Jade Nangah: Everyone's creating content, but not everyone is creating something that actually moves people. This is The Algorithm Isn't Enough, a show about how brands build visibility in the age of AI. I'm Jade, the founder of Voice Scale, and today I'm talking with Erica and Nina, founders of Talico Creative, where storytelling isn't just a tactic, it's the foundation. They come from a background in dance, culture, and community building, and they're bringing a really different perspective to how brands should show up. So, Nina and Erica, thank you for joining me today.
Nina & Erica: Yes, thank you for having us. We're so excited and we're happy to be here.
Jade Nangah: I'm really excited because anytime I hear a brand or a company that's rooting themselves in storytelling, I just have so much belief and faith there. And so you talk about storytelling with heart first. What does that actually look like in practice for a brand?
Nina & Erica: Yeah, I think for us one of our biggest things is chasing longevity versus virality and I think that's where brands and small businesses kind of get they look at it almost in the opposite way. So for us we like to play this long game and really try to build community and connection through storytelling on having a digital presence or your digital footprint, whether that's through social media, whether that's consulting with how your website might look, try kind of trying to do this alignment with your brand from what someone's seeing online versus what they are going to experience either in store, if you're an e-commerce business, what they're going to experience when the product comes to them, et cetera.
Jade Nangah: Love that. And so where do you see brands getting storytelling wrong right now?
Nina & Erica: Yeah, I think sometimes brands are focused on the wrong thing when they're storytelling. some brands are doing a really good job about creating community, but I think like the deeper why you're doing what you're doing is so huge and important and using that to build your community because what people relate to is the why or the problem or the passion behind it. So when you start building a community, I think a lot of founders or brands can get so stuck on me, me, me, me, me, which yes, it is about you and your brand and your story and how you got here, but it's not only about you. Your building something for other people. So that is your community and how can we bring them in and how can we storytell on their experience and how it aligns here or how their these two different customer experiences are paralleled and they have completely different backgrounds but they experience the same thing and that's why they're coming to the brand or company for the solution. So I think thinking it is inward but it's also outward and being able to bring the community in as well.
Jade Nangah: Yeah, totally agree. I've told one of my clients in the past, like, storytelling isn't about you just telling your story. It's about what is the story you want your customers or consumers to feel when they use your product or service. That's the story that we're telling. And I think that's the big shift that we have to move, especially for newer brands, newer founders. They're thinking, like, wait, I've told my story now, what? Like, and it's like, no, it's your story's great, but on top of that needs to be layered on to the client's story and their experience and the transformation and what they're gonna see, and maybe the story. Telling behind like they had this problem and now your product or service has come in and saved the day and talking about that story. So I totally agree on that mindset. And so how would you say you balance emotional storytelling and strategy that actually drives results?
Nina & Erica: think that there's I think there's no need for a balance. I think marketing you're pulling on the emotions. People buy based off of emotions. People buy into that. So I think the more you can pull on somebody's emotion whether it is funny. I mean the more The more stronger pull people are gonna feel, and that's usually more on the emotional side, like the heart strings that we can tug on, the quicker they're going to be to buy. You don't need as many touch points because they're like, my gosh, I feel that. my, that's me. That's they're explaining me, or like somebody that I know, or I went through that, or I wanna be like that. I wanna feel like that. I don't wanna be where I am right now, I wanna feel like that. making me feel but purchase is gonna come from the feeling. Yeah. I think the other part of the emotional part of it is that we really, really push our clients into you're not talking to a camera. You're not talking to everyone. When we are
Jade Nangah: Yeah.
Nina & Erica: Filming with you, especially in this content creation process, you're talking to one singular person. We want you to be to make it as conversational as possible, but also very direct to that person on the other side, the consumer that's viewing it. So it should feel like if I'm watching your video, it should feel like you're not talking to anybody but me. It's like there is strategy with the hook and you know how long, short form, long form, all the other strategic things in the back, but really when it comes to the person on the screen that's that's recording we want to make sure that you are also being intentional and on your message to it being to a singular person as well. Yeah and it doesn't necessarily even have to be like a real like carousels I'm sure as we all know have been doing so so well over the last year and the storytelling carousels specifically but I think it's like she said there is still strategy to it but it's like Okay, what how many emotions can we pull or how many stories can we use to explain this product or whatever it is? If it's like food and bev, like, okay, you have this recipe, where does it come from? my grandma's recipe, okay, why don't we know that? So there's this storytelling aspect here and people are gonna get connected to that and whether whether it's a carousel or a real, they're gonna be like, my gosh, I wanna try their grandma's recipe.
