Menu

Ep. #59 – Building a Binge-worthy Brand with Nikki Arensman

May 31, 2022

Subscribe to the show on: AppleGoogleSpotify

Introduction 

Nikki Arensman is a brand strategist, a designer and the host of the Business of Branding Podcast. She is also the creator of the Brand Identity Breakthrough which is a done-for-you branding kit that allows service providers to stand out online in an ethical way without having to spend 1000s of dollars on their branding.

In today’s episode, we’re going over the 13 strategies that you can use to build a binge-worthy brand. And I know you’re thinking, Krista 13 strategies sound like a lot to take in. I want you to know that Nicki goes over a lot of the things that you’ll want to start thinking about today in order to build a binge worthy brand. Nikki also has done-for-you programs that you can purchase to help guide you through each of these steps. 

She’s also a soon-to-be mother of two, and the former founder and CEO of a nearly million dollar women’s activewear line Jeeva active, which started with only a $300 investment.

Who Is Nikki Arensman?

Nikki Arensman: 

I have been in the branding space itself for more than 10 years. As soon as I came out of college, my degree was in graphic design so you kind of dive right into branding in some capacity. I’ve worked in sign shop settings, and I’ve worked in licensing for children’s sporting goods, I’ve worked in product development, packaging design, and then eventually, I started my own clothing line of women’s activewear. And I was doing a lot of textile design. So a lot of patterns, and we were sublimation printing on fabric. My sister and I grew it for about five or six years by the time we sold it. And in 2017 we sold that business. And that’s when I started diving back into the roots of branding and what that meant. Because the time when I worked on that clothing line, 2013 to 2017, social media was just so different then. So influencers and building a brand in this new digital space was just booming and there were no rules. And there were no agencies and influencer agencies like none of that really existed then, which is always crazy to say because it’s really not that long ago. And it sounds like you’re talking about some 25 years ago, but it was all in the last decade. 

So branding and brand building and brand strategy has just totally shifted in the last decade because the rules have changed. And so we sold the business in 2017 and I started looking into like, Okay, what made that business so successful? How are we able to grow our following, our email list, our client base, our customer directory? Like how are we able to do this in such a quick amount of time. And it really came down to the visuals and the messaging and really kind of just positioning our product in front of the right people at the right time and utilizing all these tools and resources that we had available to us. So from there and figure out, okay, I don’t like dealing with all the numbers of the business, but I do like doing all the creative and the brand strategy work. I love all the messaging, I love all the marketing aspects of it. But I don’t like managing the budget and manufacturing and all those things. So that led me into more of this like digital online space where I started consulting other businesses, a lot of product-based businesses when I first got started, and then just navigated my way into more of creative entrepreneur space, and supporting other designers, stylists, coaches, consultants, service-based business owners, helping them build a brand in the online space and carve out their little area and create a brand that they could be proud of, and excited to share and talk about from day one. That has evolved and changed over the course of the last five years. But today, it looks like I don’t do as much one-on-one consulting, but I do have a lot of the principles and practices of brand strategy work, or just the visual pieces and templates. And I sell a lot of self-led programs, courses, templates systems and that’s more of what my business setup looks like now. But it’s been just like an evolutionary journey in branding, which has just evolved so much because so much has changed in the way that we actually build brands.

Stop Overcomplicating Your Messaging

Krista Marie:

Yeah, I can imagine especially coming from that kind of a background where you worked with so many different companies and wore so many different hats and working in so many different spots. I imagine that experience led to having so much insight into how different brands can grow and build their own strategy. And I love that you have worked with enough clients, and you’ve done this enough times that you have those done-for-you things. 

It’s so funny, because for me when you think about having the right messaging and targeting the right clients, when we say that out loud, it sounds so simple. It’s like, “oh, just have the right messaging and get it in front of your clients that you want.” And you’re like, “Okay, but how?” 

