We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Andy Rhodenbaugh a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Andy, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome is always related to the feeling of fear. What will people think of me? Am I good enough? Will I succeed or fail?
Fear, as Dr. Chip Dodd notes, is the feeling that tells us we are in danger. For some, the danger is swimming in shark-infested waters. For others, it’s getting out of bed in the morning or starting a new business.
Recently, I made a complete career shift when I left my stable nonprofit job of 16 years and started my own for-profit marketing and branding agency. This new space is unfamiliar and feels dangerous for all sorts of reasons and so I find imposter syndrome welcoming me awake each morning.
As Dr. Dodd also notes, if we ignore our fear or lie about it, pretending we aren’t afraid, our fear will turn into anxiety, a biological response to the suppression of fear. However, if we acknowledge our fear and share it with safe others, our fear can lead us to an intended gift: wisdom and faith.
As I’ve been honest about my fears, I have sought out wisdom from others. I got certified as a Marketing Guide by StoryBrand, a reputable marketing company that provides me a license to use their proven marketing framework along with training, coaching, and connection with other Guides.
As I’ve gained wisdom and equipping I am learning to trust (faith) the skills I already had and those I’m quickly gaining. All this has led to the courage to put one foot in front of the other each day and simply do the next right thing.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
You know how a lot of service professionals are excellent at what they do and deliver incredible value to their customers, but their websites say otherwise?
I started Clear Sight Design to change this.
Service professionals who are excellent at what they do deserve a website that accurately represents the quality of their services and will help them share their services confidently. The problem is they are (usually) not website designers and DIYing a professional website is a drain on their time and energy, if not impossible.
Using the StoryBrand Framework and my 10 years of experience building websites on Squarespace, I can set service professionals up with both compelling brand messaging and professional website design in less than week. For those who are committed to a budget and don’t mind a DIY, I offer customizable website templates that can be launched quickly and easily.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Stay hungry, stay humble. You might have seen it on a t-shirt, but let’s break the phrase down. Staying hungry means you are willing to learn new things and put yourself under the leadership of others in some sense. It means not becoming complacent with the status quo if you know something better is available. Staying humble means you are willing to accept your weaknesses, work to refine them, and ask questions that other people may think are silly.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
I was a marketing major in college and never thought I’d go into the field. For whatever reason I gathered that marketing was about being sneaky if not sleazy to convince people to buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, to impress people they don’t know.
Donald Miller’s book Building a Story Brand changed my entire view of marketing. Marketing is actually about serving people by helping solve their problems. With over a million copies of the book sold, Donald’s company StoryBrand has helped over ten thousand companies clarify their message and reach more customers.
As a StoryBrand Certified Guide, I am licensed and trained to create marketing materials that implement the StoryBrand Framework. Here’s a great quote from the book:
“The customer is the hero of the story, not your brand. When we position our customer as the hero and ourselves as the guide, we will be recognized as a trusted resource to help them overcome their challenges.”
That’s what marketing is all about.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.clearsight.design
- Instagram: @andyrhodenbaugh
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-rhodenbaugh/
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
