How to Replicate Disney’s Brand Magic in your Own Small Business with Hilary Hartling – Podcast Transcript

Speakers: Lexie Smith, Hilary Hartling

 

Lexie Smith 

So first I met Hillary through two ways really one through the bra network stands for business relationship Alliance, who was a former client of mine, but a community both of us are a part of. And then the second way beyond that, is we ended up having a lot of the same clients. So that meant a business or brand would work with Hillary to develop a gorgeous and brilliant brand. And then they’d hop on over to my world to go into all things PR. I’ve also had the privilege of working with her and my pop is clean program. I’ve spoken to her mastermind, and I’ve invited her to speak in my ReadySet coach program. So all this to say we’re very well professionally acquainted, I vouch for her 150% I’m going to now let Hillary get a word in. I always kick the show off by starting with where in the world are you? And what do you like to do outside of work for fun?

 

Hilary Hartling 

Oh, how fun. Well, thank you for having me. First of all, because I think it’s so fun to be here. I know you’ve done an amazing job on your pigeon and sipping podcast talking to some really cool people. So I’m honored to be asked. I actually just moved to Tucson, Arizona, from Orange County, California. I spent about 22 years in Southern California and then decided once I adopted my daughter Ruby that I wanted to live closer to family. So I moved to be closer to parents. I literally just unpacked the last box I had. And I’m starting to decorate which is one of my favorite things to do when I’m not working is literally interior design, and what’s the energy of your space and getting the energy and the feeling right to support your goals and dreams?

 

Lexie Smith 

So a couple things first, everyone, Hillary I got a text from Hillary we’re working together st I’m gonna have to reschedule our call because literally I I have a daughter waiting for me. And so you adopted your daughter and I got pregnant when we were working together. So we got became new mamas really at a kind of similar standpoint, and I’m very bummed that you moved when you did because literally tomorrow I’m driving down to San Clemente. No, wait, that’s so weird. They know the Father’s Day weekend. She was in San Clemente Orange County before And anyways, I digress. I’m a huge Hillary fan. Love HGTV as well. So I’m into decorating. Okay, so we’re gonna transition a bit talk Disney to me. So tell me a little bit about your career high level up until today.

 

Hilary Hartling 

Yeah. So you know, it’s interesting. So right after college, I graduated. And for some reason in my brain, I thought, Oh, I have to go get a serious job. I better go find one. So I actually moved to Seattle first. And I worked in an advertising agency in media planning. And I could have not been more bored with my job and my career because I was doing like insertion orders for magazines like Aviation Week and Space Technology for Boeing. And like, I had no interest. I had no, like, it was not creative. It was nothing. So I stepped back after about a year. And I said, like, what I’m very good at manifesting things that I want to so I stepped back and I said, What do I want? What Oh, you can market advertiser brand, anything? What do you want to do it for? And I just made a list of everything I loved and movies was always at the top. And for some reason out of college, I thought I could never work in the movie business. That’s like not a thing, right. But of course, it’s a business. And of course, you need to market movies. It’s just I never thought of it until I made this list. So I went to college grad school in Boston, because they had huge ties back to Hollywood. And I ended up interning at DreamWorks. And then from there, got my position at Disney and stayed for 15 years, created my dream job while I was there. I was doing synergy for the company. I was doing it’s all movie marketing, but I was doing synergy creative content, integrated marketing. I dabbled a little bit in PR. And then like, like partnerships, so it was like a wide range of things that I did. Working with global brands. It was Disney, Pixar, Touchstone DreamWorks Marvel a little bit of Lucasfilm at the end. And so the experience that I’ve had and how you have to position things and understand your audiences and you know, know how to speak to people in a way that engages them, and it makes them want to do the thing that you’re trying to have them do go to theaters, read a book, whatever you’re marketing. It was just so fun for me, but I think the thing that I loved most is my job was all about inspiring audiences. And after I left, that’s the thing that really carries through. And what I do as a brand and messaging strategist for entrepreneurs, is I’m here to teach people how to inspire their audiences by understanding clearly their message and what’s going to resonate.

 

Lexie Smith 

Beautiful, and that kind of segwayed. Perfect. We’re going to dive more into Disney in a moment. But I did want to take a moment to talk about what you’re doing today, what what is today look like for Hillary? Yeah, today,

 

Hilary Hartling 

I’ve been in business for a little over six years. Like I said, brand strategy and messaging for entrepreneurs, it usually looks like really developing a brand strategy foundation from the ground up. So there’s probably a lot of elements in brand strategy that people don’t realize are a part of it. But it really helps you translate that into every single thing that you do in your business, from design to offers to how you promote it, like all of the things. So that’s what I’m helping people do. And really what people come to me for is clarity. And then messaging, because it’s like, I know what I do, but how do I say it so people get it?