Nikki Arensman: 

It’s interesting because it can be really simple. I think as humans, we just tend to overcomplicate everything. At the epicenter of everything is social media. So everybody’s like, okay, am I showing up? Am I doing this? Do I have a tick tock? Am I creating reels, the algorithm etc. And we get so caught up in, that’s the only way that we can get in front of the right people, or that’s the only way that we’re going to be able to convert an audience into actual paying clients. And there’s so many paths to whatever success looks like for you in your business. And there’s so many ways for you to actually position your products or your services, or you as a creative person in front of the right people. At the core of my business and from my experience working with so many industries, from product-based businesses, to photographers, to designers, to breathwork specialists, to doulas, at the core of all of it is always the brand strategy work. It’s always understanding who your ideal clients are. And not as shallow as they shop at Lululemon and they make X amount of money a year. It’s really more understanding about what season of life and of business these people are in so that when you are speaking to them, and when you are making decisions in your business or creating a new offer or trashing an old offer and revamping it, you’re doing all of this from complete and full understanding of exactly where the gaps are, how you can fill them, and what your ideal buyer wants and needs to hear to make a buying decision with you.

Having a Brand Strategy is About Understanding What Your Audience Needs

Krista Marie: 

That’s honestly so important. And I know that I struggled with that for a really long time when I was growing my business. And I think it’s even harder now because you said social media is evolving and there’s so many different ways that we can show up. It’s so hard because you log in, and all of a sudden you see this person did this and this other person did that, and we get into this reactive form of marketing, where you’re like, “I should do that today. Oh, I should do that.” We get into a quantity over quality thinking without having an actual brand strategy behind it. And it’s something that we have to do so intentionally that I think we slip up on a lot. 

Nikki Arensman: 

It’s not hard to go on social media and look at all the things you aren’t doing. My daughter’s four and a half and I’m so blessed to have support and be able to have time to work on my business. And I’m pregnant with my second one, and it takes me like an hour and a half to create a reel. And so I could get a lot done in an hour and a half given the time that I do have available. But I currently don’t have the time. And until I figure out a better system, it’s really easy to just get judgmental to yourself about what you’re doing, what you’re not doing, what you could be better at. And that’s the other good thing; when you do start to hone in on your brand and your vision and where you’re going and what you’re creating and who your audience is, all these little pieces, you get into what I like to call the antidote to shiny object syndrome. Because you can get so pulled into following trends and distractions that honestly don’t do much for your business. Whatever it is that pulls you and distracts you, it’s really easy to come back and figure out where you’re going, what’s your plan, what are your goals, and what are the most important things that you need to focus on right now that your audience, your ideal clients would want from you. Do they need five reels a week? I don’t think so. What they need is products that solve their problem, and you just need to get it in front of more of those people.

What Is a Binge Worthy Brand?

Krista Marie: 

I love that. And so let’s dive into your steps of building that binge-worthy brand. You mentioned there’s 13 key elements. Let’s dive into those because I’d love for us to be able to hear what those are and what that actually looks like.

Nikki Arensman:

So before we dive into that, the one thing I want to share is the definition of a binge-worthy brand. But we’re not looking it up in Webster’s Dictionary. It’s a totally made up terminology that I just use sometimes to explain what it means for someone to be enthralled in whatever it is that you’re creating. As a consumer, I like to think about where I shop or the places that I spend money where (a) I don’t even think about it anymore, the trust is there. Every time I go there or shop there, they’ve always got what I need. I think of places like a Target or Trader Joe’s where they get these, I hate to use the word cult followings, but they know their client and their audience so well that anyone going to Target for toothpaste leaves with a wardrobe and a candle in their laundry basket. I always leave with tons of things and that’s completely on purpose. And all of that has happened because they’ve created a binge worthy brand. They’ve really taken into account these things that I’m going to run through. And so really that’s what binge worthy is. Think about Netflix and binging shows, like you find a show, you like it, you want more. And if it’s like one of those reality shows, I got super sucked into that new show Ultimatum on Netflix over the last week and I’m six and a half months pregnant, I get stuck up late at night sometimes with insomnia, my husband’s sleeping. I’m like, “What am I gonna watch right now.” So I started watching that show, and not only did I binge the whole season in 48 hours, but I was also on Instagram looking up where are these people at right now? Who is still together? What’s going on with them? Is anyone else hooking up? I got so invested in things even outside of the show. So  I’m like, how can I create that for my clients? How can I create something that people genuinely want to be a part of? I want to talk about it. I want to share about it on social media. I just want to create that binge effect with my brands. How amazing if we could all create that for ourselves. So from my perspective, when you do have a brand strategy in place, you can start to gain momentum with creating a binge worthy brand. 

