Branding, Boundaries, and Bullsh💋t

In this episode of the Branding, Boundaries, & Bullshit podcast, Phyllis Williams Strawder, aka your Ghetto Country Brandmother®, opens up about her journey. From battling self-esteem issues due to her height in her younger days to embracing her identity and becoming a personal branding coach, Brandma shares the highs and lows of her entrepreneurial path. Brandma talks about her experiences in...

In this episode of the Branding, Boundaries, and Bullshit podcast, your host, the Ghetto Country Brandmother®, goes in on Kevin Hart's attempt at the restaurant business with Hart House. She doesn't come right out and say it was a failure but she certainly teases it. Being a celebrity is not the same as personal branding and Kevin proves that in spades. That's because there's a dif...

Impromptu Branding Masterclass with Brandma: No Secrets to Brandma's PB&Slay Join the Ghetto Country Brandmother, Phyllis Williams Strother, for an unexpected and fiery branding session turned podcast. Her guest is her Brandbaby, Charlene, a Wordpress wizard known as the Brand Misfit. What started as a scheduling mishap evolved into a deep dive into personal branding, marketing strategies,...

Are you using your personal brand to be popular? Are vanity metrics minus money benefitting you? Everyone wants to be a personal branding expert but all they're promising is followers with no funnel of any kind. They expect you to have the brand and marketing know how to turn your popularity into profits. Personal branding for the sake of personal branding is giving bullshit energy. You may as...

What do you when you got a house fulla folx? You invite them to do a podcast. This is the first impromptu podcast Brandma has ever done with the fam. Hanging out late after a House party it just made sense. The stragglers were Ebony L. Green (The Ratchet Sage), Charlene Brown (The Brand Misfit), Fulei Ngangmuta (The Resourceful Liberator), Kevin Brown (The Kolorblind Konsultant), and True Adams. T...

First off, who told you you were hot? Secondly, what does it have to do with your business? We all know sex sells. It's why we use it in everything from food to cars. Using your personal brand for its "hotness" is definitely doable, but does it make sense? If it does then have at it. Being sexy is an easy attention grabber, but why are you mad when folx don't wanna do business wi...

What are the rules of engagement when it comes to personal brands? Brandma talks about the clip with LeVar Burton and Lawrence Fishburn from the movie Clipped. It provoked the question of, are you a safe personal brand? Would you compromise your brand integrity for the sake of a bigger brand? What is the expectation of personal brands in the presence of bigger brands? There is some wishy washy shi...

It's the final episode of the season and Ghetto Country Brandmother® has two of her favorite brandbabies™ in the house. Meet Andjela & Vanja Stojonavich, the twosome in a design threesome of The Shadow Legacy. Andjela and Vanja flipped the script on Brandma when they went from clients to service provider. They are the genius behind the Brandma's House visual identity. It's a heartf...

Pull up a seat to the chat between the Ghetto Country Brandmother® and branding expert Claire Baker. Claire shares her journey from an accidental venture into graphic design to becoming a branding guru, offering insights into the importance of authentic and bullshit-free branding for businesses. With over 27 years in the field, she discusses her approach to making a real difference for smaller com...

Join Brandma and her guest, Andres Ramirez, Community Manager for The Futur. Andres is a multi-talented creative who gets side tracked by journaling and politeness. As a community manager, Andres loves being of service but his heart is truly in the journaling space. It doesn't matter if it's word, doodles, or design it's all about the journal for him. ----- If your personal brand is ha...

Brandma talks empathic branding with Jason Berkowitz, a authoritative voice in hospitality compliance and empathy-driven leadership. Jason shares his journey from a frontline restaurant role to COO, and the creation of Arrow Up Training, emphasizing the importance of empathy, effective communication, and strong team-building in the hospitality industry. Jason has big plans for changing the hospita...

Ghetto Country Brandmother and her guest, Shawn P. Walchef of Cali BBQ Media bring the smoke to this episode. That's because Shawn shifted his focus from bbq to media. Shawn is all about digital storytelling from the phone in your back pocket. He often says, no one is gonna tell your story, so he's mastering telling his while building a community and personal brand. The conversation also e...