 

Lexie Smith 

Yeah, that’s great. And I think there’s a misconception when you think of branding, you just think of logos and pretty colors, not you but like the general population. So thank you for touching on the fact that it’s so much more, and we’ll get in a little bit more into that in a bit. But there are 500 million things I could pick your brain on. And I actually sent a voice memo to you before recording this, I was like, I just can’t even decide I was going to your beautiful Press page. And I’m like, I want to talk about that. And I want to talk about that. Basically everyone do yourself a favor and follow up with Hillary post this show because she has so much to offer. But one one topic particularly is nice and sparkly. And it is how to replicate Disney’s brand magic in your own small business. So high level, you know, give us a little preview of what that looks like.

 

Hilary Hartling 

Yeah, well, the high level is really that I, you know, do the thing that a lot of people do. And I spell out magic for you. Because there are so many strategies that Disney deploys that there’s no way I could teach you all of their secrets and magic. But some of the things that I think directly translate into entrepreneurs really building their businesses is first of all, making it memorable. Right? So how do you create a brand and a message and an offer that’s memorable so that you stand out as the top choice within your industry. The second one is audience first, like ask your audience pay attention to your audience, it’s for them, we can’t actually develop your brand strategy without knowing who it’s for. So audience first, no matter whether you’re creating something, you’re thinking about expanding your business, you’re developing your brand strategy, it’s who it’s for, and paying attention and staying really on the pulse of what it is that they need and want and desire. That’s to GE is great storytelling. Storytelling is huge in how you talk about your business. And it actually feeds back into number one, you tell great stories for your business, you are more memorable. All of your stuff instantly is more sticky, right? People repeat stories, because they know them. So if you just are telling someone a concept, it’s harder for them to repeat it, you tell them the story behind that. They they remember it, they understand it, they can repeat it, they can promote you. So stories are huge. The fourth thing is innovation and imagination. This is one of the things that Disney does best, right? It’s like they’re always thinking about how can I innovate? How can I do something a little bit differently than has been done before? And then how do I really access my imagination not only to create new things for my audience, but so that you’re sparking their imagination, and they can imagine themselves in this transformative space that you can take them. The last one is very Disney, but it’s company wide synergy. And I was the studio synergy person. I worked with Synergy experts in every division of the company. So at Disney, that’s ABC, ESPN, Disney Channel, theme, Parks publishing, disney.com. All the entire it’s huge, the entire company. And we would come together and say, How can we together promote company priorities, to make it bigger than we could all on our own in our own division. And so within your own business, it’s really thinking about how do you even just like look at a year and say, what are the key priorities of my own offers in each time period and point everything that you own asset wise at that priority?

 

Lexie Smith 

Yeah, so good. Okay, so I know that Disney oh and by the way quick squirrel I now officially since I have a two month old we have Disney plus so I’ve been going back through all like my favorite childhood we did a Lion King last weekend and my husband’s been like walking around the house singing winging a walk going up and going squash, banana squash banana, so I’m starting to regret it a little bit. But anyways,

 

Hilary Hartling 

what’s funny is when I think when you have a little one you also realize, like, how tragic some of the Disney movies really are.

 

Lexie Smith 

Cool, like Yeah, he scar murders his brother. It was very dark. Oh,

 

Hilary Hartling 

yes, it gets dark. Like I know, I know, families where the kids think Finding Nemo starts just with Marlin and Nemo. And they never see mom or all those other brothers and sisters dying in the beginning. They just started later. And I’m like, That’s hilarious. But I understand that when you have a kid you understand? Right?

 

Lexie Smith 

Right. Yeah, it’s a whole whole new lens. Yeah, but okay, so love Disney. Disney has a formula. I know you have your own signature methodology as well. So I want to get into that. What’s it called? And what is it?