Jade Nangah: Right. Exactly. And I think the real strategy behind it, Lynn, like you guys touched on, is knowing that ICP deeply, like knowing who you're talking to and not even just about like, okay, these people in this role at this type of company, but like, do you know their psychology? Do you know what's keeping them up at night? Do you know what their things that they're going through in their career and things that they're dealing with today? And have you done that deep research? And I think that is what informs a proper strategy. Because if you can say, Hey, you know what, I know that I'm targeting moms who have children.
Nina & Erica: Yeah, yeah. Yes.
Jade Nangah: at three months and they're going through the sleep regression phase and this is something like you can really niche down into what that story should be if you do the digging and that deep research on the front end for sure.
Nina & Erica: Yeah, as Nina says all the time, if you're talking to everybody, you're talking to no one. And it it does have to be that specific because you can't go into the psychology aspect of it if you don't know who we're talking about. So I definitely agree.
Jade Nangah: 100%. And that's something I love about marketing. There's so much variety. Like it's not just like, posting. It's like, no, there's psychology, there's sales, like there's so much depth in the marketing world. And I love that we're able to really pinpoint and talk about that. taking it even a layer deeper, when it comes to culture and community, how are you seeing that they are shaping the way brands should show up online?
Nina & Erica: Yes. Culture and community, I think for us, we really love trying to build community through social media, and that is the direction that we love to take our clients in. and it typically makes the most sense for for the clients we've worked with. The cultural part, I think, is such an unlock. we're all minorities, we're all women of color on this call, and there was a time in our lives where Growing up, it wasn't cool to be a minority, to be from a different culture, to be from a different background. And In a sad way, but a really cool way, it's cool to be different nowadays. And I think that when people are scrolling so through social media and they see themselves being represented, it is it is like a scroll stopper for them. Like, my god, like she looks like me. Is she like I I want I want to know more about her. We're so used to consuming media and social media of for so long of people that might not resonate with us or we don't see ourselves in that representative light. And I think that has really inspired us as proud AAPI women and proud to represent minority owned businesses and work with minority owned businesses, that has really driven into part of our strategy a lot. Yeah, for sure.
Jade Nangah: Right. And so I love that because this actually just doubled down on the question that I was gonna ask next about like the community and actually building that real visibility. But I think it ties back to what we spoke about previously, like knowing that ICP, knowing who you're targeting, and that's how you build community by actually pinpointing what they're doing versus focused on the audience size, right? Like like Nina always says, right? If you're talking to everyone, you're talking to no one. And I think that's a big misstep that we see with a lot of marketing. They're like, we want as many numbers and we want to drive as much revenue. And it's like, well, you can't do that. if you do not niche down. Okay, another question, and this also ties into our previous conversation about storytelling, right? What role do you think founders and teams play in telling a brand story versus the brand itself?
Nina & Erica: I think a huge role. your team culture and I mean that everything is a business comes top down. So the culture of your company matters a lot to people, especially as people like the younger generations, people are looking into that. Who is the founder? Who am I truly supporting? I feel like it wasn't as a big deal in the past, and now it's just even more heavy, and it's like, okay, well, what are their values? Okay, well, do they actually do what they say? Can I trust them? Do I have is there credibility there? So I think it's it's definitely been huge. And I think when people show up authentically, the founder and the team, and you can see this kind of like you can see their culture and it directly re represents hmm it when you walk into wherever that company or brand is. It's not something that's fake. You see that same culture. So what you're seeing online should be exactly what you're seeing in the store. If it's brick and mortar or if you happen to see the founder walking down the street, it should be that same type of connection. So I think them showing up is showing this is who we are and we're not afraid of who we are and we want you to feel connected to us as a brand. Yeah, I think it helps with preventing more barriers to entry because it just builds a lot more trust. And so when you see it's easier to buy into something when you feel that connection and that trust and that human connection with the team and the founder as a consumer is something that I think a lot of folks crave with all this noise in the world right now. And I think that having your founder involved, having your team involved on top of that just really pushes you into a different segment if your competition's not doing that.
