I get a lot of questions from business owners about personal branding in the online space, so when an expert on the topic reached out to ME to be a guest on her show, I immediately knew I had to turn the tables and get her on Finding Your It Factor.
My guest, Brittany Krystle shares what you need to know about building a personal brand online, got me rethinking how I viewed one of the most underutilized platforms online (pay attention here, friend) and sharing insights on showing up online with strong content that attracts your ideal customer.
Brittany is a personal brand and growth expert with almost a decade of experience in personal brand strategy and content development. Her sweet spot is empowering people to build influence online that allows them to create the future that they want. She’s worked with some of the biggest personal brands online to grow their influence – founders and entrepreneurs like Gary Vaynerchuk, Marie Forleo & Tom Bilyeu
I found it easy to connect and relate with Brittany, that I bought a ton of questions about being an entrepreneur in this online space. I included our unscripted and transparent dialogue in the episode for you, as we chatted about things like impostor syndrome, haters online, surrounding yourself with the right people and managing that RBF (you know exactly what I mean).
EPISODE SHOW NOTES👇
➡️ https://heathersager.com/episode19/
🔗 Grab the latest FREE resources: https://heathersager.com/start
🔗 Browse all episode shownotes: https://heathersager.com/blog
👋 CONNECT WITH HEATHER:
Work with Heather: https://www.heathersager.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theheathersager/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/HeatherSager
If you’re loving this episode, please take a moment to rate & review the show. This helps me get this message to more people so they too can ditch the hustle 24/7 life.
I get a lot of questions from business owners about personal branding in the online space, so when an expert on the topic reached out to ME to be a guest on her show, I immediately knew I had to turn the tables and get her on Finding Your It Factor.
My guest, Brittany Krystle shares what you need to know about building a personal brand online, got me rethinking how I viewed one of the most underutilized platforms online (pay attention here, friend) and sharing insights on showing up online with strong content that attracts your ideal customer.
Brittany is a personal brand and growth expert with almost a decade of experience in personal brand strategy and content development. Her sweet spot is empowering people to build influence online that allows them to create the future that they want. She’s worked with some of the biggest personal brands online to grow their influence – founders and entrepreneurs like Gary Vaynerchuk, Marie Forleo & Tom Bilyeu
I found it easy to connect and relate with Brittany, that I bought a ton of questions about being an entrepreneur in this online space. I included our unscripted and transparent dialogue in the episode for you, as we chatted about things like impostor syndrome, haters online, surrounding yourself with the right people and managing that RBF (you know exactly what I mean).
EPISODE SHOW NOTES👇
➡️ https://heathersager.com/episode19/
🔗 Grab the latest FREE resources: https://heathersager.com/start
🔗 Browse all episode shownotes: https://heathersager.com/blog
👋 CONNECT WITH HEATHER:
Work with Heather: https://www.heathersager.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theheathersager/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/HeatherSager
If you’re loving this episode, please take a moment to rate & review the show. This helps me get this message to more people so they too can ditch the hustle 24/7 life.
You're listening to Finding Your It Factor- Episode 19 today we're talking about personal branding. Now you already know I love this topic and it a big part about my business, helping you find your brand voice, getting more confident in how you show up and speak to your audience. Personal branding is one of those things that many entrepreneurs embrace and some resist. Well, my special guest today, Brittany Krystle, is going to help us dive into all things personal branding. I cannot wait for you to listen to this fire interview, so let's jump to it. Here we go.
Speaker 2:Have you ever wondered how some people just seem to have a way with words? They have this spark that lights you up when you're near them. They have the it factor. And while most people think it's something that only a few are born with, I believe that you can find it so it can become your super power to grow your business. It's about you bringing your brand to life by becoming a magnetic communicator in person and on camera, showing up with confidence, authenticity, and inspiration. Sell. Are you ready to become magnetic? I thought so. I'm Heather Sager and I'd like to welcome you to finding
Speaker 3:your it factor.[inaudible]
Speaker 1:welcome back friends. I am so thrilled for today's episode for so many reasons. Number one, full transparency. This is my fifth take of trying to do the introduction. I'm slightly delirious right now because it's 10 o'clock at night. I'm sitting in my Jimmy jams with a big crazy messy bun on the top of my head. I have been packing for the last couple hours because we are getting on a flight to Florida tomorrow. It's a fun trip because it's part vacation. I'm taking the whole family with me, but really it's a work trip. You see, I have a speaking gig next week in the Florida keys, Florida keys key West. I don't know where I'm going. I clearly need to look at my flight situation, but uh, I'm headed over there for a speaking gig next week and decided to bring the whole family with me and turn it into a vacation. This is the reason why I started my business. To be able to say yes to opportunities that were exciting to me. Be able to go to fun places and Hey, when it was appropriate, take the kids and the hubby with me. And that's exactly what I'm doing. But what also means is I am, uh, I'm tired right now and I feel like I'm not making a lot of sense, which leads to probably the most hilarious episode intro ever. So, you know what, there's no stopping this. We're just going to go with it and I'm going to tell you all the things and if you want to laugh, I'm gonna laugh right along with you. So let's talk about today's episode. I wanted to set this up for you because to be perfectly honest, this is the longest show I have ever hit publish on. And I was a little scared at first because it's a longer interview and I thought, man, I think this one's too long to post. So I went back to listen to, I've been listening to it on and off this afternoon and I guys, it's so good. I don't want to cut anything. And the reason is this, I started off with clarity around the topic I wanted to cover with my guest today. I'll talk about her here in just a moment, but throughout the conversation I curiosity you see Brittany, she is phenomenal. She and I connected a few weeks ago, probably like two months ago when she had me as a guest on her podcast and right out of the gate we connected, we talk about similar things, we have similar business philosophies. I love her style and I would just overall was curious about her journey as an entrepreneur and along the interview I was asking more and more questions based off curiosity and it just got me thinking about you. It got me thinking about the questions that you throw in my DMS or reply to on emails or in our Facebook groups and a lot of these questions come from people who are earlier in their business within the first few years or even from those of you who are just thinking about starting a business. And I just wanted to have a conversation with another entrepreneur around a lot of these things that aren't really talked about when you're first getting started and create a forum. I guess it's not really a forum, but just start the dialogue on it so that you can hear how other entrepreneurs talk about some of these things like imposter syndrome or how to handle haters online or how to surround yourself or the influence of surrounding yourself with the right people, what that does to your business. I asked her quite a few questions and of course we also talk about all things personal branding, which is Brittany's expertise. So here are the couple of things that we're going to cover today. How do you get the right people interested in your brand and why do you need to make your brand a personal where exactly should you be spending your time when it comes to posting online, why LinkedIn is the place you actually need to be. She's also going to share with us through the three pillars of building your personal brand and we talk a ton about just the early days of entrepreneurship and and some of those mental struggles that I think a lot of us battle with. So I kept it all in. This is pretty much unedited, a full real conversation between two really highly driven entrepreneurs who are very passionate about the topic and I really hope that you enjoy it today. But before I throw it to the interview, let me first formally introduce my guest, Brittany Krystle. Brittany is a personal brand and growth expert with almost a decade of experience in personal brand strategy and content development. Fun fact, she studied and graduated from law school, took a little bit of a pivot change. She's going to tell us a little bit about our story in the interview, but now today as an entrepreneur, her sweet spot is empowering people to build influence online that allows them to create the future that they want. Here's the thing guys. She's worked with some of the biggest personal brands online to grow influence founders and entrepreneurs like Gary Vee and Marie Forleo. Yeah, you're going to recognize a couple other names in there too. So like I said, when Brittany reached out to me to have me be on her podcast, I sat there and I was like, who me? You want me to show she's legit guys like a big fricking deal. And I am so honored that she gave me so much time on the show today and I am. I squeezed out every single second. So without further ado, I would love for you to take a listen to. Oh, one of the best interviews. I hope that you love it just as much as I did and of course as always, would you pretty, pretty pleased. Be sure to screenshot today's episode, post it on Instagram, tag me, tag Brittany, all the links from the show notes. We'd love to hear from you and let's give it Brittany some extra love for all of the wisdom she was dropping on today. Right out of the gate. She's going to give you some knowledge bombs on LinkedIn. Can't wait for you to check it out. All right. We'll be right back at Finding Your It Factor. I am so excited for our guest today. Brittany, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Heather. That's super exciting. I loved having you on my shows, so I'm excited to be on yours. Yes, this is like a nice reciprocal conversation thing where I feel like every time we talk it's just so fun to have. We're going to have a lot of fun today. It's going to be I think, hard for people to keep up with us if we're going to get super, super down some tangents that I think will be really fun. But before I jumped to that, I know I gave my audience a quick introduction, like the formal biography of who you are and what you do, but I like to like get the Ron dirty style, so why don't you tell me a little bit or tell the audience who you are, what you do and then I have so many questions we're going to jump into.
Speaker 4:So I'm a personal brand expert and educator and content creator and I say that I help the entrepreneurial minded grow influence online that gets real life results. I have a podcast beyond influential that I've put out every week. I create digital products and content to help people grow their personal brands online. And I know we'll get into my background a little bit because it was not a linear path. This definitely did not exist when I went to school, but there is, you have to be building a personal brand online. There is no other option at this point. Like it's essential for anybody, no matter what your business is. I always say your personal brand is your business. You're 100% monetizing your name no matter what you do right now. So it's incredibly important. So that's my, that is my ultimate passion because I know it attracts the opportunities people want. It gives you control of your life. It gives you so many options. And like I said,
Speaker 1:we can talk about my journey, but there was definitely times where I felt like I did not have options and I had to go through these other more like linear channels and now we just have every which way to position ourselves to get what we want. So we're in the best time possible. I totally agree with this. It's so funny because I remember when I was younger, I'm sure you remember this too, is when you're younger and people older than you, say things like, back in my day I didn't have this. You'd be like, Oh my God, you're so old. And I find myself making those comments all the time. My husband are always laughing like, Oh my God, when did we become old? But it is so true that especially when it comes to online business, there weren't these things like I feel very lucky cause I'm new to the space, but there weren't some of the tools and access to things that we have now. Like not even just a few years ago.
