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Finding your USP starts with finding your
YOU-ness, with Adri Angotti
Episode 9, Season 1 – Adri Angotti
Welcome to the ninth episode of The Micro Niche Mastery Podcast.
Our guest for today is Adri Angotti, the creative director of ICONscious Companies that helps conscious companies find their voice and grow into a seven-figure business in as little as 8 months.
Are you struggling to find who you are as an owner and what you want to do next? Find your YOU-ness in this podcast.
- A conscious company is a company that is doing well by doing good for people or the planet
- Curious about how and why Adri markets her positioning course and services only to conscious companies? Listen to the full episode
- How important is truth in advertising (the answer will shock you)
- Adri believes that advertising should communicate the actual good that companies do
- Attracting companies start when you position yourself. How to do it? Find out in the first part of the interview
- Adri explained what is positioning and its power
- If you want people to come to you, take a stand
- Adri emphasized why YOU-ness is the important part of USP
- Why is finding an avatar similar to finding your soulmate?
- The secret to being a value-based brand and not a commodity is in the second part of the interview
- Why does modesty kill everything?
- The first thing that a business should do – find your YOU-ness and own it
- “What is different about you is that there is only one you. There is nothing that can beat that.”– Adri Angotti
This podcast is mind-blowing and will expand your mindset.
Tell your friends about it!
Transcript:
Click Below to see the full transcript of this episode
Open Transcript
Welcome to the Micro Niche Mastery Podcast, where we help you establish yourself in the perfect micro-niche. So you will get noticed and grow your business faster. And now your host, he believes that generosity is the key to any business growth, especially in micro-niches, Ziv Raviv.
Ziv:
Hello and welcome to Micro Niche Mastery Podcast. This is episode nine. I’m super stoked. Today I get to interview Adri Angotti from Iconsciouscompanies.com you help businesses find the niche. What’s special about them, the USP and position themselves for success. This is so exciting to talk with you. Hi, how are you?
Adri:
I am good. And I’m very, very happy to be here. And I might be a little controversial presence or bring some controversial ideas for us to discuss.
Ziv:
Uh, we love controversial stories. One of the reasons why I love your work so much. You have this natural talent identify big ideas and stories, but first of all, like you chose a niche for yourself for your after years in the branding and the marketing you chose to focus on conscious companies. What is that all about?
Adri:
Yeah, many things already in this question, it’s actually, I didn’t really choose conscious companies. I believe that there are different kinds of companies, companies that are there for profit only, and companies that are there with a mission and for profit as well. So I didn’t, I wasn’t born accompany and I wasn’t born at brand. So it goes back a long time. It can sound funny, but when I was a kid, my father was very strict. He was the son of two Italian immigrants that were very strict with him. So he was very strict with us. And I had to learn when I was very young, how to convince my dad to let me do things. So I didn’t really do. And this is the big distinction here. I didn’t really do anything. I didn’t really say anything that wasn’t true. I just took the truth and made the truth be seen.
Adri:
So I was, I would tell him, like I was a good girl. I was, I had very good grades. I went to the church and I was a good sister to my brother and my sister. So I would come to him with all this things that I had done. Good. And in the end, I would say, now I would make my offer. Right. I would say, now, can I go to this party? And he would align with the time, say yes. So I learned that I needed, if I didn’t say all of these things, I would not be able to do what I wanted.
Ziv:
Was that a natural thing for you? Or did someone teach you that?
Adri:
No, no, it was not natural. I had to learn, I had to learn by myself. I always loved TV and I always loved commercials. Actually, when people would start talking in the commercials, I would really come close to the television. Cause I wanted to see, because where I was brought up in Brazil commercials are very, very neared. Cause the Brazilian creativity is very high and we need to make a lot of things work with sometimes not so much money. So we needed to be good at creating of convincing with ideas. But the point is that when I was 16 and I needed to decide what I was going to do in college, and my cousin said, why don’t you go into advertising? And I never, ever, ever had thoughts of going into advertising. And I said, what is advertising? She said, well, you know, the people that create commercials and they create billboards, I was so fascinated with the idea that somebody was sitting there creating things.