Jade Nangah: One hundred percent. And that's honestly one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about my little niche in marketing, which is like personal branding and thought leadership. When I build Jets Productions, I realize like there's only so many talking head videos about products and features and specs and all the things that can be put out. But what really resonates is someone talking about, hey, you know what, I've founded this company, but here are the things that I've been losing, right? Here are the here's the some of the losses I've had, here are some of the mess ups, the fails, here's how I'm leading my team. I think that gives a founder so much more credibility. And especially in a world where now AI search really is the way people are finding you. And if a founder is silent, it signals risk. And even teams, if someone's willing to come work for a company, they want to see okay, what are people actually posting about what they're doing at their job? But in this is just another way it helps companies surface when employees are active. And that's why I built Voice Scale because I realize that there's so much power in what employees have to say. But one, it's not their job to do the marketing, right? They don't know what to say, they don't want to say the wrong thing. And that's why I they'll sc voice scale because I'm like it only makes sense to create a way in a system where employees can get content out about their company, about their role, about what they're doing, building their personal brand, but also building the company brand. And I think that's a win-win. And that's why I'm like, it's very niche even specifically between jet set productions and voice scale. But there's so much power in your employees being up and speaking out and your founder being out and talking about not just the good things, not just, hey, we we hit our metrics for the the Q4 and we We're crushing it and we just raise this. It's like also let's talk about the reality of being a leader, right? And all founders we know that that comes with trials and tribulations. Start talking about it.
Nina & Erica: Yes. Yes, agree.
Jade Nangah: And our last power question, right? What's one thing brands should start doing if they wanna start if they want their story to actually resonate and stick?
Nina & Erica: They want it to resonate and stick. I feel like it's so this may be like a broken record on what everyone's saying right now, but I Can't stress enough of being genuine and authentic. It's like those words are like buzzwords. Buzzwords at this point. But it is so true because I've seen a lot now, even as a dancer and choreographer as well, like ads for dancers and their AI generated and not that that's all
Jade Nangah: Yeah.
Nina & Erica: AI the AI generation of that is all just an issue in itself. But like using them as yourself as the founder so that you don't have to be on camera or things like that. I'm sure AI will get there to where we really can't tell, but they're people are sharks. The trolls are out there and they will get you and they will sniff that AI on you. And it's also I think well what we do specifically with our clients is we do everything interview style.
Jade Nangah: Yeah.
Nina & Erica: Because it is really hard to keep things genuine on a script, especially with founders where maybe they're like, Okay, I want to start a personal brand or I really want to push myself as a founder and show that show me on my brand and my company, but maybe I haven't been on camera. It's really hard to show up genuine and authentic because you don't want to sound boastful, you don't want to sound fake, and you don't like how you sound on camera because most of us don't. So it's really hard, but I think one thing we always tell our clients. Is the more you show up on camera, whether you use it or not, just start talking to it, talk about your processes, talk about man, today I really messed up on this thing, or the orders didn't come through, whatever it is. Maybe you never post it, but at least you're getting used to that face-to-face, so that when you start and you start putting yourself out there and try to show that genuine authentic side of you, it will come off as that rather than feeling as if you are scripted on camera or reading a teleprompter and you're seeing your eyes go. Yeah.
Jade Nangah: Exactly.