Speaker 4:Yeah. What else I think is interesting and I guess I, you know, I spend my time speaking to awesome people like you who are already in the entrepreneurial journey and on, on the online space and leveraging that and you're familiar with it. But I speak to students who are in college right now. And I think it's because the people who were teaching them are still kind of, I hate saying like old school way of thinking, but they're not using the online space to their advantage. So these young people, like people who are 18 to 20 are still stuck in this old way. And I'm talking to them and I'm expecting that, you know, this generation of people 10 years younger than me gets it and they don't because they've been taught this other way. So they go out into the world and they're still looking at like a platform like LinkedIn for example, as a place to like connect with recruiters as a, as opposed to a place that they can be positioning themselves and creating their own futures and, and doing all these other interesting things. They're thinking really inside the box still.
Speaker 1:Okay. Since you jumped into it, I actually want to go there for a second cause I always feel like it's good to jump into a really meaty thing. And then I want to back up and talk about some other stuff around your journey around how you got to where you are is super fascinating. So you mentioned LinkedIn, and I have to admit, I am totally guilty of what you just described because coming from the corporate world, and I ran a recruiting team as part of my function, a part of my VP role at my old job. And we use LinkedIn every day as a recruiting tool. And I remember when our marketing department back then, they're like, Oh, we should post some stuff on LinkedIn. But it was very passive and it wasn't this intentional thing that you're talking about. So I have not embraced the LinkedIn. Yeah. In my business and since our last conversation I'm like, Oh man, I need to explore this. So can you give like a little bit of a like scratch the surface on it around I, I guess. I don't know. LinkedIn outside of a recruiting tool, like how are people using it today and how could that be a really incredible avenue for a lot of entrepreneurs?
Speaker 4:I want to say a few things. I'm not one of those people who's been preaching LinkedIn forever. LinkedIn has changed within the last two years and people have not realized it. So LinkedIn right now, 100% is the easiest, most efficient place to build a personal brand online. Hands down the easiest platform for it. Like I don't care what your business is, I don't care what your experience level is. It is a gold mine. If you are an online entrepreneur, 100% literally everybody I meet, if you're scared of personal branding, if you're, if you're very familiar with it, you can win. And get results faster than pretty much anywhere else online on the spot. I've got super excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah, excited because that gets me excited cause I just started posting more on there and the last few weeks since our last conversation, and I have totally noticed a difference on that. And it's funny that you said that it's changed a lot because I've always viewed LinkedIn as the late to the party social media platform that was like the sleepy, I don't know, went to bed early and they don't really care, but they'd, maybe they are the sleeper where they have been making these changes in the background. I have no idea because I've been so distracted by YouTube and Instagram, so, okay, tell us more about that. Because I selfishly, I really want to jump into this platform.
Speaker 4:I love this. So basically just being a personal brand expert and educator, I need to know how to build brand everywhere and reach any audience on any platform. So I worked for Gary Vee and you know, I worked on this, you know, I know how to basically long story short repurpose content, create content, distribute content on every different platform in every different way for the appropriate platform basically. So I've had to pay attention to everything. And so for me, LinkedIn was a place that I thought I would never use again. It was a place for me to leave my resume, got my LinkedIn when I was in law school and basically I thought I would never use it again. But I was using it for clients and I was kind of playing with it for myself a little bit, starting more seriously. When I started working for Gary, I was posting on LinkedIn for him, but LinkedIn hadn't fully changed until they got acquired by Microsoft and 2016 and then starting in 2017 basically they introduced native videos. So if you haven't been on the platform for a while, you can now create video natively on LinkedIn. And basically I think they got really serious about their monetization. So here's the deal. All of these platforms make money only if they can serve you ads and they have you actually on the platform. So content creation keeps people on the platform. They want you to be creating content and valuable content around your business, around your profession, networking with other people. So ultimately that they can serve you ads. But it is basically, right now, Instagram and Facebook like five or six years ago, the algorithm is one of the friendliest possible algorithms, all of the amazing things that were happening and everybody's like, Oh, I wish I got started early on Instagram and Facebook. That's happening right now. And so few people out of the active, hundreds of millions of active users on LinkedIn, it's only around like 1% of people are actually creating content. There's just so much attention in white space and they're only growing. They've introduced live video in beta. They're really paying attention to, to content and kind of embracing that because they know that that's where it's headed and most people haven't seen that coming. I legitimately was about to create a different, when I realized I wanted to move into the digital product space, I was creating a different course and because I saw what was happening on LinkedIn and the results that I was getting and the results I was getting for other people, I completely stopped what I was doing and created a course around LinkedIn. Because of that, I was like, people need to be using this because so many people are scared of putting themselves out there and this is the lowest list content and the content there isn't at the level of a YouTube or an Instagram where you needs to be picture perfect. Raw and real does very well. Short and sweet as well. Just the barrier to entry is so low. It's like the barrier to entry is low. The algorithms break all of these things, just everything you could possibly want in a platform is happening there. Okay. That's,
Speaker 1:well, that's so exciting because so many of the conversations around, like you said, Instagram and Facebook is it's so hard to break through and actually get your message heard without having to pay for it. Which I'm, I'm a believer of you need to do paid paid advertising too. But, okay, this is super excited. I have a ton of followup questions, but I realized before we keep going down that pathway, we need to come back because you totally name-dropped in a really powerful way. We need to go back there. You talked about law school, you talked about working with Gary Vee. I know you've worked also with Marine Forleo and a couple other really big brands. So when we're talking about personal brands today, this is the thing I love about you. Like you are the real fricking deal. Like you're not just making this stuff up where you just showed up on the scene and tinkered with LinkedIn. I was like, Oh yeah, let's talk about messaging with your brand online. Like you've lived it with some incredibly large brands. So let's back up again a bit. How does a gal who graduates from law school end up working with Gary Vee and then not?
Speaker 4:So the dream for me was always, I mean, again, so I graduated just to give people context. I don't care, um, that people know how old I am. I graduated high school in 2003 so this is before, you know, right before Facebook and all of that stuff was happening. Or maybe that was when Facebook was only for Harvard students. And so social media wasn't so much a thing. I grew up, I grew up in LA Calabasas now people know from the Kardashians, but I wanted to be either in television or sports. Like that was exciting to me, but I wasn't in my mind, I wasn't a creative, I thought I would be a business person, but basically at that time it was like, okay, you're going to be a doctor. Lawyer. Accountant wasn't good at math, counting down. Doctor wasn't really hitting it for me. If you can communicate and you can write, you're going to be a lawyer. So my goal was entertainment lawyer, entertainment lawyer makes money. I knew I needed a specialty and that was kind of what I thought would be, you know, my path. And ultimately now when I look back I'm like, Oh, all of all of the jobs that I was interested in having were kind of basically helping people position themselves in their given industry to like promote themselves in some way. I want you to be an agent or like I said, an entertainment lawyer represent people that I thought were talented. And so I went to UCLA undergrad, I finished in three years. I was in such a rush to make the money and become this professional, you know, that was just kind of what the goal was. And then when I was in law school, reality hit that this was not what I want to be doing. I was in, I went to Georgetown for law school. The economy was tanking during that time, so a lot of people were canceling their summer programs. So I was there, it was crazy to think about 10 years ago. So I was there 2007 and I graduated 2010 so like 2008 everything was kind of going to hell. And I was working my summer jobs doing securities regulations litigation and I was like, this is not, this is not it. Yeah, that sounds terrible. I was getting paid and listen, this is actually where I learned, you know, I learned pretty young and I think this was really helpful for me. I thought it was about the money and then I had the realization that I was getting paid very well for this summer job better, you know, like six figure salary, like you're supposed to come out of law school at that time, you know the starting salary for a lot of people at firms, if you graduate from a big school is 160 K a year. And I was looking around and I was like, this is not, I can't, no, I'm actually still friendly with a lot of the people I work with in the, you know, at some of those firms. But they just weren't happy to me. I couldn't envision myself doing that for the next 40 years of my life. And I was like, I got to figure this out. So basically I graduated and I passed the bar in New York cause I thought I wanted to be in New York and I was like, nobody can ever take this license away for me, but I'm going to figure out what I want to do. And so I moved back to LA and I want to get, I figured it was, I would be happy, you know, this was now like a pursuit of happiness. I would be happy if I could apply this knowledge possibly in an entertainment context. So then the next four-ish years, I basically did a bunch of Goldilocks stuff in the entertainment industry trying on different hats. I worked in talent agency. Then the next year I worked at a management company and I worked at a production company for reality TV and ultimately ended up at a network. And because I kept trying on different things and each thing had a different thing that I liked, but also some, a lot of it that I didn't like[inaudible]. And then eventually I just got to the point where I was like, okay, well none of these is working. What do I actually want? And I really wanted to be in marketing and branding from 2010 to 2014 the shift in the market to what I was paying attention to was huge. I used to watch so much television and now I was paying attention to my phone. It was so obvious that social was where it was at. And Netflix, like I wasn't watching cable anymore and even the reality TV thing was moving more into the YouTube space and at the network I was at, I was like, these people like this is old school and nobody can get anything done here. So I thought I needed to go to business school. I started studying for the GMAT by now has been sent me a GaryVee tweet, had no clue who he was. The tweet was just that he was opening up an office in LA. Long story short, he was like apply and I was like, nobody gets jogged for website. I happened to apply for a job. I hoped I could get. Went through the rounds of interviews, got a job at Vayner in 2014. August of 2014 and then I was working there. I met Gary at the Christmas party in December that year and I don't know how in depth you want me to go, but basically we were on the same trivia team at this Christmas party because the office in LA was only 30 people at the time, but I think the entire company was around three 50 to 400