The Main Parts of Creating a Binge-Worthy Brand

Nikki Arensman: 

So when I think of a brand strategy, there’s 13 parts. The first three are always your MVP, this is your mission, your vision and your purpose. So your mission is the ‘What’. This is exactly what you do and who you do it for. Your purpose is the ‘Why’ behind your brand and business. And then your vision, this is where you want this to go. Like, what are you creating this for? Where do you want it to go? And the reason why these are so foundational and so important is very much because there’s gonna be things that are gonna pop up like that shiny object stuff that we were talking about. And nine times out of 10, the thing that you get jazzed on because you likely just didn’t feel like doing whatever else was on your to-do list. It doesn’t even fit in with the vision of whatever you’re trying to create. So these things are important because they bring you back down to earth and allow you to say, okay, how can I ground myself in my goals and in my vision so that I can say no to the things that are not going to serve me even if they sound exciting in this moment? And I can say yes to all the things that are gonna fit perfectly here.”

How To Get Clarity On Your Brand Strategy 

Krista Marie: 

That’s such a hard muscle to build too. Being able to say no to things that in the moment feel like, “oh, this can be so fun and exciting.” But what you’re really saying is, “this could be such a fun distraction for me to not have to do the other things I want to do.” And I say this, because I’ve done this, you end up spending so much time, invest so much time, potentially money and energy into this thing that ends up being not fulfilling. And I do think a lot of the time we skip over these three things. We think, “oh I know what our mission is. I know why I’m doing this. I know my vision.” But in reality, we don’t. Because we really don’t spend that time to get clarity around that.

Nikki Arensman: 

Pretty much everything that I’m going to share always lives in your head. It’s like I thought about this, I heard this question on a webinar, or whatever it is, and you’re like, “Yeah, I thought about this one time or a coach asked you one time or whatever. But you never actually get it out of your head and into a place where you can come back to it and work on it. Shameless plug, we have a solution for this. But you should definitely get whatever that is out of your head, onto paper, into a document, a sticky note on your computer, whatever it is. That’s one thing. The other part that I wanted to touch on is the distraction of all of that. As creatives and I feel like a lot of your audience are creative in some capacity, they would identify with that, we’re so good at finding something else to do. We’re so good at getting excited about the next thing. And so it’s important, especially for creatives, to have grounding practices, a place where you keep all of your business and branding information in so that you can come back to it and check in and know, okay, how can I get re-excited about whatever it is that I’m currently doing, while also knowing that if whatever you’re getting like hung up on and can’t complete, are always getting distracted by, a couple questions come up. One is, can it be outsourced? Can we find someone else to get this done for you? Is it writing sales emails and they would actually be really good for you to have in your business. I just think it’s important, as creatives, for us to check in. There’s two things I know about creative people. One is we get really excited about the next thing and like jumping to go create it. And two, we’re doers and think that we can do it all. Because we’re creative, and we’re typically resourceful and can figure things out really easily. And so we oftentimes are the last ones to hand things off, hire someone, delegate something out, and it’s just pile it all on. I got it. And those two things are a recipe for disaster. Disaster being burnout and exhaustion.

Krista Marie: 

Yeah and I even find too like when I was first going full time in my business, I would always see random part time jobs pop up and in my head, I’m like, that could be fun for me to do and I’m like, wait, Krista, the whole point of this was to not do this anymore. It’s just so funny how we jump from one thing to the next as creatives.

Nikki Arensman:

My toxic trait is going somewhere and being like, “Oh, I could totally work here.”

Krista Marie:

I do that all the time.

Nikki Arensman: 

I do it all the time, too. I will do it at a restaurant and be like, “Oh, I could be a server here. These people probably make a couple $1,000 a week.” I’ll walk into a store and I’m like, “Oh, I could totally work here, I’d be great at this.”

