Jojo’s own story is a masterclass in understanding who you are before you try to tell anyone else who you are. The branding lessons that weave through our conversation are ones every founder needs to hear.

About this week's guest

Jojo Smith is a brand and business development expert and founder of Creativsas. She has built her career across hospitality and retail before moving into brand development, and she brings a rare combination of lived experience, commercial acumen and radical self-awareness to everything she does. Jojo believes that the strongest brands aren't built on aesthetics. They're built on identity. And she has the framework, and the values acronym, to prove it.

In this episode

Most brand conversations start with visuals. Logos. Colour palettes. The things that look like branding from the outside.

Jojo starts somewhere entirely different.

She starts with identity. With the question of who you actually are before you decide how you want the world to see you. And in this podcast, she traces that philosophy all the way back to her own story, a childhood in foster care that taught her more about resilience, self-knowledge and the importance of values than any boardroom ever could.

This is a conversation about brand but it's also about something bigger. It's about what happens when the person building the brand finally understands themselves well enough to build something that lasts.

What you'll hear in this episode

The origin story that shaped everything
Jojo talks openly about growing up in foster care and how that experience forged the self-awareness and values-driven approach that now sits front and centre of everything she does in her business. This is not background noise. It is the foundation.

From hospitality to brand development
How a career across hospitality and retail gave Jojo an education in customer experience, brand consistency and what it actually means to deliver on a promise, long before she had the language to call it brand strategy.

The three stages of brand building
Jojo walks through her practical framework for building a brand that works. Foundations, positioning and execution. In that order. Always in that order. And why skipping straight to execution is where most founders go wrong.

Hiring for values, not just skills
What happens to a brand when the people inside it don't share its values, and how to make sure they do before you make the hire rather than after.

Real AF: the values that run Creativsas 
Jojo shares the values framework she uses in her own business: Respect, Encouragement, Audacious, Loyal, Fair exchange. An acronym that is as memorable as it is meaningful and a masterclass in how values should feel, specific, ownable and impossible to confuse with anyone else's.

Brand failures and what they have in common
The pattern Jojo sees again and again in brands that lose their way. Spoiler: it almost always comes back to values. Not bad strategy. Not poor design. Values that were either never defined or never lived.

The routines behind the clarity
Music, journaling and the practice of declaring goals intentionally. Jojo on the personal habits that keep her thinking clearly, showing up consistently and building with purpose.

The strongest brands aren't built on aesthetics. They're built on identity.

The question this episode will leave you with

Do you know who you are clearly enough to build a brand around it? Or are you building the brand first and hoping the identity catches up?

About your host

Amanda Jane is a Sales Communications Strategist and founder of Big Brand Impact with over twenty years of experience in communications, media and PR. She works with established founders whose messaging has got messier as their business has grown to help them finally sound like the brand they've actually become.

Brand Obsessed is her podcast for founders who are done with vague and want better communications to lead to more sales.

Bold thinking. Brilliant stories. Better business.

Download the free business health check tool Why Aren’t More People Buying From Me?

Connect with Jojo Smith

Website Creativsas
Instagram

Facebook

Get Jojo’s books on Amazon:

Not your average Brand Expert

Loving yourself beyond belief

Connect with Amanda

Website: http://bigbrandimpact.com
Email: amanda@bigbrandimpact.com
Instagram: @‌AmandaJaneStrategist

Enjoyed this episode?

If Jojo's story resonated with you, share this episode with a founder who is building a brand but hasn't yet done the identity work underneath it.

And if Brand Obsessed is becoming your favourite business podcast, a two-minute review makes an enormous difference to helping it reach the founders who need it most.

After twenty years in communications I’ve seen a lot of waffle. A lot. And in this episode I’m calling out the words, habits and lazy language choices that are quietly costing founders clients every single day, starting with the one word that appears on almost every website in every sector and says absolutely nothing…

The ten quick fixes covered in this episode:

1. The passionate problem why the most common word on the internet is also the most useless one and what to say instead
2. The adjective audit how to go through your website and find the words that describe how you feel about your work rather than what it does for your clients
3. The so what test the one question to ask before you publish anything, ever again
4. The power of specific why "I help people transform their lives" loses clients
5. Why jargon is a confidence cover what complicated language is really telling people about your offer
6. The testimonial problem why "lovely to work with" isn't selling anything and how to ask for the testimonials that actually convert
7. Say the number why vagueness is a wasted opportunity to be believed and specific results are the most powerful thing you can put in your copy
8. Delete the word just the smallest word doing the most damage to how seriously people take you
9. Swap but for and one word change that makes every sentence sound more confident, more assertive and less apologetic without you changing a single thing you're actually saying
10. 10. Stop writing for everyone why "this is for entrepreneurs" is for nobody and how to write for someone specific enough to raise their hand

About your host

Amanda Jane is a Brand Communications Strategist and founder of Big Brand Impact with over twenty years of experience in communications, media and PR. She works with established founders whose messaging has got messier as their business has grown to help them finally sound like the brand they've actually become to improve their sales.

Brand Obsessed is her podcast for founders who want to know what creates a good brand, are done with vague and want to improve their sales with better communications.

Bold thinking. Brilliant stories. Better sales.

Download the free business health check tool Why Aren’t More People Buying From Me

Connect with Amanda

Website: http://bigbrandimpact.com
Email: amanda@bigbrandimpact.com
Instagram: @‌AmandaJaneStrategist

Enjoyed this episode?

If this made you run to your website, screenshot it and tag Amanda on Instagram. She wants to see the before and the after.

And if you found it useful, leaving a review takes two minutes and helps Brand Obsessed reach the founders who need it most.

These weren't small brands making small mistakes. They were giants, with budgets, agencies, and boardrooms full of smart people. And they still got it spectacularly wrong.

I was a fascinated teenager watching all of this unfold, and something clicked. Brand isn't what you sell. It's what people feel. And when those two things fall out of sync, it costs you, sometimes everything.

Those moments are what started me on this geeky path.

In this first episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on why I started The Brand Obsessed Podcast, what you can expect, and why I believe the founders who win aren't more talented than the ones who don't. They just communicate better. Simples (See what I did there?!)

In this episode:

What The Brand Obsessed Podcast is, who it's for, and why I'm launching it now (five weeks into my rebrand to Big Brand Impact, no less).

The three brand disasters that shaped my thinking before I ever worked in communications.

What 20-plus years in corporate communications, media, and PR actually teaches you about what founders get wrong.

Why your messaging probably hasn't kept up with your business, and what that's costing you.

What's coming next: the guests, the case studies, and the conversations I'm most excited to have.

So, welcome to the geek zone my friends!

About your host

Amanda Jane is a Brand Communications Strategist and founder of Big Brand Impact with over twenty years of experience in communications, media and PR. She works with established founders whose messaging has got messier as their business has grown to help them finally sound like the brand they've actually become to improve their sales.

Brand Obsessed is her podcast for founders who want to know what creates a good brand, are done with vague and want to improve their sales with better communications.

Bold thinking. Brilliant stories. Better sales.

Download the free business health check tool Why Aren’t More People Buying From Me

Connect with Amanda

Website: http://bigbrandimpact.com
Email: amanda@bigbrandimpact.com
Instagram: @‌AmandaJaneStrategist

Enjoyed this episode?

If this made you run to Google Gerald Ratner, let Amanda know your thoughts! 

And if you found it useful, leaving a review takes two minutes and helps Brand Obsessed reach the founders who need it most.