Nina & Erica: Yeah, I mean Erica really put it in such such a great way. It really reminds me of something I've seen lately where it's like s brands need to stop trying to sound human and just be human. And I that really stuck with me because again with with with our approach to our clients, the reason why we can we would rather spend, you know, a do a 20-minute interview with you is to find the most genuine tone from you versus I'm Jade, I approve this message. And that's and that's how we're supposed that's how you want to come off to people versus talking about, you know, maybe we're starting really, really small, and then we finally get to the meat of it. And it's really just building you up to that comfort. Really feel uncomfortable trying to talk about themselves, or they just don't know if they want to say like they don't know what they want to say, they don't know if they should they're oversharing, they don't know if they should say something. So we try our best to kind of get this really big picture into 60 to 90 seconds, but trying to make the other person feel as comfortable as possible. However, if you're starting alone, maybe you don't have the means right now to work with an agency, or you don't have the capacity to work with another team at the moment. Erica tells this to everyone, just like she said. Like, if you just put your phone up and maybe it is like allow yourself to feel crazy. Allow your feel yourself to feel crazy to figure it out. Yes. Like if you want to pretend that you're an influencer and do a get ready with me right now, do it. It doesn't mean that you have to post it, like Erica said, but
Jade Nangah: It's cringe. It's cringe upper. Yeah.
Nina & Erica: I think really just trying to it's like exposure therapy i in in a way. and it's it doesn't have to be super big, we can go into small chunks first and and that's okay. Everyone's gonna go at their own pace. But to sound genuine, to sound authentic, to really make a difference by showing up t for yourself and your brand, it you'll you'll see the fruits of your labor in that way. Yeah, I think it's also you don't have to be polished, right? Like
Jade Nangah: It is.
Nina & Erica: It's we see it on TikTok all the time or even to this day the content that we were like, well, I wouldn't have created that, but it does well because this founder they they're trying. It's it's it's not polished, it's not edited well, it's the font is kind of looking crazy, but you see that this person is trying and
Jade Nangah: Better not to be honest with you.
Nina & Erica: the community, the audience, when people see that, it's something that maybe they're not willing to do or they want to do and they feel inspired. So even though it's not great content, they're gonna you know what you're putting yourself out there. I'm gonna follow you and I'm gonna follow your journey because you've you're risking judgment on everybody else to just put yourself out there in order to build your brand or your business and that takes takes a lot of courage. Courage. Yes.
Jade Nangah: Yes. And I love to say like I tell my founder clients all the time Because most of them they're at their companies are at about a million ARR a year. So that means they have teams. They are fully stacked. And I always talk about this is no longer just about you. You have employees who have families to feed, who need that health insurance, who need this company and are relying on this company to succeed, to grow. If you can have a small part of that, and then you can get over. I mean, I tell them all the time, lean into the cringe, right? You take 20 videos of yourself and you're like, this is awful. But I also remind them like it's not. About you. It's about your team. It's about what you're building. It's about who you're doing this for. And by you do 20 of those cringe videos, you get over it. Like you said, the exposure therapy. Then you're like, okay, I can do this anytime, anyway. But it does take kind of looking outside yourself to really step out and say, you know what? Okay, I am building this business. I do have people that are relying on me. I do have customers who need exactly what I have to offer. And if this is a way that I can reach them, then it's no longer just about me and my discomfort and my thoughts of being. Cringe, right?
Nina & Erica: Yeah. It is funny how founders can fail and fail so many times in order to build a business, but it's it's the same thing with content. You can't you have to start with the stuff that's ugly. If you don't and you don't put it out there, you're not gonna see what's working, what's not working and find what style you like. So
Jade Nangah: Exactly. Exactly. Well, this was a fabulous conversation. Tell the listeners how they can find you, reach out to you. What are you specializing in?
Nina & Erica: Yeah, so telegraph creative. You can find us on Instagram. You can find our website T A L A K O Creative dot com. we specialize in storytelling and alignment marketing. We love working with small local businesses, but we also love working with Different businesses that we might not have experience in, but more so because we like to see this third party, unknown consumer view because we're giving you a different perspective. Erica talks about it all the time. And I think that's kind of where our other like superpower lies in where we can really give you this different aspect where if you're trying to get new clients and We're not the subject matter expert. We're giving you that third-party opinion. And a lot of the time that's that's how that's how people are viewing you. So we we would love to support anyone. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us. We have a form on our website and a our Instagram DMs are always open too.
