Welcome to the Kingdom Crossroads Podcast with Pastor Bob Thibodeau.

Pastor Bob conducts personal interviews with Christian influencers from around the globe, helping Christian authors, recording artists, CEOs, entrepreneurs, non profit leaders, and yes, pastors and ministry leaders to get the word out about what they are doing to impact the world with the gospel.

Our podcast has been rated in the top 1/2% of all podcasts in the world by ListenNotes.com so you know your message will be heard.

Now here is your host with today's interview, Pastor Bob Thibodeau.

Hello everyone everywhere.

Pastor Bob Thibodeau here.

Welcome to the Kingdom Crossroads podcast.

Today we're so blessed you're joining us.

Today.

We are celebrating a huge milestone with this podcast, our 1600th podcast episode of the Kingdom Crossroads Podcast.

Praise God.

And for such a special occasion, I could not think of anyone more fitting to interview than someone who has been vital to our success and growth since 2020, my own assistant marketing strategist and messaging powerhouse, Desiree Reed.

As a founder and Chief Strategist of 5 Seconds to Impress LLC, Desiree leads a storytelling and PR boutique specializing in helping business to business tech brands humanize their messaging and shine in the process of doing it.

Praise God.

Her incredible ability to turn complex concepts into relatable human centered messages has been a game changer for our team and so many others.

Desiree's unique background in accessibility and storytelling, coupled with her passion for creativity has shaped the voice behind countless marketing campaigns, emails and promos, including all that you see and hear Pastor Bob do.

Amen.

Beyond her work, she's a lover of jazz and aspiring screenwriter, making her a true creative force from head to toe.

And this celebratory episode, we're going to dive into the strategies and insights and passion that drive Desiree's success and discover how her work has helped us reach this incredible milestone and how she can help you as well.

Amen.

Let's kick off episode 1,600 with a truly inspiring conversation.

Help me welcome to the program Desiree Reid.

Praise God.

Desiree, it's a blessing to have you on the other side of this microphone today instead of working behind the scenes.

It's a blessing to be here.

Thank you so much for having me, Pastor Bob.

Amen.

Now you know the first question I always start with is this.

Other than that brief information you just shared, can you tell us in your own words, who is Desiree Reed?

Brief information.

That was a mouthful and thank you so much for it.

I love it.

Well, I would say I am a storyteller, an innovator, and a visionary.

I would say storyteller because I definitely thrive on sharing other people's stories and making sure that people have close proximity to different things, different people, because a lot of times, sometimes we can fear what we don't know, what we don't understand.

And creating good stories, creating relatable stories, help you to understand and helps you to put yourself in a position of someone else.

So telling stories just really opens up a different world, and it really has the power to change perceptions.

Good conversation.

And I would say innovator because I definitely, I look forward all the time to finding a way to put a new spin on things.

And I know you know that, Pastor Bob.

So I'm always innovating and visionary because I enjoy bringing new concepts to life, things that maybe people have never even imagined, something you've never dreamt of, and then just kind of seeing that for the future and bringing it to life.

So that's why I would say visionary.

Amen.

Amen.

Now, we've been working together off and on, but going on about five years now.

And when we first started, this podcast was just going into, I think it's third year.

And our total downloads at that time, I believe, was like 200amonth or so, which was a lot better than what they were when we first started three years prior to that.

Right?

But not.

And I'm not saying this to brag, folks, but now we are hitting about 10,000 plus downloads every single month, sometimes 12, 13,000.

And praise God, because I just want to say, personally, publicly, thank you, Desiree, for making all that possible.

Amen.

Because she's the.

The.

The brains behind the scenes here to, you know, I'll come up with these brilliant ideas and.

And she'll usually get an email or like, we need to talk.

And then the first thing is Pastor Bob, in a way that only she can say it.

Amen.

But I interviewed back in 2019, maybe the first part of 2020, we were introduced.

I interviewed Brooke Strauss, and she got us together for an interview.

And I remember when I asked you to take a look at our email marketing program at that time.

And after you reviewed it, you came back with.

And folks, again, the.

This is the saying I've come to love over these last few years.

Whenever I'm doing something, she'll just say, pastor Bob, she can only do it.

And Desiree, do you remember that first time when you guys did this diagnosis on our email system at that time?

I do, I do.

And it seem it seems like so far ago, but it also seems like just yesterday.

And I remember we interviewed Brooke and then we did that interview together.

And yes, I do remember looking at your email marketing, because email marketing is one of the things that, that I do really well.

And yes, I was like, okay, I see a lot of room for improvement here and things that you're leaving on the table.

And I definitely remember that you still.

Have those nightmares, I guess, have you still counseling.

The best way I could describe my marketing program at that time was a mess.

Oh, yeah, we were pretty much in the weeds with that one.