Krista Marie: 

I do that all the time. We have a community pool. And I was like, “Man, I should really get a membership. So I can go to the pool.” And then my next thought was like, “I could be a lifeguard.” And I was like, I literally just took going to the pool to relax and have fun to how can I do this as a job? Because I used to like guarding in college. So I have to constantly stop myself. But that resonates so much with me. And I think those three things are so crucial. Mission, vision and purpose, have to get those three down before you can move on.

Nikki Arensman: 

If anyone’s wondering where they should start, I think you should start here. Sometimes I hesitate to say that, because I think it’s not as exciting.

Krista Marie: 

It’s not the fun stuff.

Branding For Businesses: Strategy Comes First, Visuals Come Last

Nikki Arensman: 

Yeah, I do want to share and I’ve talked about this before, whether it’s on my podcast, or other ones, I understand that the visuals are the most exciting. I understand that a logo, colors, fonts, looking cohesive online, having that full visual branded experience is really exciting, because it just legitimizes your idea of starting a business and having a business and being a representation of you as the creative, etc. And so I know that that’s the most exciting thing. That’s why we have a brand identity breakthrough, that’s an easy template system. And there’s add ons, upsells, and things where people can then create coordinating social media graphics, along with brand identity. And it’s just a very, like, DIY, easy system to get visually legit online. But a lot of people like to start there. So from a smart business perspective, I’m like, Okay, let’s create this easy entry point into working with us, where they can work on the visual stuff and kind of get that legit exciting feeling, have that full circle experience. But then immediately I’m like, Okay, now let’s dive into the brand strategy stuff. I know that that’s the thing because no one’s really hiring you or seeing you online, necessarily, unless you are a designer, and they’re just purely attracted to your style. But no one’s ever going to admire that peach color in the logo and hire you. It’s definitely like all the other things, which is the rest of the brand strategy stuff. Of the 13, we’ve talked about three, your visuals are actually number 13. So it’s the last one that I always like refining last. Because usually the visuals and external representation of your business, that always becomes a mirror of whatever you’ve worked on internally. And I always say your visuals, your colors, your fonts and that consistent brand experience visually, your imagery, any graphic elements, all of that stuff is like the wardrobe of your brand and your business. And so that’s typically the last thing I work on in a one-on-one setting. But I am comfortable with that being the first thing you might work on if you’re just getting introduced to the online space and you’re building a business. But don’t forget to go back and do the other work.

Krista Marie: The way that I think about the visuals is like a capsule, you have to know what are you writing? It’s great to know the font, but what’s the story behind what you’re saying? You have to know all of those things and you won’t know any of those things until you take the time to do all of this pre-work before you actually get the design.

Nikki Arensman:

Crappy design but really good words will convert better than really crappy words but the design looks good. And that’s proven.

Krista Marie:

Yeah. I know so many people who started their business and didn’t have a great website, but they knew who they were talking to, so they were booking people. And it’s like, Oh, interesting. You just need to put emphasis where it needs to be.

Nikki Arensman:

Yeah. And that’s the other thing is that when all those things come together, when you ditch the crappy on both ends, and you’ve got really good messaging, you really understand who you’re talking to, you really get what they need. And you’ve differentiated yourself, and you’ve got things that allow you to build authority and stand out in your industry coupled with really good visuals, and really good branding, and brand identity, that’s the magic potion. Because then we become trusting, we feel like we’ve walked into a really nice hotel. And the lobby smells a certain way. And the people working there are taking really good care of you. And they’re saying all the right things, and they’re upgrading your room and they’re doing all the things, this full customer experience, that’s the same thing. I’m a firm believer of let’s get all those pieces together.

The 13 Steps to Building a Binge-Worthy Brand

Krista Marie:

Totally. I’m so excited about these, so I don’t know if we’ll be able to go in depth for all 13. But I would love to hear what are the next steps. 

Nikki Arensman: 

Okay, so I’ll quickly go through the rest of them. 