Speaker 1:yeah. What an opportunity to be able to be on that same team in that specific moment.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean that really changed everything cause he came back the next month and it was, it was still small enough. He was doing meetings with every single person and he was like, you're all fired for what you do, what do you really want to do? And basically we had a series of conversations over the next few months where he knew he was going to get very serious about his personal brand. I really knew nothing about that space, but he was like, I think he knows something about influence. Everything new comes out of New York. Like everything I build I like close to me. I'm going to get really serious about my personal brand. I'm going to have my, at the time it was going to be his fourth book coming out. He was like, I want it to be a New York times best seller, give me a year. And so basically again, I moved out for a ended up being longer than a year. I actually had planned at that point when I went to work at Vayner, I kind of got the feeling at a certain point that I was going to work for myself. Like I knew I was going to work for myself. I just didn't know in what capacity because growing up like entrepreneurship wasn't a choice. Like it wasn't an option. My dad has his own like private practice as a doctor, but they never, I never thought about being in business for myself. That wasn't a thought. I would thought I would go work at Pepsi and be their in house counsel and have a safe job. And so basically when I went to work for Gary, I thought that maybe I'd create something over the next year that he would invest in, but my plan was always kind of some sort of exit and I just didn't have the answer for. And then in the first three months of working on Gary's brand team, I realized that I, I fell in love with personal branding. That was like the moment for me. And I remember kind of what that moment was. Uh, if we want to talk about it at all,
Speaker 1:I, I would love to talk about it. I, okay. So pause real quick. I want to address this idea around personal branding because, let me just get to call it out. Some people view personal branding as like this fluffy thing that those people online who promote soaps and makeup and weird, I dunno, collaborations with brands like personal branding, but like I'm in business so let's call this out a bit because I do feel sometimes the idea, personal branding gets a little bit of a bad rap because business owners, even people who have like actual physical location businesses, they distance themselves thinking like, Oh this isn't for me. So let's take the mystery away from it. Will you talk about like what is a personal brand? And you already mentioned everybody needs one. So, so what is it? And then I want to go back into that moment where you talked about like that was your defining moment of saying this is for me,
Speaker 4:everybody has one. I think that's the thing about the personal brand that people don't get or that gets conflated with the personalities that you see online. And I understand what it does because you see these people who are just kind of putting out motivational content, but that is not the case. So, and I do think people understand the importance of a enclosed personal brand, but your personal brand is your reputation. I know that's like a super cliche thing to say, but it 100% is and it's one of those things that people don't feel like they need to cultivate. I think people think it's like PR where you're just promoting yourself or you're promoting yourself to be on other people's channels and that's not what it is. It is what people say about you when you're not in the room and your personal brand who really do work. Like by personal brand, I mean content online or positioning yourself online, your name, it's essentially your name. Your name does work for you when you're not using your name, when other people are talking about you. I've seen it a million times now and it's, it's kind of an, we're gonna[inaudible] an interesting spot where it's only going to get more like this where I've seen people who have worked so hard in their career and they've worked under one manager and maybe this one person does not like them or there's a regime change and then the only person who knows that this person worked hard or did work good work or any of that stuff, that person doesn't like them or whatever. There's no record of any of that stuff happening. Like any of your hard work, any of those good networking moments that you've had, all of your wins. None of it's documented anywhere. So there's a lot of people who are heads down working and then they realize like, Oh shoot, like something bad happened. They don't have any proof. So a personal brand to me is proof. It's, it's your insurance policy, it can be an asset and if you don't take care of it, it can be a liability. And so I see a lot of people who have a ton of experience losing out on opportunities to people who literally just were on the scene, just started down this career path or whatever it is, and they're getting, let's say the speaking opportunities or these were frankly the business that this other person should have had or the roles or whatever it is. It doesn't matter if you're an entrepreneur or not, but people are losing out to people who are positioning themselves better. And I think that was always the case. You know how you present yourself, it's your network. It's getting in front of the right people at the right time. But now with the online space, you can really, not cheating the system, but if you don't have experience, you can position yourself in a way to grow. Still get the opportunities that are beating out these other people who have experience. If you do have experience, you'd better be backing up and have that proof because you don't know when you'll need it. And if somebody says something online or negative about you first, that's what's going to come up. When people Google it, like the online, you cannot ignore it.
Speaker 1:It's so, it's so true. And I think one of the things that you said, I can't remember how you phrased it exactly, but this idea is your brand is that you said is your reputation. I don't think that's cliche or at all. It's so black and white and so true. And I think what a lot of people struggle with is they think that they can't control the narrative. And I think the beautiful thing you're talking about with all of this is you have the ability to influence and control the narrative around what people are saying about you when you leave the room. Like it can be a lot more intentionally designed. It shouldn't be this haphazard thing that you just show up as you and then hope people are saying the things about you that you want them to say like it's a very strategic thing. And I think that's it. A big part of this whole conversation is how do people become one more aware. But then to take action to influence how others see them.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and what I love about the space as it is more, I mean I don't know if you'd want to say it's more merit based, but let's say you work in the industry and the person above you, your manager really did not like you and they wouldn't recommend you for something. Had you been making content around the thing that you know you're in business for or in your industry, people can make that decision. People I love, why I love personal branding so much is because let's say somebody, let's say Gary, but I'll just use it for the example was like she doesn't know about personal branding or whatever. Decided to publicly say that I have now two years of content. Since you know we've in Vayner and all of that stuff. People can make the decision whether I know personal branding or not. Like at this point like people can go back, they can see, they can hear my thoughts, they have my podcast, they can listen to you, they can hear my voice. They know if they can make their own decision. And it is his word against mine, but there's enough content out there or enough proof that that's fine. And somebody could say that and could say, I don't know anything. And it's like, here I actually have all of this stuff you decide. And I love that about the market now.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh my God, I hadn't even thought about that idea is it comes back to people are able to make their own decisions based off of what they can find online and that could, that could bite you in the ass or that could be a really, really powerful thing. You know, it's interesting. It wasn't until you actually talked about that, that's something in my mind clicked for me around my journey this last year in my own business. So I, I felt really self conscious a bit when I first started in the online space because I was like, man, who am I to help online entrepreneurs when I literally am just getting started? And I, and I grappled with that quite a bit and trying to figure out my credibility of how I could serve that space. And what's interesting is I had so much social proof of doing the exact same thing but in different industry for the 10 years prior that every time I talked to clients they would look at me and be like, what the hell are you talking about? Like you have so much experience, stop calling yourself a newbie. Yeah, it is. It's, it's interesting that you brought that because I didn't think about that as other people being able to see that based around what I have shared online about my experience and it's exactly what you're describing there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it does the work for you at a certain point. Once you know, once you get comfortable and you've put out all of this work. For example, if people are listening to me for the first time and then they go back and they, you know, they listened to beyond influential and I have over a hundred episodes now and they go down that rabbit hole, they can really get to know me and learn about me and and decide that they want to work with me or buy something with me very quickly without being completely organically without me having to sell them and convince them I do not sell the unsaleable. I'm not interested in convincing people that they need personal brand services or whatever if they're not already kind of sold on the idea that is not interesting to me. There's already a market that's completely interested and invested in and I don't need to do that hand to hand combat and I think content does that for us. You know, paid or organically.