I was like, oh my God, we're all over the place.

We're going to get this cleaned up and get it streamlined and make it make sense for you.

Oh, boy.

And.

And I still venture off into the weeds every now and then.

I get those emails again that start, we need to talk.

She reels me back in.

Praise the Lord.

But you and your team revamped this in the first phase.

It really was the first phase of what we're doing today.

Okay?

And like I said, it's been revamped a few more times over the course of the years, but the basics are still in place.

And folks, why is that?

Because Desiree had a knock a knack to review, diagnose, and recommend fixes.

And boy, did I have a lot of fixes, but when implemented, they actually work.

Amen.

And I know I'm not your only client, although I'm working on that.

But how have you grown over these last four or five years and what you are doing?

Whoa.

Yes, a lot has definitely happened over the past years.

I still diagnose and review email marketing systems.

One of the things with email marketing a lot of people kind of miss and what they don't get right is that having that really streamlined approach and having specific email marketing campaigns is really how you really don't miss the mark with connecting with your audience.

So having different sales campaigns in place, having a nurture, welcome email sequence in place, some of those are your kind of your groundwork for everything.

And those things were missing when we started working together.

Not having maybe 10 or 15 different email campaigns going on at one time, that's kind of scattered, but really kind of rolling that in.

And so having that in place and then really clear messaging and storytelling with those emails is what makes a difference because people want to be engaged people.

Even though you may think, okay, this is a business owner and I have to be very professional with them and hit them with stats and numbers.

While that is true to a certain degree with logic, they still want to be entertained and engaged and that's where the storytelling part comes in.

So you want it to be relatable.

So I still help my clients with that.

And what I have kind of grown into over the years is leaning even more into storytelling aspects and helping to humanize messaging and storytelling for different companies.

Because what's missing unfortunately today is things are becoming kind of sterile, kind of generalized, especially with the introduction of AI.

And while AI does a lot of great things and it can write copy for you, what's starting to happen now is everyone is sounding the same.

So if you're sounding the same, you're not standing out in the crowd.

And that's one of those things that I really help people with with, you know, making sure that your messaging is very clear, very human centered and engaging so that it's resonating with your target audience.

Yeah, amen.

And that's my very next question, because your tagline is I speak human.

So how do you keep messaging grounded and human centered, as you said, in this world that is dominated now by automation and artificial intelligence?

Yes, absolutely.

Well, one thing is so companies that I work with now, some of them are tech focused.

So it doesn't have to just be a company that's tech tech, but it can also be something like memberships or subscription based type of companies.

And when I say tech, that includes those kind of companies.

Because you're relying heavily on tech, it's kind of considered more tech focused software as a service, as referred to as SaaS.

And what happens with that a lot of times is those companies get in their heads, right?

And the messaging that they're sharing is kind of complex.

And unfortunately they can pass that complex messaging onto their audience, which does no good for their audience.

What I do is I come in and I humanize it by making it very understandable, very clear for anyone to understand.

And a good level is always to think about using it at a seventh grade level that even a seventh grader would understand what it is you're saying what it is you're communicating, and that's what it come in and do.

We can have that complex tech that you're doing, but there's no reason we should talk about it in a complex way.

It should be very simple, clear, relatable for anyone to understand and include that storytelling element that people can attach themselves to and say, hey, I get it.

I resonate with that.

This is something that I would like to buy or someone I would like to Work with.

Amen.

Now your business.

Five seconds to impress.

Why that name?

What's the significance of the 5 seconds?

People take it a lot of different ways.

Actually, I get questions about this all the time.

Just the other week, someone said to me, does that mean that I have to make an impression on you in five seconds?

I said, well, actually, yeah, that's true, but that isn't why I chose the name.

I really chose the name based on marketing and us marketers, we know that it takes five seconds typically for someone to, for example, visit your website somewhere where you are online.

They will make a decision if they want to learn more about what you do or not learn more about what you do in five seconds.

And that's really where the idea came from.

Making sure that you're able to hit them with the clear messaging, good storytelling, and copy in five seconds or less.

Because that's really all you have.

And that's why the messaging of storytelling is so important.

Amen.

Amen.

And you've been an integral part of our team crafting the messages that resonate with our audience.

Can you share one of your favorite campaigns or projects you worked on with us and why it stood out to you?

Well, there have been so many.

You're really putting me on the spot.

They've been so many.

I, I think I would say two if I really have to think about it.

One would be when you had your celebration.

I believe it was for episode 1000 episodes.

That's the one that stood out to me too.

Amen.

Amen.

Yes.

Well, that was definitely one of my favorites because it was such a milestone and we were able to promote it everywhere.

It's on your website, it was on social media, it was in your email campaign.

And then we brought in those great speakers to help celebrate it.