  • So after we do mission, vision, purpose, then we dive into your differentiator and your difference. So these are the things that make you and your business the no-brainer choice. 
  • Then we go into your value proposition. So this is the promise of value that your clients can expect your business and your team to deliver. And that’s really where we get into the client experience. 
  • Then we go into your values. This are the values that your brand is built on, that connects you to your audience to your dream clients or customers. 
  • The next one is a great one, this is your voice. So this is where you start to craft the personality and the emotions used to communicate consistently. Your voice shows up in your sales page copy, how you’re communicating in DMs, how you handle when an issue comes up, your ad copy, pretty much everything. The way that you would like to run a webinar, you get into your brand words and things that you might use often. For example, binge worthy brand, that’s one of our brand words that we use. 
  • The next one is your story. So this is where you dive into a little bit more of where were you? What got you to where you are today? How did you discover the gaps that needed to be filled? And you really start to identify maybe some things that you have gone through, recognized, noticed over the last handful of years that your ideal client or customer is going to be like, oh yeah, I’m there, they understand me and really just creates a good human experience. 
  • Then we go into your dream clients. So this is really understanding the people who love working with you and who you just totally love working with also. And that’s where I said, you want to go layers deeper than just the surface things we want to know about them. I want to know what season of life they’re in. I want to know if they’re a mom. Are they the mom of a newborn? Or are they the mom of a toddler? Or are they a mom of a teen or an empty nester? Where in that journey of motherhood are they because they’re so different. So the reason why understanding that stuff is so important is because when you start to think about the offers that you create, and that could look like your services, or maybe digital products or courses or things that you’re creating in your offer suite. We want to have the core offering that fits and meets our client in the perfect place where we want to be working with them. But can we create something that captures them a little bit earlier in their journey, so that we can get them something, let them have a great experience with us, nurture them through the next stage, so that when they do get to that core season, we’re the one that they’re thinking of. And when they move out of that season, and they’re in a different stage of life, or business, or whatever it is, can we then increase our customer retention by having offers and things for them that can keep them around and we can still be working with them in some capacity. 
  • Then we go into your touch points. So these are all the ways that you connect and share content on a daily basis. This is a great one, if you do get distracted on social media, even in your inbox. And you’re like, oh, I should be emailing every day, or I should be emailing every other day. Or I need to be doing X amount of reals each week. It’s really good to bring it back down or be like, oh, I need to start a podcast or whatever it is to come back down to earth and know like, okay, these are my touch points. These are why they’re my touch points. So I actually don’t even need to focus or think about these other things. I’m just going to continue focusing on these until I see data and conversion and know what’s working or what’s not. And maybe we need to ditch one and bring in another one.
  • Then we’ve got the final two. So your brand pillars these are the strategic topics that allow you to consistently create engaging content. So if you’re one of those people who doesn’t know what to talk about, what to say, what does my audience want to hear from me, that’s where you solidify this great content pillar system in your business, and then a whole bunch of things that you can talk about related to each one of those. And to keep it simple, you could literally put them on rotation. Weekly, daily, monthly, whatever it is. 
  • And then the final piece to your brand strategy is your visuals. So these are all the things that everyone is going to see that is going to connect them to your business. So that’s your brand identity, your logo, your colors, your fonts, any graphic elements you might use, the way things look, your visuals, any imagery that you might use, brand photoshoots fall into place there. So that’s where you really paint the picture. And you get to leave in and incorporate all these other things that you’ve done the work on to make sure that they’re showing up in the outward expression of your business.

The Anti-Shiny Object Syndrome

Krista Marie:

Oh, those are so good. And the thing I love about them is as you were talking about them, there was one in particular, I think it was the content piece. But as it were talking about all of these, the thing that kept popping into my mind is you talked about this being the anti-shiny object syndrome. And it really is because, for example, touch points. Okay, these are my touch points, this is what I’m going to do. Because I think a lot of us fall into that trap of like doing something for a little bit not seeing immediate results. Okay, I’m gonna ditch that and do something else. But we don’t actually do things long enough to know if they’re actually working in the long run. Like what’s actually converting, what’s not converting. And then we end up getting to that point where we’ve then tried so many things. I feel like none of it really got us to where we want to go and then we’re burned out and don’t want to do anything. As you were talking about all of these, choosing, deciding and sticking with it and talking about it until maybe a pivot point comes where you’re like, Okay, I did this for a while and I feel like I’m in a shift, I feel like I’m going to do something different. But it’s really committing to what it is that you have until some changes, like your brand evolves or something like that,

Nikki Arensman:

I think like a lot of practice, whether they’re marketing and when I say marketing, I’m talking about organic social media strategy or paid or organic, just lead generation. The things that you’re doing to bring people into your world and just get more eyes on your business on your brand. I think the majority need at least 90 to 120 days, they need at least three to four months. And some of them need longer than that, just given the way that social media or email marketing works. Some of these things literally just take time, maybe a year to actually start to see traction on them. And then some things are even shorter than 30 days or 90 days. Like paid media, sometimes that is a really quick figure out depending on how much money you’re feeding into it. You can see what messaging is working, or what creative is working and what’s not. But outside of paid media, I think anything organic is just time. And it’s so easy to quit on it and feel like you’ve got to jump to the next thing.

Krista Marie:

I think this is so important. No matter what stage you’re in, in your business, honestly, this is going to be harder work. Doing all of the work to build your brand is going to be the harder thing to do than just mindlessly jumping on offers or jumping on things you want to create. But in the long run, at the end of the day, the thing that will sustain your business is knowing who your brand is, and then creating from that space. Because I think otherwise, this is the harder work to do. It’s really easy to create a bunch of offers, but when they’re not really converting or you’re not bringing in the right clients, you’re not doing the things you want to do, that’s what leads to burnout. So a big takeaway for anyone listening in is, no matter what stage you’re in, just put in that time and energy to figure out who your brand is. Because spoiler alert, your business is not going to grow overnight, even if you have the best visuals and the best offer and skip all this other stuff. It won’t be sustainable. And so really putting in that work to figure out who your brand is, is going to be the thing that helps you create that really long term business and brand where you’re actually doing the things that you want to be doing.

Why It’s Never Too Early to Start Building a Brand

Nikki Arensman:

Yeah, I always say, you’re never too early to work on your brand. If you want to have that binge worthy brand, if you want to have something that people are attracted to, it’s never just one thing that’s going to make it click into flow mode of people just getting what you’re doing and wanting to be a part of it. It’s always going to be a culmination of all of these different things. And everything gets easier once you have a lot of this figured out. Our program we have a brand strategy blueprint. The brand strategy blueprint goes through all 13 pieces of this and allows you to work through it, either live with me and my team or self-led. And then you put it all into this beautiful branded document where you can keep it and it can be shared with team members that you might hire, when you’re doing press stuff, whatever it is you can then share pieces of all of this. And we also give you how all these things show up in your business? Where do they all belong? But regardless of my biased loving brand strategy blueprint, no matter what. you actually can’t can’t skip this work. At some point, you have to do it because so many people feel like, I’m not big enough yet or I don’t have enough team members or my bank account’s not big enough. I don’t have a big enough reputation, my following is not big enough that any of this matters. But the reality is that all of those things are a byproduct of you doing this type of work. The audience, the income, the easier decision making, having offers that actually click and sell, to finding the right team member. All those things get easier and happen faster once you’ve figured out your brand strategy. I always talk about this type of work brand strategy, creating a binge worthy brand, as being a navigation system. So if you’re on a journey from A to B, you’re gonna get to B regardless. You do the work, you work hard, you do what you got to do, you manifest that, whatever the all the things you incorporate into your toolbox, you put gas in the car, you’re gonna get to B at some point. But having a GPS system that is going to allow you to not make wrong turns along the way, to be able to get gas when you need it, to be able to know where you need support, whatever it is, what tools that you need, doing any kind of inner brand work, brand strategy work is like saying, Okay, I’m going to click on the GPS so that I can get to be faster, and in my opinion, more efficient and smarter. So that you’re just not making as many mistakes and unaligned decisions along the way. 

Krista Marie:

I think it also just does a lot. Thinking of mindset, when you allow yourself to think of your business as being one, because it’s really easy to not do a brand strategy when you’re just starting. There’s that Instagram like, Oh, my little business, Oh, it’s just a side thing. When we don’t think our business is legitimate enough to need something like this, that’s a mindset piece that we often need to very quickly fix. Because you’re not going to be able to see the growth, you want to see if you don’t look at your business as something that will take you to where you want to go. And fully believe that it can get there. And I think that by doing this work, you’re starting to train your brain to be, No, this is legit. This is my business. It’s taking me to where I want to be. And it does a lot for your actual brand. Inside work does a lot there too. 