Speaker 1:I totally agree. It's one of those things, it's one you, I think this happens all the time. You hear somebody on a podcast or you see something shared online and you go to find out is that person legit? And it is a couple of clicks, a couple, whatever. You go in online and you search to figure out what do they have already out there and exactly what you said, you find somebody, if they have a podcast and they actually have a blog or they have all this content out, it legitimizes them and you automatically have far more trust that they're not just this bogus person like throwing stuff online, like they actually have something going on. So there's a lot of validity in that. So I want to go back to that moment when you were in New York and you were working on personal writing for Gary and you had said you had that specific moment in your mind when you pivoted and said, this is what I want to do for my business.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I knew for a fact basically Gary tests everything out on himself so that he can create products or whatever from it. So I really learned that kind of test and learn business style. And so I knew he was going to offer basically what we were doing for him as a service. And that ended up becoming the personal branding arm of his agency. Vayner talent that I did work on. That was like the next step after I worked on his brand. I worked on the Vayner town arm before I left to do my own thing. But basically I knew that that was going to be a business and so I fell in love with it when really, really when I was reaching out for his book. So I needed to find 750 influencers and just with the influencers were a big deal, but they weren't what they were. Today, like yes, said an in, you've used the term influencer, you wouldn't necessarily have known what I was talking about at that, but I define them to hold his book for free. And I was like, Oh my gosh. So I was, you know, DM-ing all of these people on Instagram and just, you know, hoping you're trying to explain who Gary was because he just wasn't the force that he is now. He was, he was a big deal, but he wasn't, like I said at that level, he is now at scale. And so I wasn't sure if people would say yes or no and you know, I was pitching and doing all of this stuff and the amount of yeses I was getting was pretty ridiculous and a lot of those people writing back, Oh my gosh, of course I'd love to because the reason I even do what I do is because crush it changed my life. Like people I didn't even know were had read the book or anything along those lines. And I was like, this is crazy. Like this guy isn't, isn't it an entertainer? He's a business person and he's putting out content related to his business and it's changing people's lives. That one to one and understanding that that was happening just in the DMs and was actually like, I didn't even know if they were going to say yes or no and they were coming back. Like this content changed my life. This content changed my life. And then as we were scaling his content, seeing the response that it was getting, I was like, this is wild and especially as a person, the person con-, the content around personal branding just hit me way better than working on the year prior to working just on like brand brands like Toyota or Fox, something about people connecting with other people and doing it at scale. Just really turn me on. I was like, Oh, this is like his actual lessons and I could see the ramifications happening in the results happening for people right away. I was just, I just fell in love with it. I was like, damn, like this is where it's at for me. I was just super excited about a human message and getting that content out there and what it could do at scale. So just the idea really got me. I love that. I love that so much and I, I could imagine how thrilling that was to have those conversations and having people just to be like, of course, of course I'll do it. I mean that that's most amazing thing that you could hope for in something like a project like that, so okay, so you, you have that, you have that moment and then obviously a lot of things happen in the meantime, but let's jump into it where you say, okay, now I'm starting my business. I'm going to be focused on personal branding. Talk to me a little bit about those early days when you first got started because I think one of the things that I hear a lot, especially for people thinking about starting a business in the last year, and I'm sure this happened to you too, now that I have my own business, I get people, especially from my former life or friends or friends of friends reaching out all the time, wanting to pick my brain over coffee and what they really want to know is how the heck do I even start a business online? What's interesting is there's on one hand, this balance of you're building your personal brand, but the other thing is the end of the day you also have to have a product so you can monetize. Otherwise you don't have a business, you have a hobby. So can you talk a little bit about how you started and how you balance those two things because you have a very, a successful business and a really incredible brand. Well, thank you. And I just want to say that it's an evolution because I think this happens with everybody. What I, I guess what I thought I wanted at the time was what I wanted at the time when I left and I was like, Oh, I'm creating this business. So when I left, basically I have actually two clients that were working with Vayner talent. I was working for them on the Vayner talent side and then they ended up keeping me on, on the other side. So I was basically approving Vayner's work. At that time I was like on the flip side. And so I basically replaced, I had already more than replaced my salary by basically creating a consulting business and working on that. And, and then I didn't realize, I think this keeps happening where you have a dream and then you realize you're not dreaming big enough. Yeah. But it happens once you've achieved something. So first I was like, Oh well I just want to be able to do this and then I can work on these two, you know, these personal brands and I just have my own thing and I can work remotely. And then I was working remotely and I was working with, you know, two to three clients and yes, I'm making great money, I'm making six figures, but I'm like, you know what I really want, like this isn't where my heart is. And I think that takes a second to get like a little bit of the piece that you wanted, like the remote work and that sort of thing and then start figuring out what you don't like. Like I was working with one client at that time who was traveling, I was traveling with them and he was speaking on the road nonstop and I was traveling and traveling and traveling. And I love traveling. I don't love that lifestyle. So even seeing for myself like, okay, well I don't love this lifestyle. And as I was also doing that, I realized that I am somebody who needs to be putting my money where my mouth is, so I needed to be creating my own content. I realized I had things that I wanted to be saying, so how can I be creating content and building my brand at the same time as building these other people's brands? I also realized during that time that there's a ceiling on the amount of time that I have and the amount of scale that I can do. Like I could only take on three people even if they're huge. If I aspire to do listen, that could have been perfect. That could have been exactly what I wanted and I could have wanted to grow with those people and stick, stick that out, but for me, after I was doing it for a little bit, I was like, you know what? I want more like I can scale this or I can do this, or I don't really only want to talk for other people. I would like to do this for myself, but I knew that I needed to cut my teeth. I had such great experience learning by building out for, other people that I could do it effectively and efficiently for myself. But my heart ended up going to, and this is why I say entrepreneurial minded, I love people who either want to be entrepreneurs or who just want to grow and do something within. Even if it's within an organization, there's like a group of people who cannot afford an agency for their personal branding and they need to do this. They need to do this in their free time. And I want to make it easy for them and scalable in a way that they feel like, hell yes, I can do this and get the benefit of it. Because the people I was working with, and this is no offense to anyone, um, you know, they pay 30 grand a month for a service, but what they're trying to do like wasn't turning me on at that point. Like there just came a point where I was like, I don't share. If you don't share the vision, you know, just like any company, you're not going to join a company where you don't share the vision. So longterm I was like, I'm happy advising. I don't want to be here, so how do I scale this information? And so yeah, that was kind of the transition from the consulting into the digital products arena and also LinkedIn was also what helped me move into that space because I started posting on LinkedIn because I saw what was happening for clients. I saw what was going on. I started playing around with it and no joke, like I started playing around with it seriously and seriously by seriously, I say like an hour a week. In the fall of 2017 I was getting requests for speak. I had speaking gigs lined up by the new year and I wasn't even trying to speak. That wasn't even a possibility. I'd never even seen myself as like the quote unquote talent, but that was something that grew with me as I was working with other people as I was like, why am I not stepping into this role? And then I'd put myself out there a little bit and something good would happen from it. And then I put myself out there a little more and something good would happen from it. And so now my mindset and what I think is possible and all of those things has completely changed since 2017 like it's just wild. But I needed those steps first and to be like, Oh, I like this, let me do more of this. I don't like this. I'm going to do less of this. And so it's been a complete evolution.
Speaker 1:It's so true how you describe it around the you, you start where you start, like whatever, whether that's consulting, whether that's you, contract, whatever that looks like. And I, I think when you talked about once you accomplish something, how the doors just blast open and you're like, Holy crap, there's more. Like I'm getting a feeling that that happens all the time for entrepreneurs as you crashed through one wall, you another one opens and it's a fun thing. And I think that's something that's really important for anyone listening as you described, whether they're an entrepreneur or they're just hungry in the career that they're, the track they're on working for someone else is you. You don't have to be so focused on the this big ass dream that's so far down the road. Sometimes just focusing on the next thing and getting really good at that will open up opportunities that you never even knew existed. And I love how you described that because I think that's, that's the path for so many entrepreneurs and when you're thinking about taking that leap, it's hard to think about those baby steps because a lot of times we're drawing comparisons for other people who are already 40 steps ahead of us and that's just not how most people start. They start with those tiny baby steps that you're describing.
Speaker 4:Well, a lot of people are also scared of making mistakes. Listen, I'm an overachiever, recovering, perfectionist and all of those things, but if you do talk to anybody who's worked with me and works for me at this point, it's like
Speaker 1:mistakes are going to be made. Like you just need to adapt and change and it's
Speaker 4:like if somebody, let's say somebody is working with me and something goes wrong, my whole thing is like, okay, what went wrong? How can we move forward and implement some kind of system where we can mitigate this going forward? But it's always like, okay, this happened. What's next? And that mentality just came from realizing that there are going to be mistakes. I think that's a hard thing for people across the board, but I had to work with people that we're not ideal. You have to work with people that are ideal. It's just a system that I love entrepreneurship because you can iterate really quickly, especially if it's your own business and you're like, Oh, I don't like this so I can start doing this. But I do think a lot of people get paralyzed if they can't cultivate that good with change mindset like that. It's just inevitable and this is what it is and every day like you take what it is and then you adjust, you take what it is, you adjust and then you make sure to audit everything and see like what worked and what didn't and then I feel like life and the personal brand stuff and all of that stuff is basically auditing and adjusting, auditing and adjusting and asking more questions and auditing and adjusting.
Speaker 1:It's so true and the biggest part around that is action. I think that, I think that in itself is one of the common common denominators that I hear in a lot of conversations with successful entrepreneurs. With those just getting started as I think there's something in that initial transition for people when they, when they first get going where they live in that perfection because for a lot of us, I mean I'm highly motivated like you overachiever, perfectionist, for sure and what's interesting is those qualities and skills served really, really well in the corporate world and getting ahead for things and it just, it doesn't really serve you that great and the entrepreneurial world because you're not making money. If you're not taking action. And I think that's what's so important is you have to get really comfortable taking action. And a lot of times it's very imperfect action. And the more that you do and understand that it is all about iterations, the more successful you're going to become because of that grit and tenacity. So I love that you're describing it that way because I think so many people just get paralyzed in that perfection mode or the brainstorming mode and none of that matters because you're going to be too late to the party.
Speaker 4:And I think that happens. That does happen a lot. And I've noticed it happens a lot with people who could become, and I don't want to use the word complacent, but a lot of times when people are complacent in whatever job or role they're at and the time that they come to me ends up being when they need to leave because they're, you know, when they hit some kind of rock bottom, you know, they either need a new job cause they hate this job or they realize they need to start a business because yeah, they hate what they're doing or they hate their life track or some kind of moment happens like that. Would it be nice if people could kind of get into that rhythm first? Yeah. But different, different things inspire different actions for people.
