John: Everybody, welcome back to The Life is Digital podcast, I’m your host, John Bianchi along with John parks our Chief Strategist here at Bos. Today we have a really special guest, a great friend of mine, Katia Rave, is here with us. Katia is a business coach, she also helps business owners tell their stories online, more effectively. How are you, Katia? Good morning.

Katia: Good morning, I’m very well, thank you so much for having me on your show.

John: Absolutely, no, it’s an absolute pleasure. I think I was on your podcast series, a couple of weeks ago, and I had promised that, “Hey we needed to make this happen, so I’m so glad you’re here. Something also I notice is, you’re a tango dancer, and you speak three languages, but this is interesting, French, English, and money and You help business owners grow to the six figures while living the life that they love. So, can you tell me a little bit more about the tango dancing?

Katia: Right, right, right. So, actually, everybody will get a little bit more about that because my book is coming out in a couple of months. It is all about how all the tango dancing… There’s so many rules into it. And how has that inspired a lot of the ethic and the roles that I have in business. I’ve been a tango dancer for now over 12 years, and I teach it, I performed it in Los Angeles, I judge it. So, it is a part of my life and I don’t really usually mix with the business, and I wanted to always keep it separate, but with the book, it has really come together and intertwined in an amazing way. How do we conduct business?

What makes a great story? 

John: Well that makes absolute sense, and I think that there’s a lot of times when sports or activities are really great areas and grounds for us to learn and implement the things that we think about in business. And sometimes, we separate them but really there’s a team aspect there is being part of a larger program, there’s obviously individual performance.

You know… So, what makes a great story? What is something that a business owner has to think about when they’re developing the story, of their brain? ’cause I know that’s something that you focus on a lot is, obviously writing books, presenting stories and obviously a lot of the speaking that you do. So what goes into a great story?

Katia: Well, I think so many things and yet one simple thing. What is your point of view? How do you look at life?

And I think when you really have discovered what is your point of view on at the core, then you can make a story telling about anything. I mean, right now, you can prompt me to tell you about cooking or about finances, or about relationship or parenting, and I could give you exactly my point, of view who really relate into the business, because my point of view is very clear and I think a lot of time, people actually are not clear about how they feel about things. What is the way that you see the world? And for me, that is really at the core of what a good speech and a good story telling, comes to. How do I see the world?

John: That’s a really, really fascinating point, and Jon, I think we’ve been talking about the last couple of weeks as well, is the first thing that comes to mind is you and I have talked through that every business owner or someone who is in business is an expert in what they do, and part of reaching their target market is about relaying those expertise and showing value in the space that they’re in. Does that make sense, Jon?

Jon: Yeah, absolutely, and one of the things we discussed, or the last couple of weeks is that, if you’re in business, you need to know why you’re in business. You need to know what your unique value proposition is that you bring to the table if you can’t, if for first of all if you don’t understand that, or second or if you can’t explain it, you’re gonna have a really tough time finding a lot of head-way in the marketplace.

I guess it just comes down very simple, if you don’t know it, no one else is going to know it either. So you’ve got to find it, you really got to be able to explore it and…

I know, just from a lot of the work that I’ve done in my career that you gotta work hard with business owners with marketers, with really with anyone in the commerce space to pull that out to really get that cemented down. Because what I’ll hear often, and Katia, I don’t know if this is your experience or not, but a lot of people say, “Oh yeah, yeah, I know exactly what it is, but when you challenge them and not in a confrontational way, but challenge them to say… Tell me, write it down, explain it to me, tell me like I’m a five-year-old, right? And they really struggle with that so, I don’t know, that’s been your experience. I know it has been mind.

Katia: Yes, yes, and I actually love them. I always say at the core, we have a point of view, and then we have identifying your avatar what pinpoint do you fix? and what body proposition do you offer? And you’re correct, most of the time, and I don’t know in all around but I coach a lot of coaches, a culture, not of people really in the service industry and one of the things is they can’t communicate that. They know what they do, but they just absolutely can’t communicate it, like you say, like a five-year-old. And we need… I always say we need to be able to say, we talking to at praise storical person or like no more than the eighth grader. You know eighth grader should understand exactly what we do and they should be able to really say it back. I really love that you brought that in.

How to layout a business story 

John: Yeah, so what… From your perspective, Katia, this maybe can connect to some of the conversations that John and I have been having, what are some of the elements and how you help someone to lay that story out? ’cause that can kind of connect different pieces of marketing right? ’cause everybody consumes content differently. So, someone may be that when we’re marketing sees a digital advertisement might be different than the individual who consumes an email or a text message or there’s different facets to that.

So, how do you kind of help someone when they’re telling their story, make it universal, but personal.

Katia: Well, your point of view is your number one and understanding your audience, right because we’re gonna communicate differently and to a different audience. About eight weeks ago, I just eight and half weeks ago, I was the keynote speaker in Italy in Rome.

I communicated there, very differently. I dressed very differently than I do in America. Why? because my audience was different, we really have to connect with who the audience. Who is there? Because really, it’s not about me, it’s not about me, as a speaker, it’s about what do I give, for What do I give the audience, and that really is the core of your presentation. Who’s my audience number one? And then you have to keep them entertained. We have to be relevant, we have to give valuable content to the audience. So how do you do that?

Well, first of all, stay on top of the news. If you I mean, literally, before I go on to speech, I literally look at the news, six-minutes before. Why? I wanna be relevant. If something happened, I need to weave that into it to show them that I am the expert. They cannot know more about my subject than I do. If not, I lose them. So then it’s very easy to bring, you know the story that you have and those you have the stories then you know to… On one and I think from that point on you can put it in you entire speech. Do you have to keep them entertained.

It’s not about my story, it’s about how does my story relate to what I want them to get.

