like the leading line or even photography right it's the thing that you follow to to the the point of the image and so it's like you said that people more often speaking they wear something bright on top just to call the command the attention up top but when you do it right you can command the full focal point to be in that line to actually lead right up into your face so that it's like
Starting point is 00:14:47 the whole thing yeah grabbing versus just one piece oh my gosh can we just talk about that for a second because we just saw Celeste speak last night at this amazing event that was in a resorts world and I have to say like some feedbacks and just like positive feedback that the room just moved up towards the stage when she got on it was the way she she commanded the room it was that it was that beautiful suit that you wore and a very unexpected like color uh combination that just worked so well but it was like wow i want to pay attention to her and her story was so good and she just commanded the space so beautifully but the first thing i i noticed too was like the way she walked on so confidently oh my gosh just so confidently on stage it was weird too because
Starting point is 00:15:34 we sat we sat in the back and we were just like enjoying because we yeah came in a little behind and um you could just just everyone moat like everyone shifted their body like yeah paying paid attention the whole aura of the room shifted to like not doing anything else but listening right and it was it was so cool to watch it was yeah well just to see like all of the things of what you said yeah earlier you were talking about the feeling that you had before but then when you put on the suit it was like everything was embodied no it wasn't just you everyone else it was really felt like my superwoman suit i don't know how else to describe it you looked and sounded like a super one up there you really did I think that like I've experienced this a few
Starting point is 00:16:22 times but there's nothing like last night and so I think when you you deal with your clients and you with your client the fact that you've gone through these things personally it makes it so much more intense like on a different level just like when Paul was talking he had that moment and experience too the client so I just think yeah it was insane that created like I remembered who I was because it was me that that embodied it wasn't just because it was a suit um it was the colors it was the style it was everything that's inside of me like was able to like present myself in a way that it was like armor like I was nervous I was so nervous but I put that on and I delivered and And that was like, it was interesting to see the feedback from you guys.
Starting point is 00:17:10 I appreciate. Yeah. Yeah. So Celeste, you shop for your clients as well, right? Do you shop for clients as like an additional service or as a stylist? I do. Uh-huh. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:17:23 Yeah, yeah, yeah. If somebody was looking like they had a certain budget or they didn't want to spend like a fortune on clothing, for example, like, oh, I'm not going to go and buy a bunch of designer stuff, for example. would you be able to fit like just an everyday person into your services uh yes i could do that um i i'll tell you how i choose to work and why um i don't think that designer has to be an issue for me it's the quality over quantity and so like we've bought things in in at zara in newark for because you know sometimes you this is zara yeah but sometimes you just need a piece and it works
Starting point is 00:18:02 But it's very hard to always find a piece because it's a metal chain. It was a quality, yada, yada, yada. So where I come in and why is the quality over quantity? It's because that I don't, I don't, everybody, all, even the designers now are using cheaper materials and things are coming, you know, they're just unraveling. And half the time it's not your color or it's not your style or it's not the fit. And so I'm not saying you have to have everything custom because I don't think that that's necessary as well. But I won't like here I have $500 go to Zara and pick everything. Okay, we can pick some pieces out. But I don't think for me that's going to benefit my clients in the long run. And I'm about the long end game. like here let's really create a wardrobe that lasts a long time and that can serve you in multiple ways so that at the end of the day you're saving money you're saving time and that it's you
Starting point is 00:18:58 know you keep going through fast you know like fast fashion and you know first of all you're polluting the environment you're just like feeding into it's a lot of political behind it for me as well so yes i do shopping but it's it's very strategic to each person and their goal and But I want to create and customize a wardrobe that works for you for long term. What are a few key pieces that everybody should have in their wardrobe if they were going to splurge? So splurging, in my opinion, is a outside coat. So whether it's a trench, a pea, like depending on your location and definitely like a sport coat or definitely a full suit. It just depends on your lifestyle.