Speaker 1:I'll be, I'll be far more direct with that because I think that's just fricking lazy ass thinking of. I the biggest thing for me, and I'm so frustrated by people who sit and complain about their jobs to their circumstances, Oh, I can't, like I can't deal with that at all now at this point. No. Like I have, yeah. Very little tolerance for it. And I won't even engage in the conversations, but my thought is if somebody is in a job that they're unhappy with and they keep waiting for some unit change, like nothing's going to change until they change. Whether they actually leave the job or they just choose to show up in a different way in the job like that. I think we're very similar in that way. It's just that you have the ability to change whatever thing is around you or whatever you're living in for the most part. Right. But I just, yeah, when it comes to professional pieces, it, it very much is annoying to me when people wait to take action thinking that a change of scenery is going to be the thing that makes a difference. When the change needs to happen on their, how they are approaching the situation, the actions they're taking or not taking.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I think it's a, it's a learning curve for people, but they do need to take, that's why I love the personal brand space so much and I got to see firsthand how that works to help you control your circumstances. So now that's why I like sharing it because you don't have to sit there and complain. And I understand the compulsion for that. I understand when people are sitting there and they're like, Oh, they're sitting with their coworkers and all of these things. But even now it's like I know the power of that. People have to actually change things and actually get what they want or start what they want, whatever it might be. So I have zero tolerance for it because it's like you have all these resources and if somebody happens to be in a conversation with me, it's like, no, I can actually tell you exactly what to do. But if you choose not to do that, then that's, that's your problem. And like I said, I don't sell the, like, here's all the information. It's all there if you want it, if you're ready, I can help you. But if you're not there yet, then, and I don't know what to say, but I also can't be around anybody who's complaining because we have too many resources.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, and it's, I mean, it goes back, there's something you said earlier that I wrote this down. You were talking about how in your, uh, in your former life when you were working with a whole bunch of different lawyers and how you turn around, you're like, Oh my gosh, I can't imagine living this life for the next 40 years. It gets me thinking about how there's so many different books and phrases around like you're the sum of the five people that you choose to hang your time with. I said that totally wrong, but you know what I mean, right. That like who, who you're around influences things and I think it works two ways is that the people that you surround yourself with daily, you want to have positive people that are pulling you towards something better. But also in the context that you talked about it before is if you're in a job right now or you're hanging around with people professionally right now and they are farther ahead of you on the journey, you have to ask yourself the question are they living the kind of life that you want to be living a few years down the road and if they're not like you need to find different people to model your business or your career after. So I think that works in the present tense but it also works in when the mentors that you choose to hang around in the future tense. I think you have to be very cognizant around that because it influences how you think even if you're a positive person, if other people are being downers and drainers like that's not going to end well for you. Oh a hundred percent and
Speaker 4:you know that's a whole conversation on networking and your own network and, and I definitely noticed my attitude and just everything. Everything in my business happens way faster now and I learn at a much faster pace because now I get to self select who I'm around. I'm not in an office environment where you know I'm around people or who are unhappy. And I'm not saying you can't have a good situation when you're actually inside organization. You can choose who you spend time with after and before work and who you engage with. But it was such a stark contrast and I was like, why is this so different? And then I realized it's because the only, and I think this is also realization and something that isn't just with entrepreneurship, but is something that entrepreneurs realize. It's like everything that happens bad or good is, is on you. Like you have full responsibility for your life. And I think a lot of times when you're inside an organization, they're like, Oh, so-and-so made a bad hire. Or you can kind of put it off on other people, like the reasons that you're unhappy. If you're an entrepreneur and you're unhappy with something, that's your fault. And I've really embraced that. Like everything is my fault. So what am I going to, if I'm unhappy for any reason, that's something I can change. And that's something that is true for literally everybody. And if you can come to that realization sooner, the better.
Speaker 1:That's true. Anywhere 100% 100%. Okay. This gets me all excited. Okay, let's, let's go, let's, let's switch back on the tactical switch for a moment and let's talk about maybe some of the things that our listeners are, we're in this together. I just made this an hour our listeners can do to start working on their personal brand or, or some things that they can do and improve it. So can you share some tips that you, uh, that some of your favorite tips for building or strengthening your personal brand online?
Speaker 4:I will just say that I have, I guess I call them the three C's when it comes to personal branding online. And every successful brand, whether it's personal brand or not personal brand, has these three components. And when people come to me and I assess their personal brand, it's an issue in wha- it's always an issue in one or more of these three areas. So the first is clarity and that's you know, just general brand clarity like you'd think the second is consistent content and the third is this community. And that's the engagement piece, the audience piece. So for people when I, wherever we start, we start where we are today. So normally start with people with an audit. Have you Googled yourself? Like do you even know what's out there about yourself online? Do you have a website? And people start freaking out cause they think like, Oh my gosh, like I need a website before I can start branding. No, like you don't need any of that. It's just more of an audit of where you currently stand. But if you want to start branding yourself online, it's good to look at where you are now. Look at where you've been in general and then look at where you're headed. And that is true for your social platforms. That's true for your website. And that's true for you as a person. So when I think about brand clarity, like you need to be willing to ask yourself some questions, where are you now? What are you doing now? Who are you serving now? What? Basically everything comes down to your unique experience and perspective and everyone has a unique experience or perspective. We can get into the nuances of niching down, but even if you don't have like a particular niche or you don't know what you want to be doing 10 years from now, that is perfectly okay. You can own your name and reputation online and you should be. Just as a side note, I feel like I get this a lot where people are like, Oh, the people who are branding themselves online are special, or they've, you know, they're more, let's say talent or one of those types of things. Nobody's, nobody's special. It's like nobody's special and everyone's special. I think that was something nice getting to see behind the scenes and being in kind of a lot of these positions in Hollywood and what not. Everybody's super, they're just human and it's really hard. I think to wrap your head around that, maybe if you haven't seen it, but you have value in your experience no matter what your experiences and you can be using it to build your business or do whatever. So I always start with the clarity piece and basically all of your social channels, wherever they are, your bio should say like what you do, why like what's unique about it? If you're using it for business, let's say what you do, but who you are, what you do, why it's unique, and also who you're serving. The audience is ultimately like personal branding is ultimately never about you. It's actually about the audience. That's always the case. And sometimes you learn that the hard way, but people get all panicky about choosing stuff and trying to give you the excuses that people give. People get all panicky about choosing that one audience person to talk to. And all of these things make it super general. Like for me, I've just, I'm just like, just choose something, choosing something and taking action and changing your bio in a way that's clear, that just expresses who you are and who you're trying to speak to. That works. That works as a starting point and then you can iterate. The beautiful thing about online, like let's say you change your bio on Instagram. If you don't like it or you start attracting people that aren't the right person for you, you can change it and nobody's going to be like, Oh my God, I can't believe you changed it. Nobody's paying. They're paying attention, but they're not paying attention. So clarity is super, super important. I know you talked about clarity a lot with speaking. My 30 process is super intense. My gift is finding out what's unique about somebody right away, and I ask a ton of questions. I love asking questions. I get to the quick very quickly, but being clear about all of that is number one, consistent content. Again, another excuse that people give me is they hear people online saying, you need to be on every platform, everywhere with 60 pieces of content a week. You do not, I don't like when people freak out about that. I understand, especially for entrepreneurs, how time strapped you are. Yes, you can repurpose and all of those things, but when I say consistent content, if you can show up once a week on one or two platforms, whatever it is, just show up consistently, consistently. Consistency breeds that proof in that trust. Even if it's just one time a week, as long as people know to expect you and that you're going to show up, that will help. And I think that's the thing where people are like, okay, I need to either go all in and do it perfectly or not do it at all. No, actually doing a few things. Mediocre will be better than not doing anything. And I think people are scared of that, but that's actually the truth. And then the community, the biggest complaint I hear is, you know, I'm not growing on whatever platform. And it's like you need to give engagement to get engagement. You need to be doing the homework and the research first on who you actually want your audience to be. And people don't like doing that. But that is, that is ultimately the key to growth. And going back to LinkedIn for a second, the is a spoiler, but the beautiful thing about the algorithm on LinkedIn is you can actually grow strategically solely through engagement without creating content on the platform. And it is magic. It is magic that you can just comment, leave smart comments and like things and it ends up in other people's feeds. It's really incredible. So if you are scared of creating content for whatever reason, LinkedIn's your platform, but the community aspect, you cannot take away from any platform. You have to be engaging with the people you want. And why would, if you don't know why people should follow you, why would they? So those things together all, all play nicely together because if you were engaging with people but you're not clear on your bio about who you are, then people don't follow. So it kind of all plays together. But I would just choose a lane first and then
Speaker 1:go from there. I love that you describe that as like this idea of doing a few things. Mediocre is better than doing nothing at all. And I think that speaks to that perfectionism paralysis we talked about earlier. Or like the other issue is a lot of people would be like, Oh yeah, I'm gonna go all in. And they build out, uh, a few Instagram posts and they get out there and they go hot and heavy for a week, week and a half, and then they ghost and it's like, and then they're, they're mad because they're like, I didn't get any engagement. Well, you didn't do anything long enough. That's like, that's like doing pushups for a week and thinking that like, I don't know, you're going to have the muscles that pushups create. I don't do pushups. So I don't know. That's a bad analogy. But I think like social media and online it's the same thing. Like you can't just think that doing one thing is going to have really big impacts. So I total gold, golden, all that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, 100% then just to add on to that, let's say let's say you do post and you're consistent and you're a little sad that nobody's done anything and then you've been busy so you haven't been posting. And then what happens with a lot of people is people are like, Oh, I haven't been posting. So what's the use? No, go back to posting. Rather you go back then to posting instead of trying to push out, you know, for a week, then do one a week, like do what you can, but get something out. I think that's the part where people get get hung up and I know it's disheartening if nobody's engaging with your posts, but it's also like, okay, well did you spend 20 minutes engaging with someone else's posts? Have you done that other work? And most of the time, pretty much 99% of the time the answer's no.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Or, or they spend their time consuming people's content that are not, they're not their ideal customer or audience anyways or they're chatting with their friends or like that. That I think is an interesting thing. Engagement online, just being on Instagram doesn't count as 20 minutes of being huge audience. Like you gotta be going to the right places.
