The Art of Attraction: How Personal Branding Can Lead to Business Freedom

Tonya Eberhart is the Founder and CEO of BrandFace, LLC, a personal branding company that helps coaches, consultants, and other experts become thought leaders in their industry. She is also a speaker, the bestselling author of Brandface, and the host of the Be BOLD Branding podcast. Known as the “Branding Agent to Business Stars,” Tonya has helped hundreds of clients present themselves to attract their ideal prospects and profit from their purpose.

Michael Carr is the Co-founder and COO of BrandFace, LLC and the bestselling co-author of BrandFace for Real Estate Professionals. As the President and CEO of Michael Carr & Associates, an auctioneer practice and real estate company, he has been involved in the sale of over 78,000 homes and is licensed in 31 states in the US. In 2013, Michael became America’s Top Selling Real Estate Auctioneer.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[0:41] How Michael Carr's journey in real estate turned into a personal branding triumph
[5:45] Why personal branding is crucial for entrepreneurs' financial and experiential growth
[10:33] Tonya Eberhart’s journey from selling vacuum cleaners to establishing BrandFace
[18:56] Positioning yourself as an authority for business growth: a powerful branding mechanism
[24:47] The importance of delegation and systems in scaling a business
[33:27] What is BrandFace’s 3D Freedom Formula?
[42:28] How to leverage your brand for maximum ROI
[46:13] The common struggles entrepreneurs face with marketing and how to conquer them

In this episode…

Presenting yourself and your business as an authority figure is tough, especially when many other businesses are competing for attention from similar audiences. How can you convey your unique value proposition in a crowded market?

Through distinct yet intertwined entrepreneurial journeys, brand leaders Tonya Eberhart and Michael Carr discovered the power of developing personal brands to position themselves as industry thought leaders. Through their proprietary 3D Freedom Formula, they recommend defining your unique value proposition to communicate your brand’s message to your target audience. It’s also crucial to develop compelling brand imagery so customers can recognize your brand among competitors. By leveraging your personal story and displaying your brand across all marketing channels, you can develop meaningful connections and foster loyalty and trust with your customers.

In this episode of Destination Business Freedom, Pat Mancuso hosts the Founders of BrandFace, Tonya Eberhart and Michael Carr, to talk about personal branding for business freedom. Together, they discuss the common pitfalls entrepreneurs face in branding and marketing, and how a well-crafted, authentic personal brand can save time and money by attracting ideal clients.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments:

"Branding is an ecosystem that can save you time and attract exactly who you want to attract." - Tonya Eberhart
"Consistency is the key. Success comes from practicing consistency without seeing immediate results." - Michael Carr
"Just because you can doesn't mean you should, so it’s crucial to know what sets you apart." - Tonya Eberhart
"I'd rather just be talking to the 50 people that will buy from me than 500,000 people who really just like me because I'm funny." - Michael Carr
"Everybody has a star inside of them. Let us help you uncover it." - Tonya Eberhart

Action Steps:

Define your personal brand: Clarifying your personal brand helps tailor your message to attract ideal clients and avoid wasting resources on wide, untargeted outreach.
Develop brand assets that are authentic and representative of you: Authentic assets resonate with your audience, creating a trustworthy and relatable image that drives customer loyalty.
Consistently display your brand across all platforms: Regularly showcasing a unified brand image helps build recognition and reinforces your message among your target audience.
Understand and embrace the power of storytelling in branding: Strategic personal narratives engage your clients emotionally, highlighting your distinct value in relatable and memorable ways.
Analyze the ROI of your marketing efforts to refine your approach: Assessing returns educates you on which marketing channels are effective, helping you allocate resources wisely to maximize results.

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by the Mancuso Consulting Group, a go-to resource for entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business owners dedicated to personal and business growth.

Our team of experts has coached, consulted, and trained over 15,000 entrepreneurs, C-suite leaders, and business owners in areas of sales, leadership, organizational development, and personal growth. Additionally, Pat Mancuso has launched multiple multimillion-dollar business ventures, giving him a firsthand understanding of entrepreneurs' daily challenges.

At the Mancuso Consulting Group, we are committed to exploring innovative ways to help businesses and leaders grow their people and improve their bottom lines.

To learn how the Mancuso Consulting Group can help you unlock your full potential, visit www.themancusomethod.com, email us at pat@themancusomethod.com, or call 651-503-7355.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:02

Welcome to Destination Business Freedom, hosted by Pat Mancuso. Join us as we explore success strategies and hacks from leading entrepreneurs, helping you bridge the gap between financial success and personal freedom. Your journey starts here.

