2024 Marketing Tips: Prioritizing Energy and Building Resilience
Happy New Year!
We’re already into February…
No worries, there’s still time to work on your marketing plan for 2024!
I’ve just gotten mine done 2 weeks ago.
To be honest, beginning of 2024 shook me up a bit, because of the uncertainties and instabilities around us and in the world.
* Continuing war in Ukraine
* Extreme weather with snow and rain storms that are batting us left and right
* Rising conflicts in the Middle East
All of these seemed to send bad vibes. But I also pause to look at the good things in life and in this world.
* California is the first STATE to provide Universal meals to ALL students at public schools
* Women reproductive freedom and equal pay continue to be the center of policy discussion
* Over 23 states (California included) have 100% clean energy goals
* A biomarker breakthrough for Parkinson’s Disease
How cool are these progress!
Seeing the good with the bad help me balance things.
I learn to be more compassionate, more patient, and more resilient.
Prioritizing Energy and Building Resilience
Last year, I believed strongly that we needed to prioritize where we spent our energy in achieving our goals.
This year, I am adding “resilience” to my formula, and my entire marketing plan will be focusing on these two important things. Because energy will dissipate if we don’t build resilience to keep it up.
ER (no, not emergency response😊) is ENERGY + RESILIENCE.
It’s my Energy Reservoir that will help me continue to fill my cup, so I can have the overflows to give and serve my clients and my family at my highest levels.
The outcome is a happier and stronger me.
Do you see yourself with ER in this picture?
If you do, go and ER your marketing plan in 2024 with these guideposts.
Because when you do, you’ll get to focus your energy on doing things that are worth doing, and equipping yourself with an abundant mindset and healthy emotions that are going to help you balance the good and the bad, taking you onto better paths that will fulfill you professionally and personally.
Contact me if you would love some help in getting your marketing plan together. You’ll get to your goals faster when you have clarity, feel confident, and have great alignment with your energy and vision.
In welcoming a new year, each of us has our own set of process and reflection time to clear our mind, our space, and our energy level to step into a new era.
While I aspire to do more, I’ve also reflected in the past year on a simple set of guideposts that has kept me grounded, focused, and energized.
I hold these 3 simple beliefs close to heart; and they have become my formula for success.
💥 Being real.
💥 Taking actions.
💥 Delivering on my promise
I’ve found that not only do these beliefs serve me well, they’ve helped my business and my clients too!
 They’ve helped me navigate through my toughest moments, and also my proudest moments.
As you step into a new year, think about guideposts that will help you feel
⭐Grounded
⭐Focused, and
⭐ Energized.
No matter where you are with your business endeavors or personal circumstances. Because when you have solid guideposts and do things with intentions, you are going to get there.
Your output will be greater than the efforts that you’ve put in. You’ll experience the whole more than the sum of its parts.
Here’s to a great 2024!🌈⚡⭐
I know.
This sounds like I am calling for a wrap of the year😊
 Jenny Huang, Founder & CEO, thriving with confidence! Well, it’s a teaser definitely.
I have so much to be grateful for, and I will be even more grateful for what is to come.
2023 feels like I am at the height of what I do in business, accompanied by challenging yet amazing personal growth.
⚡ I’m working with clients who are committed in applying strategic thinking and marketing in sharing their stories authentically,
preparing their Beta launches with less-than-perfect products to get early feedback,
and positioning their companies to deliver impact in alignment with their vision and mission, in more powerful ways than ever before.
⚡ I’m proud as a woman business owner who has embraced my struggles and pains and turning them into solutions to help others who are on similar journeys.
⚡ I’ve grown exponentially on my personal growth by honoring my past, embracing my present, and bringing future closer in alignment with where I want to take with my business, and how I want to be as a person.
These deep learnings come as a result of having my top-ten Commandments. They act as my compass on how I see life, how I show up, how I build and grow relationships, and how I want to be treated.
I’m sharing them out, and hope you’ll resonate with some of these, and perhaps they’ll inspire you to get through difficult moments on your journey.
1) Always have something to look forward to
2) The best working model is always your own model
3) Strive to compete against yourself, instead of comparing to others
4) Fast doesn’t always mean progress. Steady and flexible is.
5) Don’t ask others to go down the path that you have not gone down yourself before
6) Sharing vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness
7) Don’t wait until you have a perfect product to launch
8) Stand up for things that don’t feel right to you
9) Take the courage to call out people who are bullies
10) Love the sweet and kind person that you once were, and be that kid again!