Speaker 4:And I've completely changed my consumption habits based on the amount of time I have and what I'm looking for. But yeah, when you get started it's a little different cause I think people end up consuming people maybe they want to be like, but really like as you get going and as you get good at it, you're going to be consuming your audience, this content because you need to be serving them the content that they want. You're not going to have time for this other stuff. People who are at the top of their game aren't busy staring at their competitors. They're busy looking at their audience and what they need to provide because that's where you make your money. Like that's any business
Speaker 1:guys, if you did not hear anything else, rewind that and listen to that again because I think that is the thing that so many people fall victim to in the early days is they spend way too much time consuming content of the people who aren't going to make an impact in their business. So total gold there and okay. Another thing that you said, I want to talk about this balance with personal branding because this idea that personal branding isn't about you, it's about your audience. I talk about this all the time and I love that this is something that you talk about so passionately too. A question that I get a lot when I'm talking to some of my clients around social media, which I'm not an expert on social media. I'm an expert on communication, but I see it happen on social media is this balance around how do you choose how much personal to bring online? So, for example, a lot of my students and a lot of my audience are moms who have really busy businesses, but their fulltime mom life too, and they'd like to incorporate their kids and their families and other things into their social media. They don't quite know how to do that, but they see other people doing it. So do you have any ideas or some tips around how do you bring your personal life into your personal branding and how do you do it with a little bit more intention so it doesn't feel so random?
Speaker 4:So before I post, I always ask, why am I posting this? I always want an intention behind it. But I think just in general, when people are posting for, let's say you're posting, you're trying to use your personal brand, grow a business or to do it in a business minded way, you definitely need to have a strategy and lead with value first value for your audience first. What are they getting? Because here's the deal. Nobody cares unless they're getting something out of it. That's just the case. So in order to then integrate and for people to care about your personal life, let's assume you want to talk to people who are outside of your core group of friends and family to get someone interested in your kids. If you have a business that is not related to kids at all, let's say they need, they need to fall in love with you first and they're probably need to fall in love with the business or whatever it is you're talking about and have value from that content and that gets them interested. So until you establish that, that what makes you interesting or that value that you're giving until you give value, you're not going to get their interest. And so it's kind of like, why are you, why do you wanna post pictures of your kids? Why do you want to share this? Uh, you can always have a separate account that's solely for kids' photos. I do think people are very interested in, in the other aspects of people's life lives. But again, it's only after you've already delivered something or they can go down the rabbit hole of like, okay, like maybe this is whatever kids. But then the next post next to it was something that was adding value for them. And I know adding values, one of those also buzz terms, but value is going to be different in this objective to every audience. So the value that you give, you know, depending on one business is completely different than the value you give to an audience in another business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally agree. That whole idea of value is all around the perception of the perceiver. So you have to be really mindful around how you're doing that. And I think to add to that on the kid front, it's if you are sharing photos, you have to be clear around how even sharing photos of your kids has to benefit your audience. So for example, like if I post, I posted recently a photo of me and my kid making cookies and I brought that back to connecting it to my audience, which I know many of my audience is our working parents. And they grapple between this idea of trying to have enough time for their business and their families and so making sure that you're speaking to not just your experience, you're actually putting that into a tip or an emotion that you're trying to connect with with your audience or something that's about them and you're sharing your life as the the vehicle for that connection. But it isn't just about posting photos and just getting likes because you want to share it like that. Serving your ego and that's what your personal account is for.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and also just, I mean, let's say you weren't sure if people are interested in it. This is where the community aspect comes in. See if peo-, have people been asking you about your family life? Are you only talking about your business? And they're like, Hey, we'd love to know what your, what you're doing, you know, on the weekends, or did you try something on a weekend? And then maybe somebody is like, Oh Hey, I really love that. I want you to share more of that. Or even if you share some behind the scenes stuff, then you share a post or you ask a question like, are you guys interested in more behind the scenes stuff? So it's like testing it out. If that's something you really want to be sharing, see if that's something that your audience is interested in and feel free to ask like what's, I think people are afraid to ask. People are afraid to put themselves out there and then ask like, did you like this? And if one person says no one, everyone says yes, like who cares about that? One person who says no, but you're going to, you cannot be afraid of the feedback. You need to embrace the feedback that's otherwise it is about ego because if that's the whole point is to actually grow a business or to protect yourself and grow this brand, you need to know what people think about you so you can have not just your perspective on the brand, especially if the point is to serve your audience. So like you need to be cool with feedback.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Amen to that for sure. Okay. I want to get into some, uh, some more questions about you and your personal brand journey as you've been involved in your, your business. So I have a couple, well I'm not gonna call them speed questions cause you're going to have immediate responses to them, but I have a couple of questions I want to hit you at. Great. You mentioned the transition from working in a company to consulting and then building your business once you have got really clear around the types of products that you wanted to offer as you've evolved to this journey. We talk a lot about imposter syndrome. That is another buzz word, a buzz phrase that's thrown out a lot, but I can only imagine that you've had your own battles with imposter syndrome too. Can you share a little bit about how that showed up for you and how you have embraced or handled imposter syndrome and your journey?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we'll just in general, self-awareness is a moving target. I think clarity is a moving target. I think we always need to be checking in with ourselves, but I definitely had a, like I use the term expert and I'm actually very comfortable calling myself an expert because at this point I know I can communicate clearly around my area of expertise. I have the experience to back it up and I would go head to head with anybody else who work in this space and feel comfortable. But that was an evolution. And honestly when I left, this is just true when I left Vayner I think sometimes we're in our little echo chambers and we don't realize how much we know. And then you talk to people who don't do what you do, don't have familiarity with marketing and you realize how much whatever it is, you know that other people don't. And so for me it was really putting myself out there as someone who knew. Like I think I started off as like, Oh, personal brand strategist. And then as I started, you know, approving Vayner's work and kind of working in talking to these other people who, you know, knew a lot about the business, but I knew more had a different unique take or whatever it was. That confidence just kind of kept building and then I'd put myself out there. I started my podcast in October, 2017 so here's something with the imposter syndrome. I never felt like an imposter, but I didn't know if anybody, like you were saying with the personal stuff, cared about what I had to say. They needed to know why they needed to care about what I said had to say. And so the first 30 episodes of my podcast were all interviews with other people. I didn't do solo episodes first I did interviews because I knew at least I could ask questions and build on those people's expertise and also have something to add and say, because the reason I'm even interviewing these people is for a very specific purpose. And I started the podcast because I knew that other marketing podcasts, we're not talking about the things that I was because I had this experience and actually had, you know, run these accounts and done this stuff. And so over time, by the time I hit episode 30 or whenever I ended up recording the solo episode, people were asking me for my opinion, people wanted to hear from me. And that's very different than shoving your own opinion at somebody and they're like, we don't want to hear it from you. We want to hear from your guests to put yourself in the position where people actually want to hear from you because you've been seeding your ideas along the way. Then they're like, Oh, we want to hear more. And so that evolution was happening like the LinkedIn thing. So I started being serious on LinkedIn around that time I started the podcast. So speaking things came to me because I was just talking about things I knew. And that's where the competence comes in because people want to hear more. And so over time I was like, okay, and then I'm working with clients. And you know, they respect my opinion and of course like I'm doing the work and they're getting results. And so that confidence building comes from putting yourself out there exercising that muscle. And so yeah, there were plenty of times where it's like, Oh, I don't, I don't know. And or somebody invites you to, I dunno if I should be calling myself an expert. And then somebody invites you to something and you get up there and you realize like, Oh, I know a lot. And I've had to force myself to do a bunch of things that were uncomfortable. Like I wasn't like, Oh yeah, I want to be speaking and doing all of these things and getting on stage. Somebody asked me, and honestly I didn't really have a good excuse to say no. And then I was like, well, why do I want to say no? And if the only reason was because I'm scared and it makes me uncomfortable, well that's not a very good excuse. And so then I'd force myself to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love, I love that about you. You're very brave in that way. I think a lot of people get scared and then they don't take action, especially when it comes around to speaking. So I think, I think that idea is replacing that narrative around that inner battle with the imposter syndrome is looking at it, looking at it as this is making me uncomfortable. Why is it making me uncomfortable? And then also like what's the risk of me not doing it? And I think that's a beautiful way to start looking at things is I think all of us battle in in some way. But then we get to choose a narrative that we place on that discomfort. And I, and I love how you've embraced that of lean into the fear.
Speaker 4:You know, it's that whole thing that what if I succeed? Like what if I fail and what if I succeed? Like what if this actually works? And pretty much most of the time the, it's not the what if I, what if I fail? Like so what? Like a few people who are like, Oh that wasn't that great. Yeah. People aren't paying that much attention. I think once you kind of step out of your ego a little bit, that everybody's watching you, like who, who cares? Like even that's something with the expert thing too. Not that everyone should go around calling themselves an expert or whoever or whatever. You know, that's a big turn off for a lot of people, but if you can back it up, great. And if you can't back it up, the market's going to tell you. And that's just kind of the end of the story. If somebody is taking up all of their time to try to shut down that, Oh, that person says that they're guru, I'm going to make sure that like their life is sad. Like that's a sad thing for them. That's not sad for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Let's talk about, let's talk about that sad haters online because I would imagine that's, that's come up. That's a big fear that a lot of people have because we see so many malicious comments of people online. Just say to atrocious things. Have you want encounter that? And two, how, how have you navigated the haters online and what advice do you have for those listening who might encounter them one day?