Adri:
Cause I had never thought of that. And so I decided I was going to do that. However, and here comes the answer to your question. I was in the shopping center with very happy that I had decided what I was going to do and to be in my life. And I saw McDonald’s and I knew that McDonald’s was not such a, like a good food for me, you know? And also I started thinking of drinks and cigarettes that are things that are not good. And I started thinking, what if they, what if they want me to create commercials for cigarettes and drinks? And I said, I’m not going to do that. I’m never going to do that after all. I don’t think this advertising thing is for me. And I was for some time, really sad because of my passion that I had for advertising. However I needed to decide, I was very close to the date of deciding I needed to, to register into the schools, et cetera. And I decided to create a rationale for myself. I decided to go into advertising to learn how to do this craft and to propagate only good ideas and combat the bad ideas. I was 16 when I thought of that cautious companies. It’s not that I chose it. It’s almost like it chose me because I have been like this since a very young age.
Ziv:
I see. And, but uh, these days you actually like exclusively sell conscious companies. And over time you made some decisions too harsh in your criteria of what is a conscious company. So I understand it came from your heart, but you’ve made some conscious decisions about conscious companies. So can you tell us what is a conscious company from your standpoint.
Adri:
And why? I decided a conscious company essentially is a company that is, is doing well by doing good for people or for the planet. The reason I chose it is because when I went into advertising and I studied and I started working in big agencies, I worked in, in four different continents and, and all very big advertising agencies. And I was, uh, a big executive flying to different places and shooting commercials and winning awards for companies that I, they were terrible. And this was all against what I had gone in for. And what started happening is that after many years of doing that, I started getting sick. I started getting sick like every few days, like every 10 days I would feel I would fall sick. And I didn’t, I actually didn’t want to go to work cause I was not on purpose. And that’s when I started seeing that something deeper was happening. Cause my body was my body’s a big thermometer. And I started serving clients on the side, you know, and I started suddenly realizing that there was this whole arsenal of other brands and companies that are really good. It was almost like a paradigm shock for me, you know?
Ziv:
So what would you define these days? Like how do you know if a company is doing good for the world for people?
Adri:
How do I know if a company is doing good? What do you mean
Ziv:
You chose to work with companies that are more conscious? And that is something that is sometimes hard to tell from the outside. Like it’s easy to say, oh, they’re making this piece of food that is actually really bad for you. Right. But how do you know, maybe give some examples of companies that you work with and that you really appreciate how conscious they are.
Adri:
I don’t believe that companies that, that are born unconscious, they can do a few things and be called conscious because I think a lot of companies are doing that because there is a wave that is cool of companies that are doing good for the planet or being sustainable. So I personally believe in companies that are born out of a necessity to create this, do to make the statement that this is how the status quo is doing. And this is how we’re going to do sometimes even having less profits, but keeping a certain level of quality and integrity. That’s another big word in relationship to everything they do, their processes and their products and their services, uh, top top-notch quality. I think it’s, uh, top-notch quality is also, uh, a translation of elevation like spiritual elegance. I believe that companies that have something to say, they must be well translated in this sea of companies that are completely unconscious and not doing good and doing harm to the body, to the planet. But in our ocean of this companies, we need to create advertising that really communicates the real good, what they really do. Some of the examples that I have companies that I work with use cosmetics that are sustainable and that are completely fully a hundred percent natural, a natural medicine. I have a few clients that are in the realm of natural medicine that make unbelievable things to the body that create incredible health shifts to the body, all natural. So these are, these are some examples.
Ziv:
Thank you. I want to ask you, like, did your choice to be going into Micro Niche, like conscious companies and was that something that’s created a turning point in your business? And if so, like what was the turning point?
Adri:
Oh, that’s a really good question because this is a really good question. Actually. I’m just thinking, and it has to do with something I want to bring up here. I don’t know if it needs in one of your questions, but when I had my company and I was working, I liked working with conscious companies, but I would work with other companies as well. So if another company that was not so aligned with my values would come, I would work with them. But I believe that there is something energetic that happens when you position yourself. And when I say position yourself is like, when you tell to yourself who you are, who you want to work with, and this is your values and you want to people that are aligned with your values, there is something that happens that shifts your point of attraction. So you start attracting those companies.
