Beyond Success Online

Nicole K. Lundy’s BIO

Nicole K. Lundy, known as the Money-Making Brand Strategist, works with uncommon leaders who in a sea of beige, want to be RED-HOT.

After leaving a demanding Corporate Finance career, Nicole launched a beauty consulting company and used her sharp branding skills to get featured in a HarperCollins published book, work backstage at New York Fashion Week with top designers such as Jason Wu and CZAR by Cesar Galindo, and get featured on MSNBC, eHow.com, and Huffington Post Style.

Nicole now owns a brand consulting boutique and is a noted speaker and best-selling author, helping high-performing CEO’s and entrepreneurs who don’t know how to be distinctive in their marketplace to become extraordinary and dominate their market authentically. Her simple money-making brand packages help her clients to get noticed so that people hire them, their impact is greater and they can get paid their worth.

To learn more about working directly with Nicole, visit her at http://www.profitablepersonalbrand.com.

INTERVIEW SHOW NOTES

1. BSO: Please share with us the inception of http://www.ProfitablePersonalBrand.com.

NL : I’ll give you the short version of the story.

I worked in Investment Banking and Corporate Finance for almost 4 years after college and every single day a piece of my soul died. I knew it was time to start my business, a goal I had on the back burner since working for my own parents at age 11 in their businesses.

After leaving the world of Finance, I launched Ne’lani Beauty, a beauty consulting company and used my ‘do or die’ skills from Finance to rapidly expand. This resulted in getting featured in a HarperCollins published book, working backstage at New York Fashion Week with top designers such as Jason Wu and CZAR by Cesar Galindo, and getting featured on MSNBC, eHow.com, and Huffington Post Style.

At the 3-year mark, I knew I was outgrowing my business and decided to expand into Personal Branding and then expand again into Brand Consulting for Small Business CEO’s and Entrepreneurs. So, Profitable Personal Brand was born.

Since then, I’ve become a noted speaker, best-selling author, and a results-oriented Brand Strategist working with high-performing CEO’s and entrepreneurs who don’t know how to be distinctive in their marketplace to become extraordinary and dominate their market authentically. My simple money-making brand packages help my clients get noticed so that people hire them, their impact is greater and they can get paid their worth.

2. BSO: Take us through a typical day, start to finish.

NL: A typical day for me starts in my gratitude and goals journal.

It’s critical for me to reconnect to my ‘WHY’ every single day so that I can build my business ‘in purpose.’ However, let’s back-track a bit.

I set objectives and goals every 90-days for my business in the areas of Branding, Marketing, Sales, HR, Client Experience, Financials and Legal. When I organize my weeks, it is directly tied to this 90-day period for my business. For each project and task that I am working on, I work on it for either 45-minute or 90-minute intervals. I’ve learned that I can work super-focused in these time periods. I use the timer on my phone to keep track.

I end the day by confirming my calendar for tomorrow and ensuring that I am prepped to operate at 100%.

3. BSO: What was the best advice you received as you began expanding your business?

NL: The best advice I received was – Don’t grow alone.

I am a natural-born loner (and brat, some say) and I naturally want to do things by myself in my own way but that does not work for growing a global business. When my mentor told me ‘Don’t grow alone’, it struck a cord because I knew at the time that I was doing that and it made everything that much harder.

4. BSO : What are your strategies for building awareness of http://www.ProfitablePersonalBrand.com for the short term and the long term?

NL: My Awareness Strategy, or as I like to call it, my Visibility Strategy includes:

1) My Podcast Show on iTunes – The Pretty & Profiting Show. We launched the show on Nov 3, 2014 and since then we have hit top 3 in New & Noteworthy shows on iTunes. We will be adding an interview series for our weekend episodes in the upcoming months, which will help us, reach and build an even bigger audience.

2) Social Media – we broadcast everything we are doing on social media and also share brand, business, and entrepreneurship-related information to our community. We will also be adding more to our video strategy this year.

3) PR – we regularly pitch online shows and media outlets; that always helps in positioning Profitable Personal Brand as an authority in the marketplace.

5. BSO: What is your proudest achievement?

NL: Proudest achievement…this is a hard one! I’ll go with my most recent achievement of The Pretty & Profiting Show hitting the Top 10 on iTunes.

6. BSO: What are Your Top 3 book recommendations?

NL: Books! So important in being an entrepreneur.

I’ll go with: 1) No Excuses 2) Girl Boss 3) 10X Rule

7. BSO: What other charitable causes are most meaningful to you and why?

NL: Charity: water is the most meaningful cause to me. This organization is so transparent with how they help people and exactly where all the donations go. Also, water is life and there are so many people in the world without clean water to drink. It’s a critical need that they are fulfilling.

8. BSO: Who has been most influential toward your career successes?

NL: Most influential personally are my parents – hands down. I got the entrepreneurial spirit from them and they have by example shown the true meaning of tenacity, work ethic and courage.

Most influential professionally would be my mentor Allyson Byrd and Sophia Amoruso, the founder of Nasty Gal and author of Girl Boss – these women are the epitome of what it takes to make a difference and build an empire.

9. BSO: What is your advice for entrepreneurs who are 1-3 months away from launching their new business?

NL: My #1 Advice is to know your ‘Exclusive Guarantee of Market Value’.

This simply means stand firm in what you do and the special way that you do it. You will seem like a weirdo when you own this but it’s your secret weapon to standing out and dominating your marketplace.