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Brandy Cerne
Freelance Brand Strategy Consultant
Professional Background
Brandy Cerne is an accomplished storyteller and content creator, driven by her desire to elevate experiential brands through community-centered marketing strategies. Brandy brings an impressive array of professional experiences in brand strategy consultation and marketing, leveraging her skills to transform authentic offline experiences into engaging online narratives. With a career spanning roles such as Director of Brand Campaigns and Global Communications Manager at Sofar Sounds, Brandy has consistently demonstrated her ability to integrate brand messaging with compelling story-driven content.
Brandy's journey began in the heart of New York City where she stepped into the role of NYC Assistant Director at Sofar Sounds, working towards creating intimate live music experiences. This foundational role set the stage for her continued growth within the company, as she matured into the positions of Global Communications Manager and later, Director of Brand Campaigns. In these roles, she honed her capacity for building brand awareness and advocacy while crafting unique campaigns that resonate deeply with audiences.
Beyond her impactful work at Sofar Sounds, Brandy is also known for her entrepreneurial spirit as the Founder of Good Trip, a venture dedicated to forging deeper connections through personal and collective narratives. Her work as a freelance brand strategy consultant, content creator, and copywriter has enabled her to collaborate with a variety of brands, helping them articulate their stories in ways that activate community engagement and loyalty.
Education and Achievements
Brandy Cerne graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing from the prestigious University of Notre Dame. Her academic foundation equips her with a strong understanding of business principles, which she marries with her passion for storytelling and community engagement.
During her formative years, Brandy gained invaluable experience working with renowned brands such as Shake Shack and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers at Hachette Book Group. Her roles ranged from Guest Experience & Marketing Manager to Marketing & Publicity Intern, allowing her to cultivate a 360-degree view of brand marketing.
Brandy's experience as a Career Center Assistant at the University of Notre Dame showcases her commitment to giving back and supporting others in their professional journeys. She also took on temporary roles, such as a Marketing Assistant at 'Before I die I want to...' and worked as a PR & Social Media Intern at Mammoth Advertising, further building her versatile skill set.
Achievements
Brandy Cerne's exemplary career trajectory demonstrates her ability to weave narratives that resonate and inspire. She has successfully created and executed brand marketing strategies that captivate diverse audiences, thereby fostering community-driven initiatives. Her passion for storytelling is not just a career choice, but a profound commitment to engaging with others on a human level. Her role in cultivating brand identity, particularly in the experiential space is a testament to her forward-thinking strategies, enhancing both online and offline community experiences.
A notable achievement is Brandy's leadership with Sofar Sounds, where she effectively transformed brand campaigns to heighten audience connections and elevate community participation. Under her guidance, the brand experienced significant engagement growth and strengthened its presence in the live music experience sector. Brandy's dedication to delivering impactful content and authentic experiences has not gone unnoticed and continues to influence brand marketing today.
Highlights
I may show up here in your feed from time to time, but you may be asking yourself, “What does Brandy actually do with clients?”
Here's a quick cheat sheet of how to work with me in 2024 ⬇
(A free bonus: My St. Bernard Penny likes to make an appearance on calls)
→ Are you launching a website, seeking new investment, or going through another period of growth?
Service: Brand Resonance Toolkit
The goal: Your ideal customer sees your landing page and immediately says, “that’s for me.”
Can include:
- Value proposition
- Positioning
- Differentiated value
- Copywriting
→ Are you creating content or ramping up your marketing efforts?
Service: Brand Personality
The goal: Consistent copy and content across channels that makes it easier to express what you’re building.
What's included? Stand out from your competitors and make writing brand copy easier than ever with:
- Tone of voice
- Product naming
- Style guide
- Copy bank
- Ongoing copywriting
→ Are you asking yourself daily, “Should I be doing more on social media?”
Service: Content Roadmap
The goal: Create social media, newsletter, or other forms of content that are painless, doesn’t take too much time, and delivers ROI.
What's included?
- Determine brand philosophies and content pillars so you have clear buckets of what to talk about
- Narrow down which organic content channels to focus on based on ROI (and which aren’t worth the squeeze right now)
- Determine value of brand vs. founder social media and different strategies for each
→ Does your brand need an update?
Service: Brand Refresh or Rebrand
The goal: Update your visual and verbal brand identity to reflect a new stage of business.
What’s included? I work side-by-side with a talented designer to craft:
- Visual identity (logo, colors, fonts, art direction, etc.)
- Verbal identity (brand personality, style guide, copy bank, etc.)
- Brand guidelines
→ Are you a founder or building a personal brand, but not sure how you want to talk about yourself?
The service: Personal branding consulting
The goal: Showcase your story and experience in a clear way that feels authentic to you, alongside building on the larger brand of the business.
What's included? A strategy that feels doable and authentic to you. We’ll talk through:
- Determine content buckets — what do you want to talk about? What’s your point of view?
- Narrow down which organic content channels to focus on based on ROI and your comfort level. What channels do you naturally gravitate to and feel easier to keep up with?
- Determine how interwoven your story is with your business’ brand and messaging. Is your business stronger with your story in front, or do you prefer to stay behind the scenes?
Not sure what you need or if I can help? I feel you — Let's chat! Shoot me a DM or book a free discovery call: https://lnkd.in/gmpQQVkF
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Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.