Adri:
And I started attracting companies that when I positioned myself as a company that only works with conscious brands, I started getting a lot of traction and a lot of, how do you say a lot of clients started indicating other clients? Because I started really specializing. My method is very unorthodox. It’s not as something that you can get an agency, an agency to do because I have the background of big advertising agencies, but I have another background that is more connected to the human and to the spirit. And I believe there is a lot of fear of saying things that people call. There are some words that they keel the essence of the thing that you’re trying to describe. And this is where I think I am a little bit politically incorrect and I love to be politically incorrect because I’m saying the truth. Some words are used to describe things that, and at some point it’s so used that that thing lost completely the value.
Adri:
This is something that I encourage my clients to be aware of Jargons. Jargons, you go into being like a commodity. You’re not yourself. You are like everybody else. So the turning point is a happened when I decided that I, you know, you have to be gutsy to do this because I had to say no to companies that are bigger than the ones I was working. So what you’re going to say, what are you going to do? Are you going to be aligned or are you going to keep? But I have to say, when I said no to a big company, to other companies that were bigger, that work on showed up and I believe in taking a stand. And to me, the idea of positioning is positioning is taking a stand, taking a stand for, and I’m talking about positioning because positioning is what I do. I think positioning is the key is positioning. Is the key. When you stand up for something for our cause, or for an idea, people fly flock to you like bees to honey. When you stand for something, you will have people that are not going to be agreeing with you and the people that are going to be agreeing with you. But the people that agree with you, they really agree with you. They want to follow you. They want to come after you because you were gutsy enough to stand for your beliefs.
Ziv:
I love it. You have this expertise of finding alignment in businesses and, uh, some even call you misalignment because you, you have this skill of saying no. When a client wants to do something, that’s not aligned with the USP, the unique selling proposition. What exactly? How would you define USP and the power of it?
Adri:
I’m so glad you asked this question and I’m going to continue being a little bit politically incorrect. It’s not really politically incorrect. I just happened to have a very strong opinion about this. The idea of USP is exactly what I mentioned to you about jargons. USP is a jargon. So I don’t do USP. I don’t do niche, niching or USP for me. When you first learn about this word, you see the words spelled U dot S dot P for me, the way I work, my unorthodox method, I will describe USP U Y O U S P, because nobody can take from you, your U, nobody can take from you. So you might be doing something that so-and-so is doing and are so other people are doing. Nobody’s going to be doing the way you’re doing, and nobody’s going to be being you the same way you are.
Adri:
So you can be selling something that somebody else is also doing. However, that person is not you. That’s how I bring the idea of, I don’t even say USP, that doesn’t exist for me, but for me, what is different about you or anyone that is listening to this podcast? What is different about you is that there is only one you. There is nothing that can beat that. So when you are looking too much at what the competition is doing or what, the people that are selling, what they are doing, you are looking at the wrong way because you are a fountain. You are a source of new ideas and that you have inside of you, a mission. That mission is what you have to focus on.
Ziv:
So you help people focus on the YOUNESS, which is an amazing word combination. Instead of the unique selling proposition, the uniqueness is them. But what if someone is struggling with identifying what they are to this world? How can someone like get to clarity of what is the YOUNESS?
Adri:
Yeah, I think that’s a really, really great way and very simple way to define that thing that differentiates you from everyone else is what do you feel to do? What do you like to do? What is your deepest desire of doing or helping? And I am talking here with conscious companies that, because that’s all I do are conscious entrepreneurs. That’s all I do. So the people that are not so connected with the consciousness of the business, perhaps are not going to feel so connected to this, but to find your USP, you don’t need actually to find it’s just to own, what is it that you really love doing? There is no one that is going to be doing this the way you are doing. So I think that too much preoccupation about what is my days and what is my dad’s and what is, I think that takes the attention off of where it should be, which is your natural source of mission, your natural, why you came here. I think it’s more a revealing, an owning then a finding.
Ziv:
And I know that, uh, you also, you know, process help people, not just understand the stories and the beliefs, but you also help them understand their avatar, the ideal client. And why is that important to understand that and to define that and research that.
Adri:
Yeah, it’s very interesting because one of the things that I teach my clients, cause I, I teach my clients in group settings and one-on-one settings is that one thing that they cannot be cannot do when they are defining the people they are working with, or they’re the type of thing that they are different is they cannot be modest. A lot of this take kills the cat, as I like to say, because there’s this expression in quantum physics, but modesty kills everything. We are brought up to be modest. So you’re not brought up to do what I’m telling you to do, which is to own your mission, own the people that you want to work with. Your avatar is nothing else. The best way to find your avatar is like, imagine a person you would love to work with love, to work with a person that is your fan. That does everything that you say to them that has results and that Braves about you and bring their friends and a person that really idolizes you because they are naturally connect so much with who you are and what you’re doing, that is your avatar. And there is no reason to go after finding your avatar because your avatar is a big reflection of you.
