How do you create impact with technology and still make your customer experience feel personalized?

That's the question I explored in this episode with Brandi Bernoskie.

Brandi is a digital strategist, website developer, and founder of Alchemy+Aim and North Star Sites—companies that help entrepreneurs and business owners elevate their online presence and enhance their digital experience.

Brandi’s has worked with thought leaders like Brené Brown, Laverne Cox, Martha Beck, Judy Smith, and Kate Northrup as well as other notable change makers since 2013.

Whether you're starting a website or already built one, this episode will be golden to helping you with your digital strategy and how to think of ways to humanize your brand, connect with your audience, and automate and offload in your business so you're working in your genius zone.

Related Post: The Biggest Mistakes People Make When Creating a Website with Jen Olmstead

Stellar insights

• [02:12] Brandi explains her unique story—from a non-techie with a theater and philosophy background writing earth science education to digital strategist, web designer and entrepreneur.
• [04:14] Build a business that aligns with who you are and the passion shines through.
• [05:04] Consistency is KEY with your messaging and online presence.
• [05:39] There is immense power in utilizing community and collaboration to create impact.
• [07:00] To nail down your core message, understand the problem you solve for people.
• [08:57] You can utilize technology as a tool to make your customer experience more interactive.
• [11:34] Even with automated pieces of your site and inquiry process, you can still inject personality and humor to humanize the experience.
• [14:06] We all have unique styles and unique processes to be valued.
• [16:25] For customer loyalty and retention, interact one-on-one with them. Ask questions, listen, and follow up.
• [19:40] One thing to remember when creating your website: keep it simple.
• [24:08] Automating your scheduling can help take out some of the grunt work of your business.

Rapid Fire Questions

What is your best organization hack?

Oh, my bullet journal. I love my bullet journal. I will sing praises all day…frankly, I'm a very creative person. I don't think I'd get anything done if I didn't have a bullet journal. So it keeps me organized. It gets my brain on the page so that I can like be present with people. […] It's a grid based mole skin that I can just list things on and get things out of my head.

What is the book you've recommended most to others? 

It's Story Brand, definitely Story Brand. I recommended that a lot. Profit First by Mike Michalowicz, which has been game changing for my business. That's been a really, really good one. And I still to this day, I will say just to kind of add a third, I still love Simon Sinek, Start with Why. You know, when you've got your core why, so much as possible and you can kind of see how you can just lead and how you give wherever you show up.

What is something you've learned about yourself this last week? 

That I have unrealistic expectations of myself. It's kinda funny cause that comes up as a business owner a lot. I recently did like “Let's craft my ideal job description.” Inevitably as you grow as an entrepreneur or business owner or creative, you start out doing some things that maybe aren't in your zone of genius and they're probably not even in your zone of like—they're in the zone of like, “Oh, I guess I have to do this.” Like maybe like bookkeeping. And as you start to push some of those things off of you, I think it's really great to kind of do an ideal job description. “Hey, these are the things I eventually want to delegate. Maybe I'm still going to do them now, but this is what I want to step into.” And it was funny because I did this exercise and then I was like, “I wonder how many hours per week this is?” It was 66. I would need to work 66 hours a week to do all of the things I want to do. And it was just a good check in like, Hey Brandi, that's unrealistic. You can't work that much. You are probably putting things on your list that really aren't in your zone of genius and that probably needs to be offloaded. So it was a really good lesson in just like a little check in with myself and saying, “Hey, what's what's going on here and why do I think I have to do it?”

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Links mentioned

• AlchemyandAim.com
• www.Brandibernoskie.com
• NorthStarSites.com
• Instagram: @brandibernoskie and @alchemyandaim
• Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller*
• Profit First by Mike Michalowicz*
• Start with Why by Simon Sinek*
• Acuity and Calendly for automating scheduling

*This is an affiliate link which means that I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps me be able to produce free, valuable content for you. Thanks for your support!

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