 

Hilary Hartling 

Well, I call it so my, my online cart course is brand Polish Academy. And the reason why I came up with that, and I teach other people as they’re building their brand and their messaging and naming things, right, that’s a big part of branding, is you want to pick something that’s a benefit. And you also want to choose something that your clients and your audience is actually saying to you. So after a good number of one on one clients, so many people were saying to me, I just need your help polishing my brand. I was like, Okay, so let’s call it brand polish. So I have the brand Polish blueprint method, which is what I take you through in my course. And it’s what I do one on one with people as well. But it’s really starting from a high level, you start with purpose. So your understanding your bigger why of why you’re in business, we get into perception, both your current brand perception, what do people think of about your business right now? Is that on track with what you want it to be, because then we develop? What’s your desired brand, push that perception, because when you approach your brand in an intentional way, you shape the perception, right? You don’t control how everybody thinks. But if you actually have a plan of action moving forward, and you’re crafting the message for a specific audience, more than likely the majority of the audience is going to think of you for the thing that you say you want to be known for. So we go into perception, and then we go into people really quickly, right? It’s people it’s Who Who are you talking to. And I’m not a big fan of the Avatar. Because I’ve seen it misused by so many entrepreneurs, I am more of a fan of understanding, because you might have more than one ideal client, by the way, too. And I think also, as we all start building more inclusive businesses, you don’t want an avatar looking like one person. So what I do is we talk about your ideal audience. But then we’re also instead of thinking about demographics, which are outward descriptors, we’re diving into psychographics, which are internal motivations. So we get really clear on that for you. So that everything we do moving forward, we’re positioning, which is the next step, positioning your brand, in order to speak to that audience, those types of people, those types of clients with those kinds of internal motivations, desires, needs, challenges, or frustrations. And then we do packaging. I don’t design, but we do a visual brand strategy. So we understand like colors have meanings, right? What does that mean? Does it does it that align with the brand that we’re building fonts that can be modern, or that can be more traditional, that can be more classic? They can be timeless? Like what kinds of fonts actually speak the language of your brand? What kind of photography should you be using to attract the people you say you want to work with? So we get into that we also in in the realm of packaging, we’ll also talk about your aligned core offerings, right? So what are those? If you have a brand promise, and you’re saying this is what I helped deliver to this audience? Well, then what are the offers that are going to help get them there? Right, because you could. And a lot of times in that in that section, we talked about framework a lot. Because if you have a framework, you can translate that into any type of offering, whether it be a mastermind, a book, an online course, a coaching program, if you have the framework, it can translate anywhere. And then we finalize that with promotion. So how do you promote your brand? What’s your brand voice? What’s your brand personality? What are your branded content pillars so that you start talking about consistently what you want to be known for? That’s what drives the right people to your business. So we go from purpose, perception, people positioning, packaging, and promoting

 

Lexie Smith 

so good, so good. And to be honest, it’s a little convoluted when you say all those things. I also think oh, that’s also a PR. That’s also marketing, like branding, marketing PR, there’s this intermix actually love your take on the difference, or the the relationship between all these high level terminologies.

 

Hilary Hartling 

Yeah, you know, there’s complete overlap, and there’s complete gray areas. And I actually think it’s beautiful, because they all do work very much together. Also, the way I do branding might be different from how someone else does brand strategy, because I like to cover all of it. So you have an understanding, because my brand then goes straight into marketing, how do you now market that brand, but where I’m coming from for this, too, is, you know, I want to my goal was to work at a major motion picture studio, I ended up at Disney, there’s a difference, right? You’re not only promoting Finding Nemo when it comes into theaters, excuse me. You’re promoting Finding Nemo from Disney and Pixar. No one I know, says, I’m gonna go see the new Paramount movie this weekend, or I’m gonna go see the new Fox movie this weekend, or universal or Warner Brothers. But they say Disney. And they say Pixar and they say Marvel, you’re not only dealing with a bigger brand that you have to market and understand the audience for you then have sub brands that you need to promote and make a bigger franchise. So I think whether it’s PR branding, or marketing, you’re starting with a brand. And then you have to promote it in some way, whether that be pulling the levers of PR, right for more visibility. And more than a lot of times in the world of like movies, it’s going to be media. And then also marketing, which is directly to the consumer in that case. So it’s going to be different for any kind of business. But they all go hand in hand, they all hold hands well together, they play together well in the sandbox, and they all just like flow into each other I think.

 

Lexie Smith 

Yeah, and I would say the branding part is so foundational and something that I loved, you know, I mentioned Thomas show that we’ve worked with some of the same people, guys, the the brands that would come to me after working from Hillary were like the best clients because they had these beautifully clear, beautifully packaged, articulated, unique point of view plans already in place that I really didn’t have to do much to other than just help them on the kind of visibility scale. So there is such a marriage to it. And you did want to point out one thing too, on avatars. It’s really interesting. People ask me all the time, like, Who’s your ideal client is your avatar for the PR bar. And I always go, it’s a personality type, which is more psychographic. So. And I do really like what you highlighted as we tried to be more inclusive, you know, our avatars shouldn’t look like one person.