Ziv:
Wow. It’s almost like your avatar is almost like a soulmate.
Adri:
And call a soulmate client.
Ziv:
Yeah. And instead of like looking for the ideal client, ideal customer entirely to define them because they are there, you look at yourself at your YOUNESS and you identify this client that will ideally want to work with you from your standpoint. It’s a totally reversed way. Yeah,
Adri:
You do that really well. It seems I first got in touch with your work. You do that really well. And you do have this part that is human. I believe that my work is to humanize businesses and you have already very strong and I really, really admire. So it’s great to be talking with you with somebody that already knows this from, from the beginning.
Ziv:
Thank you. And, but it, it’s definitely a refreshing, energizing, exciting notion instead of like choosing to work with someone just because they might need you to choose to work with someone because you will, it will be an ideal world. If you get to, to do that. And in finding that deep level of understanding of what , is that client need and wants, that provides an, a result of people, listening to you and understanding what you do. And I think that’s the main power of positioning, but not a lot of people actually know off positioning. They think it’s like, branding, can you explain to everyone at 1 cent for, or what is positioning?
Adri:
Absolutely positioning is occupying this space that you came here to occupy. So in a short way, we could say that. So if you’re not positioning, you’re not positioning yourself. You’re going to be a brand like others. You’re going to be a commodity. A commodity is a brand that is, there are hundreds of them. Their prices are leveled by the competition. If the competition lowers the price, they lower the price. If the competition is doing so, they have to do because so commodities are brands that are looking outside and the opposite of commodity is a value-based brand. And this is what I do to my clients. I don’t create that value. I shine the light in them and they see, they start seeing where their value really is. Cause for an owner of a brand is not so easy to see what you really do. You, we learned to be modest.
Adri:
You know, this world is like, we really learn not to brag, not to be great and not to, to shine. We learn how to be humble. And, and I’m not saying it’s not really about not being humble, but the modesty part is you’re not owning your light. You’re not allowing other people to see you as a reflection of source or God or the greatness of the universe. And this is convenient. This is convenient. Not for us. It’s convenient to corporations that want everybody to be the same and not people not to shine so much or to speak too loud.
Ziv:
It’s almost like conscious companies naturally because they’re so conscious. They already have done some of their work for positioning because they at least know what they believe in. They have a lot of other things to identify like who is going to be a customer that they will be ideally working with. And, but I want to wrap up with like finish this interview. We could talk for hours on this. What do you think a business should do first? Should they like identify the uniqueness, the uniqueness in them? Should they like, do the positioning move? Or should they first find a niche of people that ideal for them? But that is the niche. What do you think?
Adri:
Oh, I made darn this, this question to you. Let’s put it this way before you go talk to somebody, you have to know what you’re talking to them. And before you know what you’re talking to them, you have to know who you are. So does it make sense that first you have to know who you are, right? The YOUNESS and then you can position something. Cause you first you have to find who you’re going to position what you’re positioning. And then only then you can extend the call to that person that you are going to assist or help or serve. Does it make sense?
Ziv:
Basically, what you’re saying is that tiny Youness makes finding your niche way, way easier. And if you find your niche first and then find out that your uniqueness is not aligned with that niche, then you need to switch a niche, Adri Angotti. Thank you so much for taking the time and chatting with us. Your unorthodox approach that is focused on helping conscious companies, companies that actually care about humans and our people about this world. And you help them have a voice. You put them in a position where they are well-positioned to actually go. And some of the results that you’ve achieved through your unique system are just astounding, like growing a business to a seven figure business in metal months, like eight months. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. Where can people go to learn more about you?
Adri:
You see the name conscious companies instead of conscious companies. And so the first four letters are Iconsciouscompanies.com
Ziv:
And how clever, because you do help people in business become the icon in the field. Love it. Thank you so much, Ali. We’ll put the link in the show notes for I conscious companies. If you want to become an icon in your field and you are a conscious company, then you should go check that out. Thank you everyone. And see you next week in the Micro Niche Mastery Podcast.
Voice Over:
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