Sales don't always come easy for service-based businesses, so who better to help up your game than entrepreneur and sales expert Mandi Graziano. Mandi shares insights on overcoming obstacles, successful selling via thorough product knowledge and customer perspectives, and time management in managing client prospects. She also discusses the effectiveness of cold calling across industries and pr...

Ghetto Country Brandmother® and the Brandmaster himself, Stephen Houraghan of Brand Master Academy, shoot the shit about brand strategy and doing it yourself. They also discuss his latest creation Brand Buildr AI. Brandma & Stephen get serious about personal and business branding as well as how Stephen's programs influenced her approach to brand strategy. Throughout the episode Brandma and...

Join in Brandma's conversation with the inspiring Coach Kym, a UK-based business consultant thriving in the industry. Kym shares her journey, emphasizing the significance of creating unique value for clients and her own juggling act between personal and work life. She reveals industry secrets and discusses her novel approach to coaching, focusing on solving real-time problems, and enabling cli...

It's a Brandma & Brandbaby episode with the brattiest brandbaby ever, Steve Griggs of Steve Griggs Design. He is an industry veteran in the landscape design and architecture industry. As long as he's been in business, he deserves to get his way some times. After being in business for almost 40 years, Steve is getting out of his comfort zone with branding. He does design, he speaks cons...

In this chatty episode, Brandma, joined by brand strategist and accountability magpie Linda, run there mouths about branding of the food industry, with a focus on independent restaurants. Brandma and Linda discuss how concepts often overpower brands and get into issues like holiday marketing strategies, emotional hooks, service manipulations, and workplace culture. Brandma and Linda advocate consi...

In this episode, Brandma invites Eric Moore, a leadership coach and communication consultant, to Brandma's House. He is the go to for quiet leaders who don't speak up enough. Key topics include giving quiet leaders a voice, understanding empathy in leadership, the importance of starting communication without judgment and the significance of being clear in communication of value amongst oth...

In this thought-provoking episode, Brandma taps into the world of business policies with the Ethical Strategist, Cas Johnson. Cas shares her experiences in the realm of business operations, and why having properly structured policies is critical for any business, no matter its size. From brand leadership and personal branding to the importance of setting boundaries, they discuss the consequential...

Brandma invites her husband, Neil Strawder, on the show for an in-depth discussion about their personal and business journeys. They flashback to their lives in the food industry, the challenges of letting go of their past personal brands, and Neil's transition into voice acting, specifically in the hospitality industry. They also explore the complexities and dynamics of working together as a m...

In this episode, the Brandmother shares her personal journey, from struggling with self-love and insecurities in her teenage years to becoming a mother figure. Brandma talks about her experiences through failed relationships, suicidal thoughts, and a relentless desire to become a mother - which she believed would fill the gap in her life. Brandma underlines the importance of unconditional love and...

Brandma wraps up the year encouraging brandbabies to reflect on 2023 but not to wallow in it. She stresses the importance of constant change, creating strategic plans for personal and professional growth, and the vital role self-esteem plays in achieving success. Brandma also provides a unique method for combating fear. She shares her method of personifying it so you can face it. Looking fear in t...

Brandma discusses the 'Three Is': Identity, Insecurities and Impostor, that challenge your personal brand. Unpacking the concepts of identity, the misconception around 'me' in personal branding and how it can derail authenticity. Brandma talks about the difficulty of separating 'who' and 'do' in personal branding, the pitfalls of impostor syndrome, and how insecurit...

In this episode, Brandma wants you to eat your peas and carrots. Peas and carrots signifying the essential need to position your personal brand. Positioning should not be limited to only business brands. It's about alignment with the business brand, the audience, and network. One of the ways to do this is through communication. Brand communication touches on the meaning, the messaging, and mar...

Did you catch the TI, Tiny, and King drama that went down? It's personal branding drama all up and through. Join Brandma in a raw and unfiltered discussion exploring the tangled web of personal branding. From the pitfalls of trying to fit into expectations to the dichotomy between OG brands and wannabes, dig into the intricacies of authenticity, communication, and the ethical dilemma faced in...