Does that make sense?

Six Facets of Putting Together Campaigns 

John: It absolutely does. And I think you touched on, I think I counted about six different facets of how we put together the idea behind campaigns. You have to be relevant, you have to know your audience, you have to keep them entertained. It has to be Agile, it has to have good content and you have to deliver that effectively. So those are the six things I think I said to myself, but Jon maybe you can… I think connecting to that in terms of how we deliver our brand stories, as marketers, knowing the audience is a critical… Critical piece of what we do every day.

Yeah, that that’s absolutely right.

And one of the areas where we probably spend the most time and working with our clients and I think that’s true for most marketers, is really understanding who that audience is, or what kind of demographic or interests characteristics can we find or do we know about them?

And then for maybe returning to different advertising platforms right? We wanna make sure that we know what that audience is where they hang out, so that we can reach them, right?

So typically, in our world, this is built around personas are a critical element in any marketing campaign.

So anybody that’s listening is not familiar with personas as we’d love to talk with you about them and how those are created and really how they’re useful they really help us go forward into any marketing campaign just to make sure that we are connecting in the right place. Otherwise, we’re just kinda throwing around ads, we’re throwing around content or throwing around messages and hoping something sticks somewhere, but more often than not, where we’re not successful at sticky. So we want to make sure that we’re going to get your message in the right place.

Katia: I actually, I love… Then you said that. So having your personal having your avatar, your ideal client. however you want to call them, is the number one success of having a business. And I am still very surprised to know and people want to reach everybody and we’re not there to serve everybody.

And when we compose a speech that’s actually a huge part. For me, I want to make sure that I, I give a story who brings a huge emotion, like a strong emotion, a reaction, and really whether it’s good or whether it’s bad, right, because either way I provoke a reaction number one, they won’t forget about me that so trust me, they want… And second then, if they’re really attracted by what I say, they’re gonna be like…

She’s the girl I wanna work with, I know she’s gonna make me work hard, she’s targeting on numbers, this is someone I wanna work with or they’re totally going to go the opposite.

I don’t like her she’s too strong in is someone more laid back. I don’t want someone who’s gonna push me by developing a speech who’s gonna show it, therefore micro-interview ’cause really…guys there’s so many business coaches out there.

How do I set myself different, and I need to be able to put that in the speech that way I attract the right in, does that make sense?

John: Yeah, it absolutely does. And I think that is such a critical point that business owners should consider exactly what you said. You don’t need to reach everyone, or serve everyone, you’re looking for your targeted ideal client, and that’s qualified that can engage with you to do your best work. Something I think we may forget sometimes is that business is a transaction, right?

Obviously, we wanna be paid for our services, and that’s always important, we also wanna be able to do our best work, and the clients that engage with you and your message and believe in the value of that relationship will give you the freedom to be able to do the best job that you can do with the resources. So the best client relationships that I think we can engage in is when we have a clear targeted purpose and we’re obviously serving the business need. And then the individuals were able to do that work have the room to be successful in the best way they know how… So I’m sure you both would agree with that and I really love that you brought up that point.

Katia: Yeah, I don’t need for everybody to love me right? I need people who love me, I know I’m gonna try them if they’re really driven if they’re really, they’re like… You know what, I am there and I really want to work and that’s why I track and that’s really a huge part my clientele of my avatar.

Key Takeaways 

John: That makes absolute sense to me. So I know as we kind of wrap up our conversation today, what are some key points that you would wanna leave the audience with when they’re considering developing their message, developing their brand story. What are some key pointers and key takeaways that you have?

Katia: Your story is unique in the point and a story, it is so unique, no matter who you are, you got something in your story that can help people that can help your audience that can help the people who are working with you and inside you. There is a story that is so relatable it shows who you are it speaks to the universal emotion and when you have that really any audience, whether it’s in marketing, whether it’s on your website, whether it’s on a speech there will be able to relate to you.

That’s really the story is being… And second, you have to know your stuff. You cannot… You have to continue growing, you have to continue learning you can see I always say if you stay where you are, your degress we have to own… This is a perfect time and we sing it.

COVID is really going to bring entrepreneurship to a different level, and if you’re not thriving if you’re not continuing educating yourself and getting better, you’re gonna get passed by so many people. This is the time right now where we’re gonna see entrepreneurship really growing.

John: Well. I really loved that. Katia, thank you so much for joining us today. I think I know what I need to do, I’ve gotta learn tango and I’ve gotta get better at it. That’s what I took away from our conversation today.

Katia: Yeah and you’ve got the scoop. I have not talked about the book yet, this is actually not even on my own social media. So I thought, since you asked, it was the perfect way to bring it in.

John: So there you go. Well, I wanted to give you an opportunity, I know you do have some new, you have the book coming out and you said you have some new tools that could help business owners. So I wanted to give you an opportunity just to share with us and let people know where they can get in touch with you and how they can work with you.

Katia: So, on social media at Katia Rave or rave if you wanna say it that way, on LinkedIn, on Instagram on Facebook.

But some of the tool, I put together really cool workbook on how to put together a speech. And how do you carve it? And that is, if you go to hot talk to Red talk top dot com, you get that, you can also get 30 needs dot com. And how do we get needs by speaking? And a bunch of stuff that really connect with me on social media. It’s the best way I did a lot of value and give so much.

John: Well, that’s awesome Jon, Katia thank you so much for joining us today, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast. Life is digital, we’re on all the major platforms. There’ll be some more information in the comment section below and don’t forget to connect with concise is a great friend, she’s awesome, on social media, I love her posts. I love the inspiration, and I’m probably going to have to take tango. At some point here, as well, so thank you so much for joining us today. We’ll be back again soon.

Thank you.