Nikki Arensman:

Yeah, I agree. 

Nikki’s Go-To Self-Improvement Resources

Krista Marie:

Well, that was so amazing. And my last question, which I always love to ask is, has there been, you know, outside of what we’ve already talked about, has there been like a book or resource or anything that you feel like lately that’s really helped you in your business? Or was it really inspirational or just really stuck out to you that you would want to recommend to others?

Nikki Arensman:

I feel like I am one of those people who buy a lot of books, and I start reading them, and then I don’t actually ever finish them all. And it’s not my favorite quality, but it’s the truth. So I’m just being like full transparency. And I do listen to audio, I’m such a self development junkie. And so I would say Jen Sincero, her money book is one that I always go back to. This may just be feeding in and exposing my own mind, any blockage that I have ever had is never from… I can’t get it done, or I can’t do it, or I can’t figure it out. It’s always my own stuff around money, like I have to work harder in order to make more, I have to do this in order to make more. So I’ve really been over the last like five years I feel like, just tapping into anything that can give me the courage and the permission to be in a state of abundance and know that I can have a four and a half year old, be pregnant with my second one. I only have really around like 20 hours a week of working time that is uninterrupted, no one around, which that’s all going to change the second I have another baby right. So for me to be able to get into that space where I know that I can continue to make money. And I don’t have to work more in order for me to reach x amount of financial goal. I’m all about that. So I like meditation. I listen to a lot of Abraham Hicks on YouTube. I listen to Dr. Joe Dispenza I just did a walk this morning at the beach listening to a recording of his meditation while I was walking so, you know, anything that allows me to tap into my own inner GPS system, that’s always been my go-to. 

And also I noticed when I fall off, I notice when I’m not doing that work, when I’m not listening to the meditations, or I’m not journaling or I’m not like reading or checking back in on these books again, I’m not like a cover to cover type of consumer. So that would really be my recommendation.

Parting Thoughts

Krista Marie:

Yeah, I second that. Money mindset is huge, huge, huge to the long term sustainable growth. So I love that so much. Awesome. Well, let us know where we can find you? Where can we connect with you ? What’s the next step if we want to explore working with you even further?

Nikki Arensman:

You can always find me on Instagram at Nikki Arensman. If you want to check out this product, I have a quiz you can take that gauges you answer with a couple quick questions. And it’ll share with you how binge worthy your brand is. It’ll rate it one to 10 and then tell you what are some next steps that you could take in order to start creating a more binge worthy brand. It’ll also tell you if you’re a rockstar and your brand is pretty binge worthy already, and you’re doing all the things that need to happen. So definitely check out that quiz. It takes less than a minute. And then if you want to check out our logo templates, you can do that. It’s BIB.Nikkiarensman.com And if you have any questions about anything we talked about, you can always DM me on Instagram, I’m in there often. 

Krista Marie:

Amazing. Good. Well, thank you so much. And I’ll share all of those links in the show notes too, for anyone who’s interested. But thank you so much. This was such a wonderful conversation. And I know that even just from this call, walking away with a little bit more clarity on what it actually takes and the work that’s involved. So thank you so much. 

Nikki Arensman:

Thank you for having me. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

see PHOTOGRAPHY services

You deserve to feel (and look) confident & joyful in your photos. From wedding to personal branding sessions - I've got you covered!

Let's Work Together

I'm Krista! Wedding and Personal Brand Photographer & business coach based in Northern California. I’ve been photographing weddings & women business owners since 2010, and I fall more in love with my job everyday. 

Meet Krista

BUSINESS COACHING FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS & CREATIVES

As your coach, I'm here to help you:
  • Overcome your limiting beliefs & embrace your fullest version of success
  • Eliminate the overwhelm & create actionable goals for your business
  • Create healthy habits & a mindset that is focused on growth
  • Find alignment and fulfilment along your business journey
  • Create more abundance and take inspired action towards your goals

I also help you implement tactical strategies like: creating an irresistible brand, marketing to and attracting your ideal clients, creating an incredible client experience, and pricing your unique services & offers.

Ready to uplevel your business?

APPLY FOR 1:1 COACHING