I believe in these commandments wholeheartedly, and practice them on a consistent basis.
What are your top commandments that have guided you through difficult and joyful times?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in comments below.
Through my relationship working with the Silicon Valley SBDC at San Jose State, I got connected with Lydia Chan of San Jose State University’s Global and Professional Education team, on their partnership program with Tec de Monterrey. Tec de Monterrey has an initiative with an accelerator program that supports early-stage EdTech companies in solving challenges in Higher Education and Lifelong Learning.
Nine, selected start-up companies visited Silicon Valley on a one-week trip that gave them access to experts, venture funding partners, and networking as they prepare to launch and validate the next phase of their products.
 As a marketing professional, a leader, and a parent, I am a big supporter for education. I believe education is one of the pillars that can lead nations and their people to enjoy better socioeconomic status and be on par with global technological challenges.
Participating in this opportunity enabled me to team with my SV SBDC business advisor colleagues Shawn Flynn and Hon Wong in providing 1-on-1 advisory sessions to 9 start-up companies in a two-day encounter.
I was impressed by the caliber of start-ups that I spoke with. I’m proud to see that they’re tackling educational and lifelong learning challenges in their respective home regions, e.g., Chile, Mexico, Spain, Argentina.
My conversations with these start-ups took me down the memory lanes when I was working in the Asia Pacific region, where I teamed with my regional colleagues to evangelize a global, co-branding program with local and multi-national OEMs.
It has been fun helping entrepreneurs coming from Latin America and European regions. It’s even more rewarding working with SJSU and SV SBDC counterparts to provide support at a global level on education.
Customers Are Craving Connections with Brands at Personal Level
Today, consumers in general are skeptic about brands whose messages and actions are not aligned, because some brands speak and market in ways that are not genuine, and might trick consumers into thinking that they are buying a good thing; when in reality, it’s not.
Therefore, it’s more important than ever for companies and individual business owners to show authenticity and establish trust upfront with their customers in genuine ways that will allow their relationships to flourish.
Building an authentic personal brand is essential for both individual business owners and public-facing executives at larger companies. Because consumers in this digital economy crave for connections with brands at personal levels, so brands need to make the efforts in meeting their customers where they are at.
 Cultivating an Authentic Personal Brand
Being authentic is multi-folded, it means that:
1) You’re not afraid to express yourself, because you know who you are deep down. You speak your mind with candor, yet respect others on their opinions and give them space to speak theirs.
2) You’re being transparent, and you don’t come with an agenda. When you are genuine and show interest in listening to what others have to say, you will win their hearts first and their minds second. Because most humans appreciate honesty and transparency, your authenticity gives them the visibility into your thoughts and feelings, and that encourage them to open up and have candid conversations that will lead to powerful outcomes.
3) You’re not afraid to step into fear with courage and commitment. You don’t let fear gets in the way of holding you back from taking a positive step forward, whether it’s doing scary things like kayaking in the sea for the first time, swimming in the ocean, taking a stand on something that you thought it might be embarrassing yet fascinating to others, or taking a solo trip to places that you have never been before.
4) You’re not afraid to share your vulnerabilities. Because you take the courage to share your struggles, your fears, and your doubts, someone else may be on similar journeys as you are. Hearing your stories enable them to reflect on theirs, which could turn out to be valuable lessons for others to learn from, and give them strengths to go through what they are going through.
5) You peel the onion as far back as you’re able and comfortable with. Don’t doubt or regret on what you’ve shared. People who resonate with you will identify with you, and may want to form deeper connections or do business with you.
Amplifying Your Authentic Personal Brand
Once you understand what it means to be authentic, you can amplify your authenticity by showing up and role modeling on what it means.
For examples:
You call out when you see something that is misleading the truth.
You teach others on how to act and live authentically.
You’re always in deep alignment with your values and beliefs, your thoughts and feelings, your relationships with self and those with others.
You help people share their stories authentically and powerfully.
In sum, cultivating and amplifying your authentic personal brand means that you are giving yourself a voice and helping others in finding theirs.
You hold a genuine presence and an approachable persona that attract your tribes to you.
You earn a reputation on what you stand for, and you possess a soul that never gets tired of being true to yourself — all of which will make your more WHOLE in living out your authenticity to its fullest degree.