Jade Nangah: Perfect. Well, for you listeners out there, follow the show for more conversations just like this. And if you want help scaling your brand's voice without losing what makes it real, Talico Creative is here to do that. Jeff Tep Productions is here to do that. VoiceScale is here to do that. You have so many opportunities and options out there to get your voice out there, get your brand out there. And we will see you in the next one.
Nina & Erica: Yes, thank you for having us. We're so excited and we're happy to be here.
Jade Nangah: I'm really excited because anytime I hear a brand or a company that's rooting themselves in storytelling, I just have so much belief and faith there. And so you talk about storytelling with heart first. What does that actually look like in practice for a brand?
Nina & Erica: Yeah, I think for us one of our biggest things is chasing longevity versus virality and I think that's where brands and small businesses kind of get they look at it almost in the opposite way. So for us we like to play this long game and really try to build community and connection through storytelling on having a digital presence or your digital footprint, whether that's through social media, whether that's consulting with how your website might look, try kind of trying to do this alignment with your brand from what someone's seeing online versus what they are going to experience either in store, if you're an e-commerce business, what they're going to experience when the product comes to them, et cetera.
Jade Nangah: Love that. And so where do you see brands getting storytelling wrong right now?
Nina & Erica: Yeah, I think sometimes brands are focused on the wrong thing when they're storytelling. some brands are doing a really good job about creating community, but I think like the deeper why you're doing what you're doing is so huge and important and using that to build your community because what people relate to is the why or the problem or the passion behind it. So when you start building a community, I think a lot of founders or brands can get so stuck on me, me, me, me, me, which yes, it is about you and your brand and your story and how you got here, but it's not only about you. Your building something for other people. So that is your community and how can we bring them in and how can we storytell on their experience and how it aligns here or how their these two different customer experiences are paralleled and they have completely different backgrounds but they experience the same thing and that's why they're coming to the brand or company for the solution. So I think thinking it is inward but it's also outward and being able to bring the community in as well.
Jade Nangah: Yeah, totally agree. I've told one of my clients in the past, like, storytelling isn't about you just telling your story. It's about what is the story you want your customers or consumers to feel when they use your product or service. That's the story that we're telling. And I think that's the big shift that we have to move, especially for newer brands, newer founders. They're thinking, like, wait, I've told my story now, what? Like, and it's like, no, it's your story's great, but on top of that needs to be layered on to the client's story and their experience and the transformation and what they're gonna see, and maybe the story. Telling behind like they had this problem and now your product or service has come in and saved the day and talking about that story. So I totally agree on that mindset. And so how would you say you balance emotional storytelling and strategy that actually drives results?
Nina & Erica: think that there's I think there's no need for a balance. I think marketing you're pulling on the emotions. People buy based off of emotions. People buy into that. So I think the more you can pull on somebody's emotion whether it is funny. I mean the more The more stronger pull people are gonna feel, and that's usually more on the emotional side, like the heart strings that we can tug on, the quicker they're going to be to buy. You don't need as many touch points because they're like, my gosh, I feel that. my, that's me. That's they're explaining me, or like somebody that I know, or I went through that, or I wanna be like that. I wanna feel like that. I don't wanna be where I am right now, I wanna feel like that. making me feel but purchase is gonna come from the feeling. Yeah. I think the other part of the emotional part of it is that we really, really push our clients into you're not talking to a camera. You're not talking to everyone. When we are
Jade Nangah: Yeah.
Nina & Erica: Filming with you, especially in this content creation process, you're talking to one singular person. We want you to be to make it as conversational as possible, but also very direct to that person on the other side, the consumer that's viewing it. So it should feel like if I'm watching your video, it should feel like you're not talking to anybody but me. It's like there is strategy with the hook and you know how long, short form, long form, all the other strategic things in the back, but really when it comes to the person on the screen that's that's recording we want to make sure that you are also being intentional and on your message to it being to a singular person as well. Yeah and it doesn't necessarily even have to be like a real like carousels I'm sure as we all know have been doing so so well over the last year and the storytelling carousels specifically but I think it's like she said there is still strategy to it but it's like Okay, what how many emotions can we pull or how many stories can we use to explain this product or whatever it is? If it's like food and bev, like, okay, you have this recipe, where does it come from? my grandma's recipe, okay, why don't we know that? So there's this storytelling aspect here and people are gonna get connected to that and whether whether it's a carousel or a real, they're gonna be like, my gosh, I wanna try their grandma's recipe.