And it was just such a beautiful moment and I think everyone resonated with it.

That's definitely my, my top one.

And I think right now, my next one would be what we're currently working on actually with, with your faith based business newsletter that's part of the substack community and, and those kind of things that we're working on now.

Those.

That would be my next favorite at this time.

Yeah, yeah.

Amen.

Amen.

And you know, for marketers struggling to connect with their audience, what are some quick tips or strategies you recommend to make their messaging more engaging and more human centered?

The first thing I would say is really understanding who your target audience is.

And believe it or not, some people have been in business for, for quite some Time, and they're still not clear on who their target audience is.

They think they know, but they don't really know, or they're including different segments from a larger pool of people.

But being very clear, because that one specific focus, target audience makes all the difference in the world because there, there is a large crowd out there and you're competing with a lot of people.

So how do you stand out and make your voice louder than others?

You want to be talking to one specific group of people.

So definitely getting clear on who your target audience is would be my first tip.

My second tip would be get really clear on your messaging, because the target audience, your market, and your messaging goes hand in hand.

And this is something that I teach at nauseam.

I can close my eyes, go to sleep, and teach about this.

The market and messaging go hand in hand.

If you get one right and the other wrong, you will not succeed.

If you get them both wrong, you're going to fall flat in your face.

So the messaging is key because you may think your audience wants to know about a specific thing, but understanding who your audience really is and listening to what they want to talk about, what it is that their pain points are, what they're struggling with, or what their desires are, that's where you have to step in and, and have the messaging that speaks directly to it.

So many marketers try to put something out there that's clever and cute and fun wording that doesn't make it clear makes the mark every time.

So if you say something to your audience that completely resonates with where they are, that's going to win it every single time.

So the first tip, again would be really understanding who your target audience is.

Second tip would be making sure that you have clear messaging.

And then my third tip would be pulling it all together with engaging storytelling.

Because again, just hitting someone with stats and metrics or something that's just kind of boring and dry is not going to keep them engaged.

Everyone is so busy these days, you have to have something that they can sink their teeth into.

And storytelling includes your email marketing, your website copy, your blog, your newsletter, your videos, your podcast.

All of that should include the same messaging.

So never losing focus of that, making sure that you have brand continuity.

And then for the storytelling to be very engaging, you might want to include a personal antidote from something that has happened to you in the past or something that's going on in your life right now, and then tie that into something that matters to your audience, and that is what's going to Keep their attention.

Amen.

Amen.

And you don't just work with businesses, but ministries and individuals as well, correct?

I do actually.

When I first started my business, my very, very, very first client, as he likes to say, I'm your longest tenure client and he reminds me of this all the time, but he was just an individual, not a company.

And we still work together on certain projects.

And at the time when we started, he thought that he and his wife wanted to create a date night experience that was going to be the gist of their business.

But as we started talking and we met together for our initial strategy session, what we uncovered was that they were actually marriage coaches and that they had a marriage ministry on their hand.

They didn't see it, but they were already coaching married couples.

And I said, you know the date night feature, that, that, that's what it is.

It's a date night feature, it's an experience, it's a feature.

But your, your ministry, your business is actually marriage coaching.

And we tied it all together.

So yes, I work with consultants, ministries, coaches, authors, anyone who needs help with storytelling and messaging.

Amen.

Amen.

And you recently launched a brand new website.

Congratulations.

And what's new and exciting about it and how does it reflect the evolution of your business?

Thank you very much.

I had been working on the rebranding of my website and the new focus of where I'm going and the website is five seconds to impress Calm.

And the main focus here is just really being very streamlined, specific about the messaging and storytelling aspect.

Just really honing in on messaging and storytelling more than anything.

And again, the website talks about B2B tech brands and that can look like anyone who's working with SAS software, so service or someone who has a subscription type business or membership, anything like that.

And we focus on making sure your messaging is human centered.

We want to make sure that we have that personalized human touch so that you have an engaging customer experience.

People don't realize that many of their would be customers or current customers go away because they have a lousy customer experience.

And a lot of that has to do with the messaging.

Not getting it clear, not sending out the right emails at the right time, not having those campaigns set up for good onboarding and all of that.

Those are things that, that I help with.

Making sure you have good onboarding experience with emails, making sure your website copy, your landing page, your funnels for your product, your demo, your membership, that all of that stuff is aligned with the clear voice that's going to really resonate with Your audience.

Amen.

And humanizing the messaging doesn't just mean putting hi, Bob instead of dear client in the email, right?

Absolutely not.

No, no.

If only it could just be that it would be so simple.

But no, it's all the way through.

It's kind of those elements we talked about earlier with making sure it's really clear and relatable so that it's not techie.

It's not complicated.

We don't want complex type of language that we're using.