Nothing gives me a fuller heart…
…than seeing the outcome of my client’s efforts when she has executed on her vision, her branding and messages, and most importantly, expressed her personal story in a deep and caring way.
I took Debbie Drennan on as my private client because I understood the importance of her work, and the amplification of her work’s impact that brings tremendous joy to the people and the families whom she serves – people that hold a special place in my heart.
As I was coaching Debbie on all key aspects in creating her brand, extracting her personal story, clarifying her high-impact work, and anchoring her passion, I learned that we both had experienced similar struggles, in terms of being parents of young children who needed a little more attention and care than other kids.
During our sessions: we brainstormed; we laughed; we cried; we embraced; and we celebrated.
It was amazing experience working with Debbie, because she is willing to invest in herself and her efforts showed.
Debbie has launched her website that cohesively tied together what we had worked on in a few months. It’s not just a website; it an embodiment of her life’s work, the efforts of us working together, with help from stellar photograph and website designer.
I’m truly blessed to be doing high-impact work with Debbie that enables the possible, warms hearts and strengthens the human spirit.
 As a board member of the BerkeleyHaas Alumni Network Silicon Valley chapter, I teamed with our colleagues and the Sustainability Alumni Group at BerkeleyHaas in launching our first program addressing climate change and global warming.
On June 27, we hosted a panel discussion on “Climate Real Talk,” where we gathered liked-minds from Berkeley Haas’ academia and select industry experts to give us a real talk about where our carbon footprint is now, where it’s headed, and what personal actions that we can take to stop amplifying climate change and global warming that are already here.
Our panel comprised of:
Professor Andrew Isaacs, a Leading Climate Change and Sustainability Expert
Emily Chueh, Co-Founder, Okapi Reusables, and
Fiona Baker, Strategic Sustainability Science Program Manager, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
Here’re a few actionable takeaways from our “Climate Real Talk” panel discussion:
1) Minimizing usage of fossil fuels.
If we can be mindful about how much we drive using gasoline, how much we fly using jet fuels, and how much coals are being used to produce energy, we’re moving a step in a positive direction to minimize usage of fossil fuel that contributes to increased carbon emissions.
2) Zero carbon emission is an ideal state, making progress towards carbon footprint reduction in any key aspects of our lives are more important.
Think about “Reduce, Re-use, and Recycle” as a basis to live sustainably. If we can make conscious decisions daily about reducing anything that contributes to higher carbon emission, we should embrace it.
If we cannot reduce, we can consider re-using items as many times as possible, and extend the life of our tech gadgets as long as possible. So, things like plastic cups, paper, computer or clothing waste don’t get piled up in our landfills too quickly.
After we’re done with our re-use, we can recycle outdated or wear-and-tear items in appropriate ways to minimize effects to climate change.
3) Going beyond personal actions and unifying others to support living sustainably by teaching our community to respect our mother Earth, and treat her as our national treasure.
The damage that global warming has done is not reversible. The way to move forward is by teaching others to take care of how they want to conduct their lives in terms of their food consumption, energy usage and transportation habits.
Some examples on how we can modify our lifestyles to live sustainably:
Food consumption: Eat red meat less frequently.
Energy: Charge your electric car during low-usage hours. Buy energy from community-based clean energy grids.
Transportation: Work close to where you live. Conduct meetings via Zoom instead of driving or flying. Invest in an EV car if you drive more than 5K miles/year.
These are a few examples of things that we can do to start the process of slowing down amplification of climate change.
Like the old saying goes: “it takes a village to make a transformational change,” same goes for supporting our climate change movement.
It takes one to create a small ripple. It will take a collective effort from everyone to create even bigger ripples that will multiple the effect and lead to exponential change for the good of our climate and our planet Earth.
About Jenny: Jenny Huang is the Founder & CEO of Jenny Huang Marketing, LLC. She is brand and marketing leader who is passionate about helping young and progressive companies in sharing their stories powerfully and authentically, and launching their products cohesively to the world. You can get in touch with Jenny directly via email info@jennyhuangmarketing.com
PC: Robert Lukeman of Unsplash
Climate change is already here! The devastating aftermath in coastal cities brought by intense rainstorms earlier this year served as a wake-up call for all Californians, and a stark reminder on why the fight against climate change is more important than ever. It’s up to us to rise up, and take personal responsibilities for our energy, transportation, and food consumptions that contribute to the reduction of carbon footprints in our global economy.