Jade Nangah: Right. Exactly. And I think the real strategy behind it, Lynn, like you guys touched on, is knowing that ICP deeply, like knowing who you're talking to and not even just about like, okay, these people in this role at this type of company, but like, do you know their psychology? Do you know what's keeping them up at night? Do you know what their things that they're going through in their career and things that they're dealing with today? And have you done that deep research? And I think that is what informs a proper strategy. Because if you can say, Hey, you know what, I know that I'm targeting moms who have children.
Nina & Erica: Yeah, yeah. Yes.
Jade Nangah: at three months and they're going through the sleep regression phase and this is something like you can really niche down into what that story should be if you do the digging and that deep research on the front end for sure.
Nina & Erica: Yeah, as Nina says all the time, if you're talking to everybody, you're talking to no one. And it it does have to be that specific because you can't go into the psychology aspect of it if you don't know who we're talking about. So I definitely agree.
Jade Nangah: 100%. And that's something I love about marketing. There's so much variety. Like it's not just like, posting. It's like, no, there's psychology, there's sales, like there's so much depth in the marketing world. And I love that we're able to really pinpoint and talk about that. taking it even a layer deeper, when it comes to culture and community, how are you seeing that they are shaping the way brands should show up online?
Nina & Erica: Yes. Culture and community, I think for us, we really love trying to build community through social media, and that is the direction that we love to take our clients in. and it typically makes the most sense for for the clients we've worked with. The cultural part, I think, is such an unlock. we're all minorities, we're all women of color on this call, and there was a time in our lives where Growing up, it wasn't cool to be a minority, to be from a different culture, to be from a different background. And In a sad way, but a really cool way, it's cool to be different nowadays. And I think that when people are scrolling so through social media and they see themselves being represented, it is it is like a scroll stopper for them. Like, my god, like she looks like me. Is she like I I want I want to know more about her. We're so used to consuming media and social media of for so long of people that might not resonate with us or we don't see ourselves in that representative light. And I think that has really inspired us as proud AAPI women and proud to represent minority owned businesses and work with minority owned businesses, that has really driven into part of our strategy a lot. Yeah, for sure.
Jade Nangah: Right. And so I love that because this actually just doubled down on the question that I was gonna ask next about like the community and actually building that real visibility. But I think it ties back to what we spoke about previously, like knowing that ICP, knowing who you're targeting, and that's how you build community by actually pinpointing what they're doing versus focused on the audience size, right? Like like Nina always says, right? If you're talking to everyone, you're talking to no one. And I think that's a big misstep that we see with a lot of marketing. They're like, we want as many numbers and we want to drive as much revenue. And it's like, well, you can't do that. if you do not niche down. Okay, another question, and this also ties into our previous conversation about storytelling, right? What role do you think founders and teams play in telling a brand story versus the brand itself?
Nina & Erica: I think a huge role. your team culture and I mean that everything is a business comes top down. So the culture of your company matters a lot to people, especially as people like the younger generations, people are looking into that. Who is the founder? Who am I truly supporting? I feel like it wasn't as a big deal in the past, and now it's just even more heavy, and it's like, okay, well, what are their values? Okay, well, do they actually do what they say? Can I trust them? Do I have is there credibility there? So I think it's it's definitely been huge. And I think when people show up authentically, the founder and the team, and you can see this kind of like you can see their culture and it directly re represents hmm it when you walk into wherever that company or brand is. It's not something that's fake. You see that same culture. So what you're seeing online should be exactly what you're seeing in the store. If it's brick and mortar or if you happen to see the founder walking down the street, it should be that same type of connection. So I think them showing up is showing this is who we are and we're not afraid of who we are and we want you to feel connected to us as a brand. Yeah, I think it helps with preventing more barriers to entry because it just builds a lot more trust. And so when you see it's easier to buy into something when you feel that connection and that trust and that human connection with the team and the founder as a consumer is something that I think a lot of folks crave with all this noise in the world right now. And I think that having your founder involved, having your team involved on top of that just really pushes you into a different segment if your competition's not doing that.