Starting point is 00:19:44 Yeah. so cashmere sweater like a trouser you know it just depends on what are your goals what's your lifestyle where do you live i do resort wear all the time you know no no i don't i don't i know for entrepreneurs for sure you want a good suit right yeah like people notice that stuff yeah for sure um yeah so hayley talk to us a little bit about i know that you wanted to talk about more about how capital works for you and your business and your clients? Yeah. We don't turn anyone away. There's always a resource that we have. We have different departments built. If your credit isn't ready, we're going to get it ready. We'll get you ready
Starting point is 00:20:28 for funding. And hey, if this is something that you've been put off for a while, then this is probably a good sign that it's time to straighten your financial house out as well. Because if you don't have a strong foundation your business doesn't have a strong foundation right like you don't have a good financial background like at least just the basic stuff like very very basic things um like knowing how much you're spending you know in your business what your monthly expenses are how much um you know like all that stuff that's very important to have a business budget and kind of stick with it and be disciplined with it um but yeah we don't turn anyone away as far as like okay so your score isn't in the 800s well we're going to get you to a score where
Starting point is 00:21:10 we can get you funding so there's there's definitely a way and we are very creative i'm not like the boring financial you know person that you go to and it's like oh this is just a banking like i'm very laid back and i'm also about like empowering people with information um to use so you can grow your business and you don't have to rely completely like if you hired an accountant but you don't know your own things you know like you don't know what's really going through your accounts or things like that i mean you could be paying these guys so much money and they're not really doing anything but how would you know yeah you know well and that's a good point too because you were talking about more like the long term of things right because
Starting point is 00:21:48 i'm going to say it's more of a short term or more of a long-term process or does it depend yeah i think you know every time somebody goes through a process uh like a journey a funding journey i call it a journey because it kind of is journey uh yeah you cannot these ladies came down they have been they've been through the journey uh firsthand and are it's still in the journey you know so it's impressive yeah exactly and there's layers and levels to this too so like you know the more that you build out your personal profiles and like increase your credit limits actually it's a great tip to give to people that like the stronger your personal profile is the more credit worthy you are for business. So like focus on that first. And then a simple thing that
Starting point is 00:22:33 people don't often do is just simply request a credit limit increase on their existing credit cards on their personal side. And that way, like your spending doesn't look as high of utilization. You kind of give yourself a little bit more breathing room as well, you know, because we always want people to be like for funding is under 30 percent utilization on the personal side. And then if you already have existing business credit, although under 10% will get you higher limits. That's just a fact. We've seen it all the time. But we can work with under 30% if you're like, you know, kind of strained for some cash. But on the business side, if you're a business owner, under 50% utilization is really important as well. So just keeping that in mind, like as you're going through rounds, we call the rounds of funding because we make sure that the credit is preserved through the whole process. That's really important. Like having good credit is like we guard it. Like once you get there, it's like, oh, came on, my profile is so good. We're going to guard it and keep it there. And then we just move everything over to the business side so it never reports on your personal credit profile again. it doesn't tank your credit score you now have so many options you save a lot in interest you can go get all kinds of loans you can refinance your car into the business like moving debt into the
Starting point is 00:23:55 business keeps your credit profile really really good did I answer that that also leads me to the question of what I was thinking about is and just being a younger entrepreneur and all the things advice once you tell someone who's like really kind of like looking to build their business build their funding in the sense of just it's like you said how to get started as just like keep aware of those percentages like get prepared in that sense of how you're using your cards already but yeah younger what would you tell them to do differently yeah for sure um there's there's some like if you're younger you're probably renting you know so we want to like have a well-rounded personal profile. So that does not mean go out and apply for a bunch of credit cards.
Starting point is 00:24:39 Do not do that. We'll tank your credit score. Then it looks like you're hungry and you're seeking credit. That's not how we want to go get business funding. So when you're younger, things like rentreporters.com, Rental Karma, those two companies, for example, can add on like four years of rental history. They'll backdate things and just verify things with the owner or the property management company that you use. And then you'll have positive reporting things on your credit report, things like that. There's many different companies. We can, you know, talk about those. That's a whole nother show. That's a whole nother show, a whole nother talk for sure. But yeah, things like that. There's secured loans that you could put on your
Starting point is 00:25:22 credit profile but we definitely want to be like well-rounded making payments on time very very important don't get late payments guys and to avoid that set up auto pay for just the bare minimum but then pay attention to your statement date so your statement date is when the credit the when it reports to the credit bureaus so make sure it's on minimum payment for the due date because that does count but but also make sure you're looking at the statement date if you're ready for funding and you want it to report to your credit profile that you paid something down then do it before your statement close date so that's really important to know yeah what else could i give you for uh younger um yeah secured the secured loans for sure like there's different banks that
Starting point is 00:26:07 will do secured loans a really good trick to do is let's say you have a thousand bucks right not like you're going to spend a thousand bucks you're just moving money around this is where the creativeness comes in in play you're going to start a secured loan let's just say with like maybe federal credit union for example they're great for this purpose um just not sponsored with it i'm not sponsored by them at all um but they're great for you know this exact situation you ask for a secured loan you put up your own money as the collateral as the loan right so they ask you over the phone how much would you like to be a thousand bucks we'll just see us for easy numbers you're going to what right when you that post on your account you're going to pull that back out
Starting point is 00:26:50 because you can use it now it's a loan right that you've secured yourself then pay it back 90 90 and trickle in the last 10 then it looks like you have a positive loan that's 90 paid off but you did this in like two weeks you know and then you can let that trickle in uh for like a year so positively reports so then in considering of timing i would like to ask your maybe it's 30 second response to this uh you both have been through a lot of life and you both have been like growing business owners and entrepreneurs what would you tell someone women men whoever is really trying to build a business what advice would you give them to move forward whether it be mindset business whatever success is measured by the promises that you keep to yourself
Starting point is 00:27:41 So I promise I'm going to get up and do these emails today. I promise I'm going to go to the gym. I promise myself. And be willing to do the things that other people aren't willing to do. Very good. I would say to find out what you're truly passionate about. Like really, like forget about the money for a minute. Take away all the things and really look at like who you are, what lights you up.
Starting point is 00:28:03 Because when you find that thing, it's like that. It's like what Whitney says, the it factor, right? your energy your aura people will you will attract who you are and what you are and and literally that will be life-changing in your business yeah yeah welcome like thank you for being at our red table talk kind of way yes our yes red table the red table who did who took the lead huh oh yeah it works every time girl yeah it was awesome yeah thank you i really appreciate you yes i appreciate you .

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