Join us for a panel of experts in discussion on the impact, opportunities, and challenges of personal ac-tions. Everyone can choose a role that they can play and become a champion for sustainability and climate change. Let’s unify our efforts in making transformational changes to protect our mother Earth.
Date: June 27, 2023, Virtual
Time: 5:30-7pm PST
Cost: Free
Register
Details
5:30-5:40 pm: Program Introductions
5:40-6:15 pm: Speaker/Panel Presentations
6:15-6:55 pm: Panel Discussion & Audience Q&A
6:55-7:00 pm: Wrap up
Should We Inter-Mingle Our Personal Brand with Our Business Brand?
I get asked about this question a lot from young companies who are committed to invest in their brands.
I often responded with the idea that “people do business with people whom they trust.”
The reason that individuals and companies build brands is because we want our people to trust us, our reputation to be known, and that we can deliver the values that we’ve promised.
Personal Branding Essentials for Young Companies
When a young company starting out as a one- or a two-person team, your name(s) and brand(s) are lesser known simply because you’ve not been actively talking about it and promoting it to your people. Unless you’ve garnered your reputation as an industry expert before you started your company, then that would be a different story.
Hence, as early-stage companies, without a known reputation, you’ll need to express your personal brands at deeper level, and building the early trust that’s essential to cement a solid foundation on your relationships with people whom you want to invest in your company, and for some, buy from you.
At this early stage of your journey, your personal brand is your business brand, and they inter-mingle, because what you do in life or what happens in life affects your business directly, and vice versa.
As you continue to build your personal brand, people will get to know you, your expertise, your core values, and your authenticity, all of which contributes to making your personal brand attractive to people who resonate with you and your story.
Business Brands for Companies Scaling
When your company grows and scales, your business brand will take on more responsibility in representing your company, and your personal brand will evolve to become more of a supportive pillar. Because now, you may have a team of people under you, and everyone needs to act and speak accordingly to represent the business brand in positive lights.
These days, however, it’s common for CEOs and CMOs of established, growing companies to consistently show up and be the face of their companies, leveraging their personal brands to ensure likability of their companies, while maintaining trust with their customers and shareholders.
As Zig Ziglar once said: “When people like you, they will listen to you. When they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”
That’s what we’re aiming for, right?
To be a trusted brand that people want to do business with.
Intermingling Personal Brands with Business Brands
So regardless of the artificial barrier that we want to put between our personal brand and business brand, those who practice inter-mingling their personal brands and business brands will win.
Because at the end of day, people want to know that they are working with humans. The inter-mingling helps us be authentic and show up as a whole person – and that’s what matters.
Want to learn more about how to build your authentic personal brand before you build your company? Contact us for a free, 15-minute discovery session. We can determine best ways to help you.
I am championing for the corporate warrior-turned women entrepreneurs…
…who have been charting their own entrepreneurial paths,
But aren’t sure about their direction because they’ve come to a plateau where transformational change is necessary.
They’re ready to take actions and put themselves back onto a clear path that leads to personal growth and exponential impact.
I am championing for the high-achieving women business leaders…
…who want to achieve more high-impact work with energy alignment.
But aren’t sure how to maintain their energy system and avoid burnouts.
They’re ready to commit and lean into having proven structure and processes that can lead them to having abundant energy and flow.
I am championing for the resilient women founders…
…who want to overcome fear and free from past failures.
But aren’t sure how to get pass their old beliefs or fear that might be holding them back from making faithful leaps into a better future.
They’re ready to take action in the face of fear, and make significant shifts to change the outcome of their situation.
Do you see yourself here?
I see you…ready to tackle your challenges with courage and compassion.
I would like to invite you to join my Purposeful Transformation ™ Program.
In 8 weeks, we will take you through:
*Bringing clarity to your vision
*Bridging passion with vision, connecting to a clear marketing strategy
*Aligning strategy with energy to focus on areas to make your plan successful
*Removing old beliefs that no longer serve you
* Strengthening your personal brand
* Crafting a human story to share powerfully and authentically
Does this sound good to you?
I am looking for 3 exceptional women business owners, who are willing to do the work, and create amazing progress toward reinvigorating and transforming their businesses for exponential impact.
Send me a note, put “Transformation” in the message, and I’d love to share details with you.
Let’s do this together. It starts on April 26.
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