Jade Nangah: One hundred percent. And that's honestly one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about my little niche in marketing, which is like personal branding and thought leadership. When I build Jets Productions, I realize like there's only so many talking head videos about products and features and specs and all the things that can be put out. But what really resonates is someone talking about, hey, you know what, I've founded this company, but here are the things that I've been losing, right? Here are the here's the some of the losses I've had, here are some of the mess ups, the fails, here's how I'm leading my team. I think that gives a founder so much more credibility. And especially in a world where now AI search really is the way people are finding you. And if a founder is silent, it signals risk. And even teams, if someone's willing to come work for a company, they want to see okay, what are people actually posting about what they're doing at their job? But in this is just another way it helps companies surface when employees are active. And that's why I built Voice Scale because I realize that there's so much power in what employees have to say. But one, it's not their job to do the marketing, right? They don't know what to say, they don't want to say the wrong thing. And that's why I they'll sc voice scale because I'm like it only makes sense to create a way in a system where employees can get content out about their company, about their role, about what they're doing, building their personal brand, but also building the company brand. And I think that's a win-win. And that's why I'm like, it's very niche even specifically between jet set productions and voice scale. But there's so much power in your employees being up and speaking out and your founder being out and talking about not just the good things, not just, hey, we we hit our metrics for the the Q4 and we We're crushing it and we just raise this. It's like also let's talk about the reality of being a leader, right? And all founders we know that that comes with trials and tribulations. Start talking about it.
Nina & Erica: Yes. Yes, agree.
Jade Nangah: And our last power question, right? What's one thing brands should start doing if they wanna start if they want their story to actually resonate and stick?
Nina & Erica: They want it to resonate and stick. I feel like it's so this may be like a broken record on what everyone's saying right now, but I Can't stress enough of being genuine and authentic. It's like those words are like buzzwords. Buzzwords at this point. But it is so true because I've seen a lot now, even as a dancer and choreographer as well, like ads for dancers and their AI generated and not that that's all
Jade Nangah: Yeah.
Nina & Erica: AI the AI generation of that is all just an issue in itself. But like using them as yourself as the founder so that you don't have to be on camera or things like that. I'm sure AI will get there to where we really can't tell, but they're people are sharks. The trolls are out there and they will get you and they will sniff that AI on you. And it's also I think well what we do specifically with our clients is we do everything interview style.
Jade Nangah: Yeah.
Nina & Erica: Because it is really hard to keep things genuine on a script, especially with founders where maybe they're like, Okay, I want to start a personal brand or I really want to push myself as a founder and show that show me on my brand and my company, but maybe I haven't been on camera. It's really hard to show up genuine and authentic because you don't want to sound boastful, you don't want to sound fake, and you don't like how you sound on camera because most of us don't. So it's really hard, but I think one thing we always tell our clients. Is the more you show up on camera, whether you use it or not, just start talking to it, talk about your processes, talk about man, today I really messed up on this thing, or the orders didn't come through, whatever it is. Maybe you never post it, but at least you're getting used to that face-to-face, so that when you start and you start putting yourself out there and try to show that genuine authentic side of you, it will come off as that rather than feeling as if you are scripted on camera or reading a teleprompter and you're seeing your eyes go. Yeah.
Jade Nangah: Exactly.
Nina & Erica: Yeah, I mean Erica really put it in such such a great way. It really reminds me of something I've seen lately where it's like s brands need to stop trying to sound human and just be human. And I that really stuck with me because again with with with our approach to our clients, the reason why we can we would rather spend, you know, a do a 20-minute interview with you is to find the most genuine tone from you versus I'm Jade, I approve this message. And that's and that's how we're supposed that's how you want to come off to people versus talking about, you know, maybe we're starting really, really small, and then we finally get to the meat of it. And it's really just building you up to that comfort. Really feel uncomfortable trying to talk about themselves, or they just don't know if they want to say like they don't know what they want to say, they don't know if they should they're oversharing, they don't know if they should say something. So we try our best to kind of get this really big picture into 60 to 90 seconds, but trying to make the other person feel as comfortable as possible. However, if you're starting alone, maybe you don't have the means right now to work with an agency, or you don't have the capacity to work with another team at the moment. Erica tells this to everyone, just like she said. Like, if you just put your phone up and maybe it is like allow yourself to feel crazy. Allow your feel yourself to feel crazy to figure it out. Yes. Like if you want to pretend that you're an influencer and do a get ready with me right now, do it. It doesn't mean that you have to post it, like Erica said, but
Jade Nangah: It's cringe. It's cringe upper. Yeah.