 

Hilary Hartling 

Right? Yeah, no, I haven’t been about that the other day. And I think that’s such a, because as I’m trying to figure out as a solopreneur, in my business, and with the clientele I work with, how do I start to impact and create a more anti racist, inclusive, diverse, right, and I think that’s part of it. If you’re developing a brand. Yes, you want to know who it’s for. But you also don’t want to intentionally make it very exclusive.

 

Lexie Smith 

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, there are, you can’t mark it to everyone, everyone, right. Oh, but I think, you know, for me with the personality type that brings in different genders, different colors, different industries. Yeah, it’s more a common goal and a common there’s other things that you can find

 

Hilary Hartling 

similarity that that similar motivation, yeah. Which, like you said, has nothing to do with your background, or where you came from, or who you want to love or what you look like. Right. So yeah, I think that’s a huge part of it, and why I get so off of demographics and so into psychographics. That’s one of the reasons like, yeah, it just helps you with messaging to if you understand their motivation, you turn what they say into a message.

 

Lexie Smith 

Yeah, really, really good. You know, let’s talk a little bit more about tips. So you’re starting out, you’ve given so many tips already, but let’s go into personal branding a little bit. Um, having said everything that we just talked about, we talked a lot about like bigger businesses and brands, you know, there’s this evolution of the personal brand that has really come to center stage over the past 510 years. What are some of your best tips or things that people should consider when developing a personal brand and I guess you know, what, backtrack what is a personal brand versus a business brand? Let’s start there.

 

Hilary Hartling 

Yeah, no, absolutely. A personal brand is going to be one that’s literally you, right? It’s so your if it’s a business, it’s named after you. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a business someone can have a personal brand without having their own business, obviously. And so like, if I was gonna backtrack and do at least one thing, probably multiple things, but at least one thing differently At the time I was at Disney, it would be to continue to build my personal brand, alongside helping Disney build theirs, right? Because it would be that much easier to transition out of a corporate environment into building a business or doing what I wanted to do next, a personal brand is something that is directly tied to you and your own bigger why your own bigger vision. So I actually get a lot of personal brands coming to me because it’s that much harder to clarify for yourself, because it’s you, right, you have to really have someone to reflect back because it’s so much more helpful. But I will say a business brand is something that has an invented name from scratch. So the PR bar is a business brand. But I would actually call it more people these days have hybrid, right? They may have named their company something, but they are so present in it as a personal brand, meaning people know the face behind the brand, you’re out there and showing yourself and your expertise to build trust for the brand you’re creating. So I would say more people these days have hybrid brands. But if it’s a strict personal brand, a lot of times it’ll be someone who’s like an author, a speaker, something like that, even though my brand is named Hilary Hartling. Where I go into the hybrid is branding brand Polish Academy. Right? Yeah. So I start to become known for that brand Polish part of it. So it just depends on how you kind of want to set up your business. But I think just overall personal brand today is where you want to be. I think consumers will trust you faster. You’ll build credibility, faster, right? It’s just you’re you’re having a relationship with the consumer, which is savvy consumers today. They don’t want to just deal with a nameless, faceless brand. They want to know and understand your your values where you stand, what you do, how you help. What’s your background, why are you an expert in this they want to know you. It’s like why Spanx isn’t just known as Spanx, right? You know, Sara Blakely, you know her story, right of how she started Spanx. You think of some of your own favorite brands, I guarantee you know the person behind the brand if you’ve got a favorite brand.

 

Lexie Smith 

Yeah, so question to that, you know, hesitant or hesitation, I hear a lot when people come to me and we talk about the concept of Do you want to build that leadership? for yourself? Do you want to really focus on promoting visibility with your brand is they don’t people there’s a fear of? Or maybe the word is, you’re gonna have to edit this Kalium having one of those what is English moments? misconception? Okay, let me restart that sentence. People come to me with maybe a preconceived notion that they have to overshare if they’re going to build their personal brand, like they have to put their heart on a sleeve, they have to tell everyone what’s going on in their business. And a lot of people don’t want to do that. So do you think you have to do that to have a successful personal brand?