Pat Mancuso 0:23

Pat Mancuso here, I'm the host of the Destination Business Freedom podcast. We are very excited. You're here today. On our podcast, we interview thought leaders, entrepreneurs and business owners who have either exited their business are on that journey. My goal is to help small to medium sized business owners close the gap between their finances and their freedom, utilizing tools and advisors so they can ultimately define and arrive at that destination, whatever that looks like to them. I am excited that you're here today because we have two amazing individuals and in full transparency. These folks in their company have helped me tremendously in where we are today in terms of our marketing in terms of our messaging, and even terms of what we're doing on the podcast here, so we're gonna get to them in a second. However, I do want to introduce our sponsor today. This episode is brought to you by the Mancuso Consulting Group, which uses its proprietary Mancuso Method process to help entrepreneurs and business owners who are dedicated to closing the gap between their finances and their freedom. Pat Mancuso created the Mancuso Method encompasses over 30 years as an owner of multiple businesses and working with 1000s of entrepreneurs and business owners. When you go to www.themancusomethod.com and take our short assessment, you will receive a powerful report with your personalized roadmap to your destination. Additionally, that will give you an opportunity to meet with Pat and evaluate that roadmap. In addition to that, Pat believes in the power of this conversation so much, that if you attend that conversation, and you don't receive $10,000 worth of value, they'll write you a check for 500 bucks on the spot, no questions asked. So if you're ready to move towards your finances moving towards your freedom, go to www.theMancusomethod.com. So, ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce two amazing people to you today. And so I'm gonna read their bios because it's powerful. And there's some really cool things in here that I did not know about. So first, we're joined today by Tonya Eberhart and Michael Carr to international best selling authors and hosts of the Be BOLD Branding podcast. Together, they are partners in BrandFace, which I know we're going to talk about where they've helped 1000s of coaches, creators and experts build profitable personal brands, and help them change how they see how they're seeing. Let's be clear how they're seeing and change what they're worth and charge what they're worth. See Anna, lemme do that again. Okay. So it's good thing. We're not live right. That's the cool part about this. Yes. So I'm excited to introduce two individuals today who have had an impact on me and my business. We're joined today by Tonya Eberhart and Michael Carr to international best selling authors and hosts of the Be BOLD Branding podcast. Together, they are partners in BrandFace, where they've helped 1000s of coaches, creators and experts build profitable personal brands that helped them change how they're seen and charge what they're worth. Join us as we dive into their journey, a couple of additional things. First Tonya he is the founder and CEO of BrandFace, a personal branding company focused on helping coaches and creators really become that sought after authority in the industry. She's also a podcaster and best selling author, as we've talked about. I found it interesting. She actually works in radio and we're going to talk about how that has applied to what she's doing today. Michael is the CEO of BrandFace. He also is a real estate branding expert and international best selling author. He has been actively involved with listen to this ladies and gentlemen over 78,000 real estate transactions. I think I did about 1% of that Michael on my journey, and has been named America's top selling real estate auctioneer. Maybe we should auction off at something today. That would be fun. We can do that. Yeah. Michael is also become known as the abundant life broker where while building his boutique, real estate brokerage and Jefferson, Georgia. You guys, welcome.

Michael Carr 4:41

Thank you for having us on.

Pat Mancuso 4:43

I am so excited to have you here today. And we're gonna talk I know about a number of things. And you know, the first thing I want to do is, you know, we kind of divide up our conversations in two parts. The first part is, I want to talk to you about that entrepreneurial journey both what you've experienced In the past what you're experiencing now, to really help owners close that gap that should sound familiar timing to close that gap between their finances and freedom, because I am so passionate about people in getting into business, and that they never actually arrive at the destination as to why they got in business. And then the second part we're going to talk about is all the great things that you guys are doing right now for people. And I'm going to put a little bias full transparency on the table, because you've done some amazing stuff for us. So let me let me start with you guys. And you, whoever wants to start can start and we'll just roll with it. Talk to me about your entrepreneurial journey. How did you guys come together in BrandFace, let's start there.

Tonya Eberhart 5:45

Okay, so I'll begin with a little bit of my entrepreneurial journey. And that'll lead right to where we met. And then Michael can take it from there. But my entrepreneurial journey actually started, not as an entrepreneur, I didn't become that until probably 2006. But I started selling vacuum cleaners door to door to pay my way through college. And I did that for three years. And that's really where I learned the first first strategy of personal branding. I didn't even know that's what it was called back then. But I just knew that I could walk up to somebody's house and say, Hey, give me your wallet, I want to sell you a vacuum cleaner. It didn't work like that. So I began to craft my own story and figured out okay, this is the story that works to get in the doors and sell more product. And so three years into that I sold a vacuum cleaner to an engineer at a radio station. And he said, you know, you really should apply for a sales job. And so I did and fast forward 18 years later, I was in the radio, I was still in the media world. And so that's when things really ratcheted up for me in terms of my brand. Immediately, I get to the radio world, and I'm all of like, you know, young 20, early 20s. And nobody's taking me seriously. And I don't blame them, right, I was just there to have fun and, and when I walked in to knock on the door, immediately, they thought, well, if you don't have lunch, bring lunch or tickets to the big game, then close the door. And so that was my life for a few months until I figured out wow, this isn't really going the way I wanted it to. So I thought, you know, if I want to change the way people view me, I literally have to change the way I present myself yet again. So round two, except this time, much more professional level, I began to change the way that I approached people. It was not about me and what I could and what my own accomplishments were because it 2021 years old, I really didn't have any right. Yeah, so. So it was really more about here's what I can help you do. And here's how I do that. And I became one of the first radio sales reps in the country to have my own website. And that really kind of sparked interest, right. And so it didn't take very long for doors to start flying open. And people realize not only did was I learning my craft, I was very serious about it and more serious about getting them results. Once they figured that out. It's like, wow, this is working like crazy. So I thought, hey, if this works for me, what if I bring my students and my clients into the studio and work with them. And so that's where I really got the bug for helping other people craft their own story, have a compelling message, all of a sudden, they're, they become these local business celebrities in each of the markets that I went into. And that common thread of personal branding stayed with me throughout everything. In 2006, I opened up an agency, I left the Big Three Radio Television newspaper, I left there to consult them. Because at the time I was hearing from a lot of people look up internet taking all of our money. And I thought the internet's taking all of your nobody owns the internet now. Right? And so look, you can utilize the internet and pull those two things together alongside your traditional offerings of television commercials, radio, commercials, whatever. And take that experience for your clients from on from offline from online to offline, right. And so those that became a journey that I helped a lot of people make, and it was very fulfilling for a while and then one day we go through the debacle, right, the big mortgage debacle 2006 789. And one day, I'm sitting in my office and I thought, wow, anybody that walks through that door I can do business with and I felt Ooh, anybody that walks through that door I can do business with that's the kiss of death. Oh my god. I'm no longer special. Every because I started to branch out and just to survive throughout that time. I began offering things just because I could and then that's where the statement that I came up with a while back came from just because you can doesn't mean you should, should so. So I had to have a nice long talk with myself that day and thought, well, what is it that I am really, truly passionate about. And that common thread of personal branding kept coming back over and over again, that was 2012. And that's when I began to write the first book in the brand pay series and decided, hey, this is going to be a business. And right around that time is when I met Michael, who became the first real estate BrandFace client that I had, and I'll let him pick it up from here, but that's all the good, bad and ugly.