Nina & Erica: I think really just trying to it's like exposure therapy i in in a way. and it's it doesn't have to be super big, we can go into small chunks first and and that's okay. Everyone's gonna go at their own pace. But to sound genuine, to sound authentic, to really make a difference by showing up t for yourself and your brand, it you'll you'll see the fruits of your labor in that way. Yeah, I think it's also you don't have to be polished, right? Like
Jade Nangah: It is.
Nina & Erica: It's we see it on TikTok all the time or even to this day the content that we were like, well, I wouldn't have created that, but it does well because this founder they they're trying. It's it's it's not polished, it's not edited well, it's the font is kind of looking crazy, but you see that this person is trying and
Jade Nangah: Better not to be honest with you.
Nina & Erica: the community, the audience, when people see that, it's something that maybe they're not willing to do or they want to do and they feel inspired. So even though it's not great content, they're gonna you know what you're putting yourself out there. I'm gonna follow you and I'm gonna follow your journey because you've you're risking judgment on everybody else to just put yourself out there in order to build your brand or your business and that takes takes a lot of courage. Courage. Yes.
Jade Nangah: Yes. And I love to say like I tell my founder clients all the time Because most of them they're at their companies are at about a million ARR a year. So that means they have teams. They are fully stacked. And I always talk about this is no longer just about you. You have employees who have families to feed, who need that health insurance, who need this company and are relying on this company to succeed, to grow. If you can have a small part of that, and then you can get over. I mean, I tell them all the time, lean into the cringe, right? You take 20 videos of yourself and you're like, this is awful. But I also remind them like it's not. About you. It's about your team. It's about what you're building. It's about who you're doing this for. And by you do 20 of those cringe videos, you get over it. Like you said, the exposure therapy. Then you're like, okay, I can do this anytime, anyway. But it does take kind of looking outside yourself to really step out and say, you know what? Okay, I am building this business. I do have people that are relying on me. I do have customers who need exactly what I have to offer. And if this is a way that I can reach them, then it's no longer just about me and my discomfort and my thoughts of being. Cringe, right?
Nina & Erica: Yeah. It is funny how founders can fail and fail so many times in order to build a business, but it's it's the same thing with content. You can't you have to start with the stuff that's ugly. If you don't and you don't put it out there, you're not gonna see what's working, what's not working and find what style you like. So
Jade Nangah: Exactly. Exactly. Well, this was a fabulous conversation. Tell the listeners how they can find you, reach out to you. What are you specializing in?
Nina & Erica: Yeah, so telegraph creative. You can find us on Instagram. You can find our website T A L A K O Creative dot com. we specialize in storytelling and alignment marketing. We love working with small local businesses, but we also love working with Different businesses that we might not have experience in, but more so because we like to see this third party, unknown consumer view because we're giving you a different perspective. Erica talks about it all the time. And I think that's kind of where our other like superpower lies in where we can really give you this different aspect where if you're trying to get new clients and We're not the subject matter expert. We're giving you that third-party opinion. And a lot of the time that's that's how that's how people are viewing you. So we we would love to support anyone. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us. We have a form on our website and a our Instagram DMs are always open too.
Jade Nangah: Perfect. Well, for you listeners out there, follow the show for more conversations just like this. And if you want help scaling your brand's voice without losing what makes it real, Talico Creative is here to do that. Jeff Tep Productions is here to do that. VoiceScale is here to do that. You have so many opportunities and options out there to get your voice out there, get your brand out there. And we will see you in the next one.
