Your Badass Journey Guest, Elizabeth Canon

Elizabeth Canon is a brand anthropologist devoted to helping fellow entrepreneurs get the clarity they need to grow, thrive, and prosper.

With a background in psychology, emotional intelligence, and luxury branding, Elizabeth invests her experience and energy toward helping brands, entrepreneurs, and internal change agents stand for MORE.

Becoming a Brand Anthropologist

Before Elizabeth began her entrepreneurial journey, she was in New York City working at an agency. She climbed as high as she could climb there. She became a partner, and she was working with really phenomenal clients... but she still felt stuck in the corporate structure.

Looking ahead, she had opportunities, but her path was linear. “I just felt like my mind could rationalize saying yes and accepting an opportunity, but my body couldn't get on board,” and I think that’s a feeling a lot of employees-turned-entrepreneurs can relate to.

But Elizabeth wasn’t particularly excited about pursuing something else, so she stayed at the agency until she felt burnt out (which is something else I’m sure a lot of employees-turned-entrepreneurs can relate to). So she created a passion project that was essentially a business blog talking about how luxury brands were navigating the unknown terrain of an increasingly digital world.

The blog grew really quickly – and, more importantly, it was fun! Eventually, it grew to a point where Elizabeth felt comfortable leaving the agency to pursue being a full-time brand anthropologist.

She began working with iconic luxury brands, and now tech companies and entrepreneurs, to help people and organizations understand “the role that a brand has in the business that it's in and, also, in the consumer's life.”

The Purpose of a Brand

I think Elizabeth’s work is awesome because it's so needed, at all levels. How you communicate what the values are, what the environment's about, how you make decisions, and how you serve your clients – it's all branding.

Your brand is not this compartmentalized, separate entity. “The brand isn't just the ad, the models that you choose, where you choose to shoot it, and the art direction of it. And it's not just the product and how your clothes are designed. And it's not just the store experience. And it's not just the sales associate. And it's not just your Instagram. It's the customer's experience throughout all of those and in between.”

The days of being the wizard behind the curtain is is no longer possible in the digital age. Every single interaction, internally and externally, is a reflection of a person or organization’s brand.

And that’s why companies and individuals can benefit from the assistance of a brand anthropologist: It's the study of coming together and forming what represents you best and how you want to be represented, and having that awareness gives you the ability to tweak and pivot when needed.

So, it really isn’t just saying, ‘Here's what my brand stands for.’ It's going, ‘Here's what I envision. I want to understand what my customer, what their needs are, what their deepest desires, what their deepest fears. And then, the role that my brand plays in that.’

“When that all connects, then you don't have to sell and convince people because you're compelling; what you're doing has a magnetism to it,” Elizabeth says. “The idea of branding today is not necessarily about putting a face, or a label, or an identity on a business to set you apart from the competition. The purpose of a brand is to help your customer become a better version of themselves through your brand.”

The Enlightenment Entrepreneur Mastermind

Elizabeth is kicking off an Enlightenment Entrepreneur Mastermind later in March 2019, which will run through the end of the year. It is for women entrepreneurs who are really wanting to grow their business. They've hit the six-figure mark, they're on their way to multiple six figures, but they want to grow in a way that is not the harder, faster, work hard, play hard model that is almost endemic to entrepreneurship.

Instead, the focus is on the tools, the tactics, the branding, the money mindset, and the sales processes that really foster deeper relationships. “It's like you're growing in prosperity in a way that is totally in integrity to the lifestyle you want to be living. So that you're not giving up the things you value the most." 

Resources:

• Learn more at https://www.elizabethcanon.com/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethcanon_/

• Listen: The Enlightened Entrepreneur

• Watch: “TEDxUbud - Elizabeth Schofield - The Transformative Power of Personal Projects”