 

Hilary Hartling 

No, absolutely not. It’s it’s funny, because I think the word personal is what trips people up, it does not mean you need to share your brand new baby on Instagram, it does not mean you need to share your wedding shower. With your clients, it basically means that you as a person, are being visible as an expert for the business that you run. Right? So yes, you can share whatever you want. But that’s that’s the choice you make you decide the boundaries, and you decide the topics because there could be something in knowing your audience that you do in your personal life that might connect deeply with the motivations of your clients, maybe they’re so into wellness, and they want to create a brand that allows them to have the kind of life that they want to live. Well then if I’m running a marathon, I might share that, right. If I’m drinking a green smoothie, I might share that, right. So it’s up to you to decide what are the components of your life that you make part of your business? But to me, it’s it’s very strategic. And it’s it’s funny saying that, but like if you see Instagram and you think everyone’s sharing all their personal life, there’s a reason why they’re sharing the things that they’re sharing. Yeah, right. There’s been thought behind that. And so it might seem inauthentic when you think about it that way but but it’s not it’s just deciding what parts are you going to share because you’re building a business in a brand?

 

Lexie Smith 

Yeah, I went on this. I think it was on LinkedIn actually tangent one day I’m gonna have to look up that post but it basically said, you know, there’s a lot of pressure to put everything out there on on social media. If you don’t do that you’re inauthentic. When I like who I am as a person. It’s not real and it’s not authentic to want to share everything so it actually be inauthentic of me to share everything. So I just think it’s nice To hear that side of the coin, because there’s so many people out there, pressuring us to wear your heart on your sleeves for everyone to see.

 

Hilary Hartling 

Thank you. I think what people really want to see, honestly, is your passion for the thing you do. Yeah, right. And that can translate into different things. I’ll tell you. When I first moved here, I shared just a one snapshot on my stories of my dining room, because it’s the only place in the house that was put together everyone, everything else is boxes, and just awful. I got more response on DM to that photo, then Ruby photos. And I was like, hold any I’d love to design. But I also, that might be something I include more of only because I really believe in the energy of a brand and the energy of a space and the energy that you bring to the table as an entrepreneur, I think that helps you build your brand. So depending on that’s my own interest in my own passion, but it can translate and when I see the reactions to it, you see the engagement for it, then you get to make the choice. Is that something I want to share more of or not? And then how do I share it in a way that helps the brand? And boosts the business?

 

Lexie Smith 

Yeah. And it’s a choice keyword, right. So I mean, Hillary, you talked a little bit about brand polish, I want to know all the different ways people can work with you tell us tell us all the things. Yeah, how

 

Hilary Hartling 

fun, okay, so a lot of people come in hot and want to work with me one on one. So they’ve got my brain directly on their brand. And I’m helping come up with a strategy and with the messaging. So you can do that in my brand Polish half day intensive. That is super fun to do. But I also created brand Polish Academy. For those who want to DIY it a little bit, you still have access to me for q&a. But that is like a how to step by step how to build that clear and cohesive brand strategy to call and dream clients. And like I said, I do like live q&a with everybody. So they they move forward, they don’t get stuck in there. The other thing I do is you graduate from brand Polish Academy are you’ve done your brand strategy work with me. Some people have come without having done it because they’re really clear. But I have my brand evolution mastermind. And that’s when you’re doing some advanced branding and marketing strategies with me. And you basically have access to me to really get me to review some of the things that you’re working on your business so you can move forward faster. And you have a community to do that with.

 

Lexie Smith 

And where would someone go to see all these

 

Hilary Hartling 

things and choose three hartling.com. So Hillary heartland.com is my website and all the things are on there, including the Press page that Lexie mentioned earlier, which she actually is the one who helped me build. And I’m so proud of it because it’s such an easy way for people to reach out to me if they want me for a workshop or to be on their podcast so they can see kind of the expert topics that I can talk to them and their audience about or give a workshop that will be helpful for their students or their clients.

 

Lexie Smith 

It was really full circle going to your press page because it was so helpful for me as I was prepping for this podcast but also like very rewarding to to see it all put together. Okay, one one last very important question. Season Four. We’re still bringing in this Hilary, we talked a little bit about pitching what can we find you sipping so what is your favorite beverage of any bridal?

 

Hilary Hartling 

Okay, well, I mean, I gosh, I love a good chai latte. But only from coffee being in there are none of them in Tucson. Really? Yeah. So my other favorite I’m gonna have say grapefruit mimosa, grape

 

Lexie Smith 

fruit Mimosa that is a first for this shows. For Yes. Awesome love mimosas. I it’s been a it’s been a minute since I’ve had a mimosa then again, I am coming off of not having any alcohol for a very long time. So okay, well, amazing. This was so much fun. You guys. Absolutely. Follow up with Hillary check out Hillary heartland.com Follow her on social. We’ll have all the show notes. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. And congratulations again on your move.

 

Hilary Hartling 

Thank you so much and congrats on a little baby Ashlynn what a doll

 

Lexie Smith 

Yeah. Thank you