We want to make sure that it's very clear to get across.

So it's just things that are engaging and simple for anyone to understand.

As you were answering that, after I asked that question, I thought about sometimes.

We talked about how many emails I get on a daily basis that I just gotta.

Kind of gotta go through to see if they're important or not.

And when I get to these emails, sometimes their insertion tool for their email didn't work.

So it says, hi, insert name or something like that.

Oh, no, that's the worst.

I just skip right past those.

I know that that one's not for me.

Exactly.

And you know that that's actually a great point because testing is key.

And as you know, Pastor Bob, I test until the cows come home.

And that's just something else that you want to be mindful of before you hit send.

You should have someone on your team that's always testing.

Let's just make sure.

Do these emails look okay?

Did we miss something?

Okay, I've sent.

I.

I have to admit, I've sent a few like that myself, you know, and.

But now I've gotten trained by Desiree to at least send myself a test email and then go through and check every link.

You definitely have to, because it's easy to get caught up.

So it's important to test all the.

Time, especially when you're on a.

On a deadline and you're.

You're pushing, you know, let's say yes.

You know, this has to go up before I leave, and I got to leave in 10 minutes, so I got to hurry up and finish this and.

And rush through and say, okay, set it up.

Send.

Bam.

Oh, no, I forgot to set a test.

That's why batch.

That's why doing things and batches.

Just like batch recording the podcast.

Same thing for emails.

It makes a difference.

My team and I, when we go through emails for clients, that's one of the things that we do.

They know.

It's kind of like our.

It's part of our handbook.

They know when they're working with me.

Okay.

They don't even ask.

They don't have to ask anymore.

They just know.

Okay, the copy came over.

All right, Desiree, here are all the test emails.

We're going to go through it together.

We're going to spend today going through those test emails.

We're going to click every single link in there and.

And all of that matters so that we can do our best to avoid those kind of mishaps.

Amen.

Amen.

Yeah, there's.

There's nothing more embarrassing than hitting send, getting ready to leave.

I walk out of the house, get in the car, email has come through.

I pull it up on my phone and it says, dear client, it's the worst.

I think everyone has had that kind of snafu at least once in their business.

It's the worst.

And it makes you mindful not to let it happen too many other times.

Well, Desiree, this has been so interesting.

I know we probably sparked a question or two with our listeners on if and how you'd be able to help them.

And if someone wants to reach out to you to ask a question, get more information, how can they do that?

How can someone reach out to you?

They definitely can.

Visit my website, 5Seconds to impress.com and that's the number, 5secondsterimpress.com and also, I have a community that I just launched.

It's called Customer Lingo Lounge, and that is a substack publication as well as a membership.

And you can definitely find me on substack under Customer Lingo Lounge and inside of the community.

It's really going to be a blast.

We will actually go over messaging and storytelling audits.

So someone would be able to come in and say, hey, I'm not clear on my funnel.

I'm not sure if my messaging is working.

Well, if you're part of the community, we'll have different audits at least once a month that we'll go over.

I'll also do Q and A's where we can get together in real time on live group calls.

So that's part of that community.

And they will have a newsletter that goes out every single week that will provide different insights for storytelling and messaging to make sure that you stay on track.

So it's a really focused community.

And right now you would get in there for a seven day free trial so that you can test things out, see how you feel about it.

And I'm sure that we'll have a blast together.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, folks, as we wrap up this very Special episode number 1600.

Praise God.

I want to encourage you.

Check out Desiree's incredible work at her newly launched redone website, 5Seconds to impress.com and if you're a marketer, a business owner, tech founder, ministry or nonprofit leader who's looking to humanize your brand messaging and truly connect with your audience, Desiree is the expert you need get in this group that she just talked about, the community as well, because that's where you help each other.

And when you help each other, that's actually a form of networking.

And we all know business leaders enjoy networking.

Amen.

Her insights, her strategies, her creative genius has transformed so many businesses, including ours.

And don't miss your chance to see how she can help you stand out and shine.

Amen.

Head over to 5Seconds to impress.com today.

Start turning your big ideas into powerful, engaging stories that actually make an impact.

Desiree, thank you again for taking the time.

Come on the Program day and share all about your business.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's been my pleasure, folks.

That's all the time we have for today for Desiree Reed, myself, Pastor Bob, reminding you to be blessed in all that you do.

Thank you for listening to today's episode of the Kingdom Crossroads podcast.

Please subscribe to our podcast so you can be notified when another episode is published.

We with over 800 interviews and 1000 published episodes, Pastor Bob is known as a podcasting expert for helping others to create their own podcast to share their messages with the world.

Please visit our website@www.podcastersforchrist.com.

that web address again is www.podcastersforchrist.com for more information.

Until next time, be blessed in all that you do.