Listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify, and Amazon.

In today’s episode, we’re talking about the key to your success in 2024, especially as a luxury brand owner. You already own this asset and you’re just not leveraging it to its full potential… yet.

We’ll be covering the key points of this trend, why it’s THE trend of 2024, what you need to do to attune and harmonize it with your brand and brand’s positioning, and how to amplify this asset. 

The Biggest Trend of 2024

What is the biggest trend of 2024? Your voice. 

In the latest episode from Your Conversation Pit, we discussed the age of AI and how the uncanny valley effect can harm your luxury brand. 

Within episode 6 we walked through:

1. The Age of AI
2. What This Means for Business, Specifically Marketing
3. How Uncanny Valley Comes to Play 
4. Why Your Brand Personality as a Luxury Brand Can Be Harmed By AI

The missing piece from the content produced by emerging luxury brands right now is a sense of place in their voice. With the rise of AI it’s been easy for folks to fly under the radar to have an abundance of content while removing the brand’s personality accidentally by leveraging AI tool after AI tool to keep up with the content Joneses. 

Your voice is the key not only to your brand’s bottom line, but to expand your brand portfolio and creative collection. 

This is your life’s work – do you want to hand it over to an AI tool or to the internal tool you already have? 

More often than not, we’re working with clientele that have been in their industries for 5-20+ years. From high-end fashion boutiques to experts in sustainable, but luxurious travel to advisors, agency owners, consultants, mentors, and service providers commercializing their craft while still having their roots firmly planted in their brand’s heritage.

They’re not just rushing to market with a fast MVP or minimum viable product. They care about the intention and integrity of their craftsmanship, their signature approaches and processes, and they give a damn about leveraging technology while QAing that they’re not falling into the trap of using AI in lieu and replacement of their humanized yet refined brand personality and essence.

What You Need To Do To Attune And Harmonize It With Your Brand And Brand’s Positioning

The hardest way to attune and harmonize your voice for power, profitability, and revolution is to do it alone or alongside folks that are paid to be “yes people” even if that’s not your intention.

Your team should not be mentoring you.

Your colleagues and peers want to stay connected with you for referrals, connections, and disarmed networking and they should not be mentoring you.

You have your own inner mentor that should be listened to at all times as a reflection and mirror alongside your outer mentors, advisors, and consultants.

The hardest way to attune your voice is to do it in a vacuum and box, crafted by your own hands.

The easiest way to attune your voice is to be in a group, space, or private session to have a space for active feedback, response, and psychological mirroring. 

If someone can feel the highs, lows, and overall story in your voice, recognizing that you have a sense of place, a heritage that you’re harkening back to as a brand ethos and overall lore about the origin of your brand… they’ll connect.

If you’re squeaking out stories that you think might convert based on a high-octane strategy while trying to be a luxury brand, it’ll resonate as a budget or premium brand’s approach instead of a timeless brand that has true poise.

I don’t want your brand to be a filler – I want your brand to be a pillar in your industry, a cutting edge leader that still leans into being the leading light in your field. You cannot have a backbone of heritage and timelessness while cherry picking from overly performative strategies that do not root your brand into the sense of place it’s meant to have.

There’s nothing closer to a luxury brand’s heritage and origin than the founder’s voice, ethos, and vision for the brand’s future.

Defining, attuning, and harmonizing your voice starts with:

1. Slow down and breathe – this is what’s complimented on the most about a confident speaker… they’re quick to slow down instead of speed up. This allows for an intentionally harmonized environment and atmosphere instead of a high-octain environment. Pausing isn’t just for you and your confidence… it’s sexy. It’s a very sexy and attractive quality about a person and it slips the audience into a peaceful trance because the atmosphere has been intentionally created for breakthroughs and breakthroughs come through pausing to evaluate and elevate. 
2. Evaluate your voice by listening to recordings of yourself, rewatching yourself on stage in real life by video or digitally when you’re speaking at virtual summits and consider what you do and don’t like about your voice.
3. Speak deliberately by leveraging space between your words and your sentences, especially. Take note of the body language in the room – even if you’re hosting a live webinar. If you can see facial expressions, you can see whether or not someone is bored or enthusiastic about your message.
4. Listen carefully to other voices you like and question why you like them. What do they do that engages you? Are they disarming you with humor? Are you feeling like a student again, fully engaged with the academic approach… note taking and all?
5. Warm up your mouth and vocal cords by singing elongated notes. I want you to turn on your favorite music or music that puts you into the emotion of the content you’ll be delivering with your voice. 
6. Practice speaking at a moderate pace. Speaking too quickly or too slowly can make your voice sound monotone or robotic. With your moderate pace, consider the inflection of your voice and how you would naturally have a conversation similar to the speech you’re giving so you can work in a conversational tone that feels both casual yet emphasized as an educator. 
7. Vary your volume to play with the apex and peak of your story. 
8. Pre-plan your facial expressions and body language to the point of casual conversation, connection, and active listening and mirroring while ensuring that you can stay in the line of authenticity while having a plan. There’s a lot of curated content and vulnerability out there – humans are experts at sniffing it out.
9. Engage with your audience through questions in the speech even if they cannot answer. This opens a tab in our brains because the human mind cannot hear a question and not answer it. You’ll be remembered. 
10. Before speaking, visualize the speech going well to cope with your nerves, root yourself in postivity, and see your success in your mind before experiencing it in reality. 

Concise. Effective communicators know how to get their points across in a succinct way. They know how to speak clearly and avoid confusing their audience. This makes it easier for the audience to absorb and take action on the information you’re sharing.

The emotional anchors an audience must experience in order to feel engaged in the speech instead of just a voyeuristic audience doom scrolling through their phones, waiting for the promised actionable items, is to focus on the following emotions: enthusiasm, authenticity, passion, and empathy. 

Passion is where you can delve into a more meaningful, but potentially melancohilic approach or a holy rage that amplifies the message and calls out the revolutionaries in the audience that are ready to take a stand and bear a torch to significant change. 

How To Amplify This Asset 

Here’s how to amplify this asset in your brand:

• Pitch yourself to masterminds, educational spaces, corporate lunch and learns, group programs and organizations with an intentional pitch deck that reverbrates your capabilities as a speaker through written word first and a sample video of a recorded speech that you know aligns with the brands you’re pitching to or is a valuable video sales letter for your potential if you haven’t spoken in the wild yet. If you’re not sure how to craft your pitch, feel free to book an intensive with us to craft your assets before 2024. All pricing will be rising in 2024 and private consulting will be more exclusive than ever. 
• Leverage your voice in 2024 by hosting online and in-person events. Consider hosting luncheons for founders, founders seated dinners, day or week-long retreats. If you desire help with planning events, we’re here for you. An intensive would be an excellent place to seek help for your private event creation. We’ve held countless online events, an in-person retreat called Retreat & Revive in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, and my background in hospitality and event planning in academia would be a supportive asset for your brand. 
• Begin a podcast tour or start a podcast. I’d suggest starting a podcast tour first to leverage other folks’ audiences, but we’ve helped several clients plan to start their podcasts in 2024 and some of them have already launched their podcasts. Many of your luxury buyers listen to podcasts exclusively to make decisions and choices to become a part of your community – usually vetting you based on word-of-mouth, referrals, and networking. 

Resources:

Listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify, and Amazon.

Bio:

Ashleigh Henry has been in marketing, sales, and leadership positions for the last decade and it was exhilarating for Ashleigh to climb the retail, corporate, higher education, and start-up ladder holding positions such as Marketing Strategist, Copywriter, Social Media Strategist, Manager, Editor, Co-Editor…until it wasn’t. Alongside her degree, Ashleigh decided to bring all of her experience into the freelancing world until it became clear that she didn’t just want to pay the bills – she wanted to create a company that was foundationally built on cheetah print, legacy-minded marketing, and sexy sales structures that could stand the test of trend and time. The Cheetah Company, founded by Ashleigh, does this for female entrepreneurs through their education, coaching, and consulting services. Learn more about Ashleigh here.