Speaker 4:So everybody's going to encounter them as you grow. It's just going to happen. And I think the more equipped you are to, I think there's some benefits to growing slowly. I know a lot of people want to go viral and all of these things, a lot of people can't handle what happens when you go viral or you're not prepared for actual virality. So if you're growing at a comfortable pace for actually, you know, scaling year over year, let's say, you know you're going to get people who love it, you're going to get people who don't love you and you're going to be better equipped to deal with it. But as far as the haters go, I'm very cognizant of triggers. A lot of times, the reasons, a lot of times the reasons certain people don't like the word, let's say whoops, keep using expert expert is because they've encountered someone who's called themselves an expert that they don't think is an expert and they'd love to leave a comment about it. Or that's that's it's, it's a mental game like that. That's exactly what it is. So I always tell people, and this is one of the first exercises I usually have them do, is Hey, pay attention. Go through your feed or go through Instagram or whatever it is, and pay attention to who triggers you, whose contact kind of triggers you. And then think about why. Because there's always a reason why. And a lot of times it's like, Oh, this person is saying something that you think is inaccurate or this person's pretending to be someone they're not. And instead of you being like, okay, well when I put out my content, I'm not going to be somewhere that I'm going to be myself. People just get paralyzed with fear. And I think using triggers as a way to know yourself is super helpful. And so I just have people start. It starts with paying attention like pay attention or why you're feeling triggered. What don't you like about the word expert? What do you think is douchey about the word guru? Like I don't, I don't like any of those, you know, I don't like guru or rock star. Certain words to describe myself by any means and I don't like it for other people to use necessarily. I probably wouldn't recommend it for everybody and especially like for SEO terms and search like it's not great from a practical standpoint but again like who are you to like who are you get to decide you're also the market. If you're not their ideal audience that might be resonating with somebody else. Like who are you to decide? So you need to decide what's comfortable for you. What bothers you about those people? Are they just doing something that you wish you could do and have the balls to do? That happens a lot of the time. A lot of people just wish they could do that and it's like why can't you do that? You can do it. What's bothering you is that you're not doing it like that's it's paying attention to those triggers. So I would challenge everybody to just scroll through and find three posts just in your feed that bother you and think about why they bother you. Write it down.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That self awareness piece I think is something that we don't put enough emphasis on and it's interesting that we can do that for ourselves. We obviously can't control what other people post and how they react to our stuff and just not being afraid of it. Like embrace it. When you get the haters, you get the unsubscribers like embrace it means that you're, you're, you're polarizing your audience a bit and you're finding people who are more into you and kind of putting out there the thing of, I don't want to say rejecting, but turning people off that are not for you. It's actually a really good thing, but it's hard to embrace them.
Speaker 4:That's the thing is you need to, if your content is so lukewarm that it could be for anybody, you're doing it wrong, then there's no particular reason that somebody would follow you. So on the flip side of the triggers thing, I would also look at content that you really like and whose brands you really like. So you can note why you liked those things and lean more into that. So it's like a way from the trigger but into the person that you do admire and what is it about their brand that you do like? Yeah, I'd rather just being honest. Are they showing up with integrity? All of those things and then you can incorporate it, but exactly. I completely agree with what you said. Like you, it sucks, but you do need to be, you're going to turn people off and you don't need to be actively polarizing, but if you don't have an opinion and you're not sharing a unique, your own unique opinion, like there's no point in just putting content out. That's something that I do want to get across. Like I don't want to read someone else's words. I know a lot of people kind of just see what someone else is doing. They're consuming someone else's content and they post something that sounds exactly the same. Yeah. Take a second and think about what is my, what do I think about this? If you're resharing somebody's article, why do I like this? It's it's a lot of question asking when it comes to yourself and self awareness and that's where the clarity comes from.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think, I think quite frankly a lot of people are too lazy to slow down and actually reflect on that. Yeah, I think it's so easy just to hit share and regurgitate and just like just keep shoving stuff out there. But I think the real awesome stuff comes out when you take a moment to reflect like why are you excited about this? Like why is this resonate with you? I think the more specific you can be, the more connection I think your audience is going to get. Cause they're going to be like, Oh I see how you drew that parallel there and then that's going to spark all these thoughts for them and then they're going to take it run with it. It's a really beautiful thing. I wish more people slowed down and did that.
Speaker 4:And you just sparked an idea for me. If I, if somebody could say, what can I take away from this episode? It would be in terms of personal branding, the important part is being intentional. Like even if it's you're posting what, like I said, once a week, as long as the thing is with intention, I think what's being pushed now is a lot of content everywhere and I've been seeing this myself across the board, I've been noticing a real drop in content quality from a lot of either big names or f rom people that I'm just seeing because there's such a rush to put out this like viral clip or this article or this blog p ost or whatever the hell it might be. And it's just not great quality and it really does dilute the brand. So if you're just getting started, I'd rather you will not worry about being too perfect, but just put out something that is intentional a nd it's like this is me, this represents me, this represents my thoughts. And like use that as the bar, like what? Who does this serve? And then go with it. Like you don't need to push out a million pieces of content. You don't need to try. Just be intentional with the things that you actually are putting out and can feel, I'd say feel okay about it because you know there are going to be people who are like, Oh, this isn't good enough. Probably put it out anyway. There's always, there's always going to be, there's that balance. It's always, I'm just going to say this, it is always the people who are reluctant to put something out were the ones who should be putting it out. They're the ones that I watch with courage, so if you feel reluctant, I want you to be posting. If you're somebody who's posting everything and you're like, Oh, you know, you're feeling no reluctance, you probably need to pull back.
Speaker 1:True. Okay. That leads me perfectly to my next question. You and I are similar in the way that we're both pretty direct communicators. We're not really afraid to say what we want to say and we also, this is the interesting thing about us. Both of us have voices that are a little bit more lower in the range, and this is a weird thing to say, but I'm a communications person. I talk about vocal tone like I don't want to say our voices are harsher, but without a lot of effort. They're not like warm and you know what I'm talking about like I'm way more masculine. That's a direct way to say it, so I think we have that in common. I've had to work for years to try to warm up my voice for certain situations, but I'm curious around for you, you're a direct communicator. How has that helped you, do you think in what you do today and how has that negatively impacted what you do? I'm really curious around that, considering this as a whole communication style podcast.
Speaker 4:I love that you asked me this because it is, it has hurt me. I will say it has hurt me in the more corporate-y space. It has hurt me in that kind of arena. I definitely got along better because I am very direct and so I tended to work better with more male teams. Me too because of my communication style, but as an entrepreneur and as somebody who is growing my own brand, it is everything. It is such a bad, I was joking about the other day, but I was thinking like I kept trying to repress my voice when I was inside organizations and try to be, I'm always peasy and I'm always a nice person, but I am very direct and like that's the thing I'm like right now if you had glitter in an envelope and you spilled it on the floor, my personality is like trying to get the glitter back in the envelope. You're never getting it back in the envelope. So at this point I can just be who I am and it is so refreshing and I've built a brand, I've built a brand around who I am and that's why I'm doing well. I was even thinking about like the membership that I'm launching and all of these things. I love being honest, being honest and direct is just so much easier for me. And now that people like it and I got that feedback over time and people are attracted. I know people are attracted to just who I am and who I am authentically. And that's true for everybody. There's going to be people who are attracted to you for who you are authentically, but you need to start putting yourself out there in that way that feels right to you. So now it's great because I've created a business that allows me to educate and be honest and be direct and that's what people want and expect for me and now it's a win. But yes, like I always, I do understand in the beginning for some people who are inside the organization, they're like, Oh, I'm scared about putting out my voice. You can do it in a way that makes it a win for your organization and your voice. But that's another reason I love the personal brand thing is because let's say you are applying for an organization. If you're posting this content and it is you and it's your voice and your brand, they get what kind of person you are. Like, nobody's coming to me expecting no, but like a very feminine, gentle tone or whatever. Like if you consume any of my content, you know what you're getting like and they're already on board for it so I don't have to do this whole thing. It's like, Nope, this is who I am. This is what it is. Here's all of these resources like take it or leave it. And I know that sounds aggressive, but
Speaker 1:I think that's the beautiful part about owning your own business is you don't have to worry about somebody else's brand that you're trying to fit yourself within. I think I totally resonate with somebody who thinks that you're saying I've resonated so much this year and the more and more that I've shown my quirkiness and weirdness and nerdiness and all the things about me and shaved off that trying to be more corporate-y perfect. Like the more that I've unearthed me, what's funny is I get more responses to like my weekly email that I do way our responses to that. I also get far more unsubscribes, which I am totally on board with. Like the more I show myself, the more the people who I'm for surface and actually talk to me. And I think that's a really beautiful thing and I, I hope that that is a big takeaway for those listening today is don't hide who you are. Like embrace it and show that because that's the thing that makes you unique and different from the other people that are doing things that you technically do the same thing. Yes.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And it's been, it has been a huge differentiator for me in the market because a lot of women, and this is again not like an, it's a not a knock. That's true. They are a lot of women in the online space. And for a long time, a lot of women have to have this veneer of a certain look a certain way they dress, certain colors, huge smiles on their face. I don't love smiling in photos. That's not my favorite thing. Like that's just not what I'm about. And so I do like smiling, but like you're not going to see that, that look on me because that's not me. And so I was talking with my ads people, they needed some view roll and I just started working with them a few weeks ago and they'd asked me like, Oh, what about if you, like one of the things I needed to get was if I have a big win, like raising my arms saying yay or whatever it is, what? Like if I was celebrating and I had a conversation with them, I was just like, just so you know, like I can't at this point I literally cannot do anything that doesn't feel like me. So I was like, so when you say this, can I do this my way? Because for me that might just be a glass of bourbon or like I celebrate a very masculine way. Like that's just who I am. Like there's no like arms up in the air. Like woo, like that's just not how I am. And so they were like, no, do whatever it is you do. Like that's perfect. I was like, okay, great. But I had to have that moment where I was like, I'm not going to do this because it's not even going to come out right. It would just look off and that took time. It takes time to start putting yourself out there in a way where you're like, Nope, this is, this is who I am, this is what it is and I'm not doing anything other than this. I'm going to say no to anything other than this. And I think people need to be comfortable doing that at a certain point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100% and I think that phrase that you use, can I do it my way? I think that's really important for anyone is as you approach different tips from whether it's online courses you're taking or free content you're consuming online. When you look at things like you have to ask your self that same question of how do I do this my way? So it's authentic to me so that you don't show up like super fake and weird cause it's not, it's not gonna resonate. It's going to be really weird.