Pat Mancuso 10:33

Okay, well, we're gonna get to some of that, too. So, so Michael, I mean, obviously, you had a real estate brokerage, you know, kind of been in this journey, right?

Michael Carr 10:42

Yeah, I did. I didn't start that way. I came out of high school. And my first passion was to be a auctioneer, specifically, an automobile auctioneer. And my mentor told me to get my real estate license, I might make some extra money on the side doing a farm sale, something like that. So I did, and I ended up with a license in Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. And we sold farms and under the tent and stuff like that. And I worked on another broker and in we contracted bonds for sale, things like that, as I was working car auction circuit, but then I realized, late 90s, I didn't really have autonomy to just go sell the farm set for somebody else, you know, I was what was called a contract auctioneer. So I would just charge for the sale. However, biggest sale was I didn't make a percentage or whatnot, I would just pay for my time, very handsomely for the time. And then I was done. I didn't have to worry about the violence. Nobody being happy, everybody. I just had to do my job from the stand. And I love that life for a long time. And I'm gonna use my license to build my own portfolio rental portfolio and stuff over the years. And then, so I did that in 2000. Just thinking again, I will just save commissions. And but in when the three mortgage debacle about 2007 I get a phone call from a company out of Irvine, California, and they're looking for a broker to do an auction in Atlanta, have about 300 residential houses. And I said, Well, I'm doing better. I'm an auctioneer, too. And it was just like this instant. You know, partnerships too strong of a word. But I mean, we just they all just came together like we call it a great storm, you know, of confluence that just sort of came together. And it went so well in Atlanta. I looked at them and they looked at me and I said we got to do this all over the country. And they're like, that's a great plan. So we made a concerted effort to go after the Bear Stearns residential portfolio, because they had fallen by that time. And so we got it. Most of it, we probably auctioned off three quarters of their entire portfolio, which ended up being well over 175,000 units. I ended up licensed in 30 states I've auction property in 35 states. My record is well over 100,000 units, broker and auctioneer. You know, we did we took the southeast region in soda started, you know, that count, if you will, still ongoing now. So I never thought I'd be a broker. I just thought as far as my entrepreneurial journey went, that I own my own company as a contract auctioneer, I'm responsible for my own insurance, taxes, investments, future retirement, all those things that the Mancuso Method helps people with, I was just sold on my own about all of that, and sort of, you know, hoping that I had the right professionals to help me with it. And then when the good auctioneers are always working themselves out of a job. So by about 2013 2014, it started really, really, really slowing down. And then by 2016, I mean, even now 2024 You know, our foreclosure rate is less than 1% across the nation. So it's nobody's really in danger right now of that. There's always foreclosures, there'll always be foreclosures. But it's a very tiny percent of the market and then all so now I'm like, What am I going to do? I'm back in my small hometown. So I started investing in small real estate. This is what I know. I'm back from a move back from California. I'm like, Okay, what am I gonna do? And I did a deal with a lady who had a listing, and we worked so well together. She's like, hey, we ought to open up a brokerage in this tiny little town. There's no real competition. And I looked around. I said, Well, I never wanted to do that. But if you want to help me with it, we'll do it. So we pinned the deal on my grandmother's table in the basement of my house. And and that ended up being Tonya's aunt. So yeah, so right after we started, then she said, Hey, okay, now we got started, your marketing stinks and you need help and you need to talk to time and she was telling Tonya Mike was expecting your phone call and now he's telling me Tonya is expecting your phone call. She's just a magic little person like that. It just like made us come together. I was still traveling, cleaning up you know, closing offices we didn't need and see at all and Chicago and Dallas and in California and stuff, and I was in San Bernardino, California doing one of the last sales that we did and, and when Tonya called me and she's like, Hey, I don't know if I'm supposed to call you or you're supposed to call me, but this is what I do. And I was very mean, Pat, I told her, I said, Listen, I've had five others like you, and I don't need another one. And I was wrong. I really was. And I've been recorded many times, admitting that I had never met anybody like her, I had had five people that wish that they could have been her, her knowledge and what she was able to do and what we'll talk about and break down, she started with me in the real estate space. And it was so fantastic. It turned us around, I mean, really launched our brokerage here and made us somebody in town, that we will with a brand and a name that was known, but nearly overnight, like, you know, nothing happens overnight. But within a six month period, I could go into a restaurant and people would say, Oh, you're the Michael is a new real estate guy. Right? It was just that powerful and profound, because she just pulled the story out and started telling everybody about it and made me tell it.