Speaker 4:100% and it take, it does take a hot second and sometimes you try out things and you're like, Oh actually this wasn't really me. Like I wasn't going to be able to do that. And so I wasn't going to do it. Obviously that means that they were trying. And here's the thing, it's not like there were basically you can always make it work for yourself. So I was like, okay, what are you trying to get from this? And then I will deliver it in my way. So it's having those conversations and I don't know, I'm very direct, so I'm like, I'm not scared to have any difficult conversation, but it got to a point where I, I guess you just need to[inaudible]
Speaker 1:do what makes you, you. Well, here's, I think a lot of people, what they struggle with is this idea of when people feel that gut, like that gut feeling like this doesn't feel right, but then they want to appease the person in front of them making the request or asking the question. And so they try to figure out like, how can I sugarcoat this? How can I put this in a different way or how can I appease them? Here's the beauty of it. Like when you run your own business, you don't have to sugar coat anything. If you don't want to. Like if you don't know how to say something. One of my favorite techniques to use is just to call it out and be like, Hey, this might come across as a little brash. So this might come across a little bolder. I don't know quite how to say this the right way, so let me just say it and then can we pick up the pieces to figure out like the best way to go about this and when you lead with something like that. I have found as a very direct communicator that's helped me in a lot of situations because I feel like it takes people off of the edgy of what I might be delivering, which is probably going to be something they don't want to hear. But I think it brings it back to my goal isn't to be an a A-hole. Like my goal is to tell you exactly how I feel for the benefit of us getting to a better result.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And if you do run your own business, you set the tone and here's the thing. The more, the more you are actually authentic to who you are, the more consistent you can be and how you show up. The more that builds that trust and the loyalty and the influence and all of those things like people know what they're getting when you show up consistently in that way, like as you are. And so that actually just makes everything happen faster. And also, I don't know if anybody does brand deals or anything like that in your audience, but usually when you're working with a brand, those brands now at this point, they want you to do it. They'll give you what their goals are and all of that sort of thing, but they want, they're hiring you to do it in your style, in your way, in your voice. Like that's what sells. If you have an audience, even if it's small, those people want to hear it your way. They don't want to hear it their way. If their way work, that's a different type of advertising approach. They're giving it to you to empower you to say it the way you say it. And so that's what influencer marketing is. So, so many people want to be influencers, but then they don't want to embrace their own voice. No, they want you, they don't want some carbon copy of somebody else that you're following.
Speaker 1:Exactly it. Okay. I can talk about this stuff all day long. We probably should start landing the plane here in a hot minute though I do say I have so many other things that I would love to be able to go back, come back around on in depth. So I'm in a reserve the right to stop you again and say, can we do a part two down the road? Um, of like, especially like I'm excited about LinkedIn and a couple of these other things you're saying. So I'm going to reserve the right to come back and harass you a bit. If that's cool and same on my podcast and I reserved the mutual right. Perfect. Perfect. Okay that everyone has heard that we have that. So okay, last couple of questions here. I asked this to all, well first I know people are going to be super thrilled with what you're talking about. I know you mentioned your podcast Beyond Influential, where else can people find you online and also like I would love for you to tell them a little bit about the LinkedIn piece cause I know, I don't know if you have that open right now, but I'm super interested in that one. So could you share, how do we find you and also how do they learn more about LinkedIn?
Speaker 4:So you can find me on BrittanyKrystle.com I'm going to spell the, it's Brittany and T T a N Y and Krystle is K R. Y. S. T. L. E. It's a weird spelling but that's it. And so BrittanyKrystle.com and on pretty much every platform at Brittany Krystle. But you can get there from a, from the website and as you can get to the podcast from there to the podcast is tributed pretty much everywhere. But to answer your LinkedIn question[inaudible] I have a free training on why LinkedIn is your best kept secret and also how to use it to grow your brand and influence because it is the best place to do that right now, especially going into 2020 I'm actually super excited because I keep, I do say it in the training, but you are actually early to LinkedIn, like whatever's happening with the evolution, like I said, Instagram or Facebook five or six years ago. And I go into that and actually what you can do today in that training. So that's at Brittanykrystle.com/linkedin but also you can click on whatever, uh, freebies and things that I have and you'll find it. And then for anybody who wants to get started on the brand audit, also have a bunch of freebies for you guys. Brittanykrystle.com/brandaudit is where if you have no idea about the personal brand and where you're starting, I would start there because you'll at least get that baseline of here's where I'm at today. No BS, just objectively on paper. And I think that's incredibly important in its own right to be objective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was one of the first things I noticed when I, when I started internet stalking you, is that you're very generous with your free resources and free content that you have online. So I think one that you're sharing that I think is great, but I would really encourage people to go check those out. Also, I'm going to self-promote right now because on your podcast, episode 102 was like the best ever.
Speaker 4:It wasn't really like your free resources too. I don't know if you want to leave this part in, but uh, I just, when I consume content, I know what's valuable, what's not valuable and I really just appreciate the effort that you've been putting into your content. So like you really, you really do add value and that's why I reached out to you cause I was saying thank you. So I have to have this person on
Speaker 1:that. I love that. I love that. If you totally made my day, I know we talked about that on your podcast too, but it was so great. So, okay.
Speaker 4:Oh sorry. I was gonna I was gonna say we gotta give you the link to the episode so people can hear you on a
Speaker 1:yeah. Well yeah, I'll put, I'll put all of these goodies we're talking about into the show notes of course. And okay. So I have two final questions for you, Brittany, and then we're gonna, we're going to call it good for part one, of our, of our time together. So, um, would you think about 2020, like everybody's talking about it when this episode comes out, we're going to be into January. When you think about next year, what are you most excited about?
Speaker 4:I guess at this point I was thinking about, you know, 2020 planning and all of those things with the business. And I realized I can't plan out everything. And so even talking about Q1and Q2, I can't even really truly think past Q2 because there's so much stuff going on. Q1 and the beginning of the year that I'm like, I don't even know what all happened because I'm going to need to adjust because that was one of those things last year where I was like, Oh, this was a lot of trial and error and adjusting things and there was no way that I could have foreseen a bunch of things that were going on the second half of the year. So at least as far as the first half of the year, I'm super excited to actually get to talk. Talk more to my audience. This is something we did not go into, but I'm just g oing t o mention this now please. Cause I'm really excited about this too. So I actually had lost access to my Facebook ads account. I haven't said this publicly yet. I had lost access to my Facebook ads account because I don't know if the person I had as my ads person had violated terms somehow, but Facebook shut my ads account down in November and that had been one of a big source of income for me actually using Facebook and Instagram ads. And that was one of those moments where I didn't really see it coming. I knew it could possibly happen, but you think you hire somebody that that's kind of taken care of even if you're, you know, like monitoring it and what not. And so that was a huge deal. And so things like that where I was like, okay, what can I, let's say I never get this account back in the worst case scenario, you know, this is something in my business. What else can I do? The importance of audience, an organic region, actually talking to people like I was like, this is what I'm doing in 2020. 2020 is about me talking to my audience. So I'm starting a membership around Beyond Influential. That is, I'm going to do it beta January and February where I really just want to talk to the people who want to hear from me and bring in what they need and really foster that community outside of social platforms. So I know that people talk about email lists and websites and owning your, you know, owning your content and IP off of social platforms. I think it all works together. I know my social platforms help filter in, but really honing in on those people that you can talk to that are the ones who are going to attract more of those people are going and be able to create product based on those people. It's basically what you would do with customers in general, like you're creating product based on their needs and their desires and your needs and all of that sort of thing. So building those really intentional relationships and making sure that I'm serving my audience 100% and then continuing to show up on these other social platforms, making sure I'm keeping authentic with the podcast and having people who I'm genuinely curious and I'm really excited for that. Going into 2020 I'm excited to continue using LinkedIn because in terms of organic reach, that's where it's at. So I know that I can continue posting on there and that's a low lift and just to continue showing up, but really doubling down on the audience. Like I said, I know this the hokiest answer, but it is so important. There is nothing, there's no business. You do not have a business without other people. Your business is about other people. I don't care what business you're in and you need to embrace it and talk to them and love it. And I do. And that's why I created a business where I can do that. And so that's my 2020
Speaker 1:Amen. I love that you're talking about that you're not even looking past Q2. That resonates with me so much. The idea of like you have to have a picture for the year, right? But I do the same thing. I have my year planned for the first six months and then I have a, I have an estimate of after that, but I am embracing the flexibility and the ebbs and flows and the fun surprises that I know are going to come both good and crazy, but I have that exact same approach, so I love hearing that somebody else has that same thing because for me, the idea of trying to get so granular for the whole year, like it doesn't work for me at this phase right now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and you need to, I mean you can't just not have any sort of plan. You need to kind of have a direction which you're going, but 100% that's where I'm at in my business too. It's, I have a vague idea or more than a vague idea of what happens in Q3, Q4 but even based on this year, that was a huge learning lesson. Even though I knew I was adaptable to change and I was going to have to pivot and all of these things. There are things just as an entrepreneur, again, totally separate topic that you really, I don't care how smart you are, I don't care how prepared you are, you do not see something's coming. You just cannot even prepare for it