Pat Mancuso 16:08

Yeah, I love it. I love it. You know, here's so so there's two things that I pulled out of both of your stories. And this is very common. And it ties into why I'm so passionate about what we're doing. Most entrepreneurs come together based upon some circumstance or based upon some leap of faith, let's say. And, and that's awesome, right? I mean, that's the American dream, right? is build a company start something or you're not working for somebody else. And yet the other common theme was, is because of the way that they come together sometimes, there really isn't that end game there isn't that envision there isn't that destination address. And so, so I pulled that out only because it ties into to a lot what we do at our company. But I want to have never asked this if you guys and this might be like totally like too personal. But you came together as a client. And, you know, client and in the operator, you know, service provider. And now you're in business together? Are you just business partners? Or? No, I've never asked you guys this. And I'm like, I feel like I have to ask it because there's either either there's more that I can pull out to you or there's areas that I can't go so I

Michael Carr 17:29

I can answer very simply, like the minute that I found out that she was the secret to my future success. I just married her. At least I asked her and you know, thank heavens, she was amenable to that. No, we actually the long story, long story made super short was and she can add in whatever blanks that she wants to fill in. But we really had that I knew the minute I met her physically like face to face our first face to face meeting, that she was an incredible person, we grew up 45 minutes away from each other, even though when we met, she was in Ohio, I was in Atlanta. And we both lived all over the world all over the country of Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, like we've been Ohio, we've been everywhere. And but we came back together and we just sort of number one had that familiarity with each other. So I knew she was initially had the goods like I knew that we were gonna be friends for the rest of our life. As as things progressed, and on my side, I really found myself wanting to, you know, have something more but by that time, she asked me to co write the second book in a BrandFace series, and also to be a partner in the company. And you know, sometimes that's a recipe for disaster. And I knew we had this beautiful thing. She had this she had created this thing that was really powerful. And it had transformed me. And we wanted to take that to other people and other businesses. And that was my side of the whole back of why we didn't really become a couple

Pat Mancuso 18:56

over here for people, but we don't want to mess it up over here. Or sure

Tonya Eberhart 19:01

we want to mess it up. We were both very cognizant of that. So and then as time goes by, it's just like, What the hell?

Michael Carr 19:09

Yeah, we would date other people, and they see pictures of us and me like what's going on? Like, you know what I mean? It was like this magical thing and like, wasn't anything? No, we were purposefully like, not going there. But eventually, we're just marketing. And eventually we're like we came in tonight, but it

Tonya Eberhart 19:29

was more than marketing. More than marketing and that's my next book.

Pat Mancuso 19:36

Okay, so that helps me so here so so on a probe a little bit. So in this journey, and you're still on the journey, obviously, I'm sure you're on the journey until you exit whatever that looks like for you. And however that looks. But in this journey, as entrepreneurs as business owners, as business partners, even what's been the most difficult thing for you that you've experienced. Do you wish you knew earlier in the journey? Hmm.

Tonya Eberhart 20:03

I think for me, it would be market changes, right? Because you assume you set a course. And you just follow that course. And you don't really deviate from it, you just put the blinders on and you do what you do. And then you realize, okay, as markets shift, you have to make shifts with it. And I think common sense tells you that right, but you just are not prepared for certain shifts. And Lord knows, I've shifted more times than Madonna, right figure feels like, change my personality and my presence more times. But I think that would be it for me is just not knowing which direction to go sometimes. Because when your ideal customer changes, a lot changes, right? Doesn't change your offerings, or what you feel you were meant to do. But it does change how you present yourself. And it forces us to keep a really good fine tune on what we do for ourselves so that we can do it for clients. And that's, that's honestly been the toughest part. Yeah,

Michael Carr 21:06

and for me, it was, you know, I was already an entrepreneur responsible for my own paycheck for two decades by the time I met Tonya. But she transformed that because I was always a marketing guy that was like, I was always impressed with marketers, like true marketing people, in business owners, and we all know them. They're in every market, they're in every town, you know, there may be a car dealer, they may be a landscaper, and they may be a attorney, they may be a furniture salesman, but we all have stories of people when they were like, You know what, everybody knew who that guy was, right? And so I already knew that, but I was under that old school thinking that you just spent, you know, a bunch of money and his hope that it came back to you. And she transformed that she totally changed that for me. Like I asked this friend of mine, he is a billionaire. We're sitting on the back of his vase, you know, now it's $30 million mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean and whatnot. And I'm like, Hey, how much money should should a small boutique firm like mine be spending on marketing every year? And he said all of it. That was his answer. All of it. I'm like, All of what like, I need a quantification man, I need something to make sense. She brought the sense, like, she's the one that said, Look, unless you dial in your ideal customer, you're trying to be all things to all people. Number one, I've been on a made that mistake, and you got to stop it. And she was right. And you know, and as you know, from real estate, that's, you know, when I sell a house to anybody type of a thought, but yeah, but when you spend the money to try to go get them, you need to know exactly who it is you're talking to. And to me, it doesn't matter. Any every industry period, if you're a furniture salesman, you should know exactly who your target audience is. If you're a car seller, you should know exactly who your demographic is. And it applies to if you're a coach, who are you talking to? If you're a podcaster? What does it mean to your listeners? Yeah, everything has to dial down. And when she put those blinders on me, it changed everything. Yeah,

Pat Mancuso 23:03

yeah. And we're gonna we're going to jump to that conversation around marketing here in a bit. And I want to come back to that point. So then let me ask you this question. What, what or who? So it's kind of a two part question. What skill do you wish you would have discovered earlier in the journey? Or what advisor do you wish you would have had earlier in the journey?

Tonya Eberhart 23:27

Oh, fantastic question. You know, I think for me, it would be somebody to teach me to delegate earlier. Yeah. Because early in my career, it wasn't that I felt like I was the only one who could do anything, right. It's just, I felt like I really didn't know what I needed, or who I needed in each space. And I didn't know what I could hand off with confidence and know that that's just wrote in scripted as it stands, but as a result of trying to figure it out for myself the hard way, the long way around. I've I'm a huge proponent of developing organizational systems. And so every single task we have in our company is already dictated down to the nth degree, including links to various things, video tutorials. So if one person happens to leave the company, which thank goodness does not happen often. But if one person happens to leave or just be out for an extended period of time, that somebody else can come in and pick right up where that person leaves off and new people can be trained super quickly. So delegation was big for me and learning how to handle that in the future training people without having to be so hands on is awesome.

Michael Carr 24:47

Yeah, yeah. I would come close to the same answer. I had a good understanding early on to get very strong outside professionals. A strong attorney, a strong CPA, especially, that would help me. You know, maximize what I was able to keep in my business and the strategies that are given to all of us as business people that you know, extremely well, I did have that. But I didn't have it internally, I kept trying to put the square pegs in round holes, and it didn't fit and it didn't work. And it was just strife in the office, it was people infighting not working together. You know, I needed to be able to provide that early on. So it's for me, it would be putting round pegs in round holes are very important. Putting square pegs and square peg holes are very important and letting people do what they're gifted to do and not force them to do things that they're not gifted to do. Yeah.

Pat Mancuso 25:37

Well, you know, both of you. And it's almost 100% of the interviews that I do. The piece that many entrepreneurs are not necessarily missing, it's just never been taught to them is, Who am I behaviorally? First of all, because it all starts with me as the CEO as the Rainmaker as the entrepreneur, but then who are others. So in other words, they have to understand behavior. And then they need to have a process to consistently, you know, hire the right people, but hire the right people for the right roles. Because I think, Tonya, you said this, it's, a lot of times, it's challenging to delegate, if you don't really understand who you're delegating to, and what their behavior is, and what their skill is. And so, you know, as part of the work we do with companies that is very common, to not have those things in place, and you know, that journey, you know, cost us a lot of money around the way. And then interestingly enough, on a session podcast will be coming out in the future, we interviewed Ryan Deiss. And he recently released a book called scalable, and Ryan is an amazing Digital Marketer. And he put a process in place there that is Michael ties right into, you know, what you talked about, and Tony you as well about what you guys do at BrandFace. But it really is like, as you start to grow, you have to have those systems because it used to be, you know, me as the entrepreneur in the early days, and now it's beyond me. And if I don't have those systems, I can't replicate myself, which means I never replace myself, which means they never get to that freedom to get to that freedom.

Michael Carr 27:11

There's a man right, amen to the freedom.

Pat Mancuso 27:16

Okay, so, last question. I'd like one answer from each of you. Tell me your mentors, or mentor mentors in your journey? And I always quantify this because people go well, I have to actually have like, no, the mentor, like I have to mentor with them. And I think books, I think podcasts, there's a range of mentors where you might never met them. So I always kind of quantify that. So give me a couple of your mentors. Okay,

Tonya Eberhart 27:44

I have to share one's very personal is my aunt Ethel, and an apple was, she was my great aunt, but always like a grandmother to me. I spent many, many, many nights with her. And she lived to be 100 years old. And Michael actually met her on her 100th birthday. She was the epitome of everything that I feel like a person with character should be, she took care of her brother who was in a wheelchair most of his life, she took care and and was by the bedside of her brothers and sisters, you know, eight of them before she passed away. In their last moments of life. She was just a beautiful human being and and I'd like to think that I could take a fraction of that with me to the grave that the person professionally I would say, boy, this is this is going to be somebody that probably a lot of people talk about. But for me, Tony Robbins had a pretty big impact in my life in my 20s when I read his book, Awaken the Giant Within. And to me, the one thing it taught me was life can change in a decision in a moment. Yeah, with a decision. If you're tired of something, if you want to make a change, just make the decision and do it. You don't have to wait on a process. Oh, well, I'll make that happen. When this happens, you just go make the decision. And that and that words are so powerful. The especially the words you tell yourself.

Pat Mancuso 29:19

Yeah, I love them. Love it, Michael.

Michael Carr 29:21

Well, personally, it would be my grandfather. He was a small businessman. And I wanted a finance company was a bank manager for for many, many years and great a great fantastic family man farmer. That sort of thing. I you know, definitely idolized him. He was well known in the community, you go to lunch and people come up and speak to him. He wouldn't even know who they were, you know, stuff like that. I really admired that. I love that. That small town feel of that, no matter how big the town is. Yeah, it can still happen as you know, but you know, big metropolis is there still men and women of business that are in I don't like that people won't speak to. So I grew into that as an auctioneer. Steve Limbo was very big for me. He was the first man I ever saw. I saw his success he saw it oozed It drove Cadillacs and diamond watches diamond bezeled watches and diamond rings and gold chains and very classic man and I was loved, you know, spent all his money on golf and drinking, and I thought it was cool. And I wanted to do that himself. And so and, and in book wise, you know, thinking Grow Rich, I believed in that as a very early age, like actually a teenager, I stumbled up on that. And then forgive me for not remembering the altar, because I hate it. But there was a book. And it's actually one chapter of a bigger book. But the richest man in Babylon is a fantastic one. Because I realized early on, I couldn't save myself too well. But if I could save as much money as possible, I can buy myself into wealth. Yeah. And so that was transformative for me. Because as I started to make money in auction business fairly quickly, I just wanted to live on not that much. And so I was able to save a lot that helped me buy more property that helped lead to other stuff. I wish I'd have done it differently looking back. But you know, we all have that. Right? We all have that. You know, hindsight is 2020. Always right. And so, and then, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, from a spiritual standpoint is a very strong book. Because it although it took me eight times reading it before I began to actually understand what it meant. And I'm still 51 years old to this day, and still trying to live up to what that meant. And means, but it definitely had a transformative thought process on because I never thought I'd be a real estate broker. She helped do that. Those books helped helped me get to that spot. And now it's, I feel like I live a dream, being able to do what I do. Well,

Pat Mancuso 31:53

I think, you know, just as an aside, I did not know you auction cars off, and I have this passion for cars. So maybe we need to start a car auction company and compete with you know, those big car companies, the Barrett Jackson's in the beacons. Does that Yes. For cars? Yes. Yeah, we'll have to. We'll have to work on that branding for that company.

Michael Carr 32:13

There you go. Exactly. Okay. Okay. So

Pat Mancuso 32:16

now we're gonna shift and I shared at the top of our episode and full transparency, I became a client to BrandFace I had followed Tonya and Michael for quite a while before we became a client. And I got to a point where I didn't have a consistent message, I'm not sure I truly understood who my ideal client was. I mean, we did a lot of business we did business was about 800 businesses during 22 and 23. So you know, I kind of had an okay about who the client was. But what I'm excited about you guys is I want to go through this journey. Because, again, our goal on the podcast is to help business owners small to medium sized businesses get to work from where they are right now, to that exit. And in one of the ways they do that, obviously, is with consistent marketing, consistent messaging, and that ultimately leads to more sales. So I want to start with the process that you all go through. I don't want to steal that thunder, where do you guys have this amazing process that truly impacted like where we are and what we're doing? So talk to me about that? Sure.

Tonya Eberhart 33:27

We simplified the process for people because, you know, branding is an entire ecosystem. And most people think, Oh, if it's a logo, photo and a tagline, right? Pretty much. And if they have consistent colors in their post everyday, then their brand is okay. So we look at branding as an ecosystem, because you have to have so many things in place for it to really be profitable. So we look at 77 different criteria. But as you being a person who just recently went through it, you didn't have to look at 77 things, we took you through a simple process. And that's simple processes define develop and display. It's what we call the 3d Freedom formula, because we like you love our freedom. And, and so I'll describe the Define part of it. It's in that phase we look at who are those ideal customers, both like a primary ideal customer and a secondary, and then we look at your points of differentiation, the things that really set you apart because every human being has multiple things that set them apart, not just one. So we look at those and thinking, Okay, well What one do you want to be known for? And that's really I feel like where the magic comes in is building that bridge, positioning you in other words on that bridge between what your ideal clients feel is significant and meaningful and what you stand for what you want to be known for. And that's what we do in the Define Phase. And once we complete that, then we know the brand direction from there

Michael Carr 34:59

and then the second part says develop part. And this is where we begin to look at everything that develops that point of differentiation from your background images. You know, photos come into play, right, their tagline comes into play your bio stage bio especially comes into play your elevator pitch. This is where you explain this is the book part of the first parts of the cover of the book. This is where we begin to get into the chapters that explain to your clients why they need to do business with you. And we develop all of that out, we know that picture's worth 1000 words, it's got to be the right picture for the right 1000 words. So we have to make sure that those things online and, and when that's developed fully, and the background images and things like that, that become second nature to people when they see that oh, this is that brand. This is that person that. So the development section of that takes in a lot of thought process.

Tonya Eberhart 35:56

And then once we get all those pieces and parts develop, we literally have the brand messaging or your story and the brand imagery or that look and feel. Now we're ready to display that brand, everywhere. So we work with our clients to make sure that all those elements that we just created with them are infused into their website, and taller their social channels would do graphic design, for cover photos for social media, business cards, spotlight sheets, something we created, that's kind of like a one sheet, similar to a speaker sheet, but all about your personal brand. So there's a lot of things that we create, so that in the end, you have this amazing, exclusive, authentic brand that helps you attract exactly who you want to attract and gives you all of the materials, you need to then put that out there in the world.

Pat Mancuso 36:48

Yeah. You know, in my experience, there's a few things that I would comment on from my perspective, you know, we had stuff, we had a logo, and we had a website. And you know, we had maybe a tagline, although I don't think we really did. But my point is, is we had what we thought it was what we needed, and the realization for me, that's that like, like, do it for yourself, right? And I think some people I know I sometimes do and things like oh, well I can do that, you know, for that investment. And yet, what I realized as I went through your process is the front end of the process and pulling all the stuff that you pulled out of me. And what that creativity led to, is it actually led to, you know, a phrase that you tiny want to give you 100% credit for this was we came up with, you know, what you don't know is constantly in commas and zeros. And then we incorporate date corporated that into a lot of things. And it really is what what who we are it's educating people, and I don't I'm almost 100% certain that if you wouldn't have taken me through that process of that conversation that would have never came out. The other thing, which you know, and you talked about the 77 and holy hand, if you would have told me 77 At the beginning, I might have go nope, sorry, too much for me, I'm I didn't feel the 77 for sure. But there were decisions along the way that I had to make. And I know I pushed back a couple of times. And you guys were just amazing. And there was a point at which I won't remember the exact conversation. But it was something that there's something to the effect of Pat, just trust us, or patches Shut up. And II didn't really say that. But I'm kidding. I'm just truly kidding. But what you did was, you know, it's kind of like, Hey, this is what we do. Wait till we get to the end project. And we'll all tie together. And that's exactly what happened. And I just like the third part of this, which is really the part when we in we're doing a lot of stuff now with all of that marketing. And it's so amazing when you start talking with someone, and they go, Okay, we need all your brand assets, and I just do a share and everything they need all the colors, all the photos, everything, everything, you all have design, it's all right there. And now they just get to pick and choose from it. And for me, that is the it just allows so much leverage in the business.

Tonya Eberhart 39:13

Oh, gosh, it saves so much.

Michael Carr 39:15

It's something that she taught me early on, and it's I love it actually makes when you when you have another idea for a good marketing platform to get your message out there. It's so easy. Yeah, you know, even even with just today, in fact, we were buying we're getting another billboard. And I don't have to wait two weeks for their graphic designer to come up with something. I just send them the artwork. It's already sized to the size billboard we need. They'll have the order to vinyl, it'll be up Tuesday of next week. Right so I mean, like we don't have to wait those times in you know, in a lot of businesses, you got windows, right to grab that opportunity. And you need to do it now. So no, I think That's one of the best thing she taught me too. And I'm glad

Pat Mancuso 40:03

it's so. And I've never had that before in all the businesses and I scaled the business to, you know, 800 people in the organization a billion dollars in sales volume. And, and we've never never had that. And you know, and yet one of the interesting things that I go back to in my days, my early days with Keller Williams, and the franchise's that we launched, is Keller was so early in their journey, they didn't have all that marketing, that messaging and we actually hired somebody locally who I'd had a relationship with for a long time. And that was the reason we were successful, because we put together a consistent marketing message. And so I, you know, you sometimes forget some of those early journeys and how important they are. So, let's, let's go a little bit more in depth. So somebody who's listening to the podcast, you know, they go, Okay, well, I know, I need marketing, I know any marketing, and, you know, I know it's going to be expensive. And, you know, that's the first thing that they think about, but tell me, like, share the return on the investment in the places where they'll be able to utilize this, maybe the top two or three places that you only focus on the Isik boss, because they say costs, but they focus on the investment. And they don't actually focus on the return on the investment. So top two or three places where this will really benefit them. Okay, first

Tonya Eberhart 41:23

of all, attracting the right type of clientele. Because you can waste your time and spin your wheels like nobody's business. And the not just time, but a lot of wasted money, because a lot of people focus on marketing before they even build their brand. And that is a huge thing. The other thing is what I call self selection, okay, so if I put my brand out there, and somebody says the goal is for somebody to say, Wow, yes, that's what you guys do. That's, that's kind of what I was looking for, we need to have a conversation, that tells me that person has responded well to the brand that we've put out there and feels like it was made just for them. And they self select, and I'm not spinning my wheels, beating my head against the wall trying to generate cold leads. Yeah, so there's a huge difference there. And that doesn't even be like that's just scratching the surface. Because once the brand is out there, and you realize, wow, not only is it saving me time saving me money attracting the right people, I have, I spend my time speaking with quality prospects. And not only that, the brand stays out there 24/7 even while you sleep, and so the people that you've had a conversation with, but haven't really close the deal, yet, your brain continues to stay in front of them until they make that decision, making it an omnipresent brand. So it's a soldier working for you. 24/7 And there's just so too many ways to get ROI from it if it's done correctly. Yeah,

Michael Carr 42:55

agreed, you know, the ecosystem is, is so important. Because, you know, it would be hard for us that we can name you know, social media is that you need to be on obviously, you know, Google ads that you should do should you do organic should you do paid ads on social medias, which social medias and, and even down to certain companies in certain businesses, you know, the newspaper still works like, hey, if your ideal customers at the end of that channel, then that's where you need to be right. And so another problem with coaches, authors speakers, we deal with, they they usually have more than one vertical, they have a book they have, they have a coaching series that they do they do one on ones, they have a big ticket item and smaller entry level items. And then they're like, Well, do I need a brand for every one of these nope, Tonya's like, which came first you are the business owner, like me and your brand, you know, and what caused you to get into these other verticals is the only message that matters. And then you can send people to those things. But what is important, really important is, you know, people say marketing just doesn't work or other marketers spend money on marketing, it doesn't work. Marketing always works. If you have the right message to the right people enough times, then it's going to work. So once you build that brand, and you have that consistent message, you may say, okay, you know what, I want to boost my podcast, so I'm going to run ads to get people to come in to listen to it, you have that consistent message, you put it out there if you don't get an ROI, guess what, it isn't the right platform. And it's easy to cut that platform off and jump on this other platform with this same message the exact same load exact same field and then all of a sudden you're like you know what, that does work right there and so we're now check mark, don't stop spending money on that and and in also pulling it together. And you know, especially like I said, coaches, consultants, they usually have more than one vertical they've got money coming out in from different places or they've got a moneymaker sitting on a shelf that's getting dusty that they need to pull back down and make Hear that it gets out there, because it helps feed all of that. That consistent message is the key. That's where the ROI return comes on to each individual business, because you know, the message hasn't changed. So it's not the messaging, you know, the ideal customer hasn't changed. So it's not the ideal customer, it has to be the platform that I'm working on.

Pat Mancuso 45:21

So let me ask you a quick question. I don't want to go too far deep into this. But I'm curious because it's something that I know that I struggle with a little bit and I'm sure other people do. You got a great marketing message, you got a great brand, you got that your ideal customer, where we're like, I don't want to do the marketing. I don't want to decide where to place marketing. I don't want to track ROI. I just want to go here's my $1,000 Get me a return on investment. Is it just me or do a lot of people struggle with that part?

Tonya Eberhart 45:52

Oh, definitely. I struggle with that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's

Pat Mancuso 45:57

like one of the questions I would ask is like, so should I be on tick tock? Now I know my journal answer is no, because my family won't let me go on tick tock, but then I know I don't think my ideal customers on tick tock, but everybody's, it's just crazy. People

Tonya Eberhart 46:13

can try and talk you into anything when it comes to marketing. And I'll tell you one of the biggest challenges that we face and in return a lot of our clients faces because personal branding is or just branding in general is a word that's just thrown out there like a show misused and, and people will say I can help you build your brand, I can help you build your brand. Well, really what you have to look at is most of the time those people are selling you a marketing tool or system to promote your brand not build your brand. And there's so much confusion in the marketing world out there. And no wonder people are are really, you know, it's a complex issue for them. But yeah, I I see that happen a whole lot. And yes, you could find some customers on Tik Tok. But the way I look at it is, does that platform have at least 65 to 75% of your ideal customer utilizing it every day and

Michael Carr 47:13

stay away jobs? Exactly. Yeah. I love it. I don't think I tag

Pat Mancuso 47:20

listeners no more tick tock listeners on our podcast.

Michael Carr 47:25

Welcome. Let me think about speakers for a second, right. If you're a speaker, you want to be a professional speaker. Social media is important. And you should have things that you're going to speak about, you should have excerpts, you should have YouTube videos, you should have Tiktok videos, you should have Facebook videos, use reels, you should have all these things. They all should be branded stuff. But at the end of the day, speak, even if it's virtual speakers are somewhat brick and mortar business, right? Because no, either you're going to go to a convention that is brick and mortar with people, I flesh, shaking hands with people, and you're going to deliver a message or you're going to do it via satellite, or over a zoom call. But they're still going to be a human's like tangible choices on that other side of that, right. And so there's so many of those where I think we can get lost in social media, social media is not the end all be all for people to create a big builder business. We work with all kinds of coaches and consultants that have 100 150,000 followers on whatever platform they've dedicated their life to. And they're still trying to figure out how to make money with Right, right, because you got to get to, you know, out of that 150,000 followers, there's a certain portion of those people that are going to pay you for your expertise. And there's a certain portion, I'm just just, you know, I follow this guy, and then we all have a limited amount of attention is every social media is to pass it through properly, right? Yeah, it doesn't matter how many persons are behind you fictions, and destroy the country, they can only come through this one past six by six, right? And we're the Greeks that can hold them back or let them in. Right. And so it still starved attention span is just so like, we can only see so many. So I think that business owners have got to focus on the fact that there's a tangible person on the other end of that, even if you're using social media to get to them. And if we if we pull that down, you know, it's an old adage now, I mean, in times has been saying it for 12 years I have known or, you know, I'd rather just be talking to the 50 people that will buy from me than 500,000 people who really just liked me because I'm funny, right?

Pat Mancuso 49:29

Okay, so as we're driving to a conclusion, we're going to do two things. I'm going to get you ready for the first one, and that is, I'm going to ask you in just a second. How would folks get in touch with you? And so we'll share there but the question before that is this. If there was something I should have asked you today or something you didn't share that you want to what would that be? I'll get a thought from each of you. Okay,

Tonya Eberhart 49:51

so contact first. Eye contact Second. Okay, you got it. All right. So so for me So, I love to talk about what branding really means in the end. Yes, it can, it can position you, it can help you get a leg up on your competitors. It can help you get there qualified people, all of those things right and make a lot of money doing it. But I like to look at it as every single person has a star inside of them. And when somebody asked me years ago, I got a LinkedIn message from a guy named Bob. I can't don't recall his last name. Now. I said, Tonya, please make me a star. And he was just having some fun with it. Right? But I instantly replied back, Bob, we don't make stars we unveiled. Oh, I love it. And and I, and at that moment, I realized that was my true purpose in Beltran face was everybody has a star inside and let us help you uncover it so that not only can you thrive in your business, but you gain confidence in yourself that you've never had before. Yeah.

Pat Mancuso 50:57

I've been unveiled. Yeah.

Michael Carr 50:58

Yes. Yes. Mine would be, you asked me how important consistency is a consistency is the key. Yeah, having that ideal a customer on the other end of the doubt in message that speaks to them and why they, why you are the person to help them. Right, and then doing it consistently. Because to me, that success comes from the consistency that you practice, without seeing immediate results. And an impatient world of immediate gratification. You know, it's like, you know, hey, I spent all this money on average sent out 10 million postcards and phone never rang type of thing. It's not how it works. You have to stay consistent on this, you have to believe in your message to that ideal customer because you know, that you can help them and in in stick there for a minute because it takes your other end of that it takes that ideal customer a minute to absorb it. It's not we live in a world where things bounce off of us just like that, because so much comes at us at a time. So stay consistent with your message, you got to do it.

Pat Mancuso 52:01

I love it. I love it. You guys. Okay, so you guys have been amazing, by the way and you do your you and your team do amazing things. And so if someone were interested in reaching out to you, how would they do that? Okay,

Tonya Eberhart 52:16

so BrandFace star.com is our website and they can watch some free training there schedule a one on one call various things. So it's kind of like a, you know, a hub where they can learn more and connect. And it can also connect directly with me on LinkedIn. That's where I do a lot of conversing back and forth with

Pat Mancuso 52:38

people. So yeah, I love it. Awesome, you guys. Awesome. Michael, any other place for them to connect with you? Or we're just keeping it at BrandFacestar.com brand

Michael Carr 52:49

brandfacestar.com is really the best way and then they can get in touch with me through that. We like to keep that consistent funnel. And I'm here to help.

Pat Mancuso 52:59

Marketing, didn't you supposed to help? Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you both so much. I appreciate your time and all the work you've done for us. And we're so grateful for that and grateful to have you on the show today. So thank you so much.

Tonya Eberhart 53:19

Thank you. Thank you for having confidence in us and allowing us to work with such an awesome professional.

Pat Mancuso 53:25

Well, I appreciate it. Appreciate it. Take care, everybody. Thanks so much for tuning in. We will catch you on the next episode of destination business freedom. Take care.

Outro 53:35

Thank you for joining Destination Business Freedom with Pat Mancuso. May the insights and strategies shared guide you towards financial prosperity and personal freedom. Continue to navigate boldly. Until next time, keep transforming challenges into achievements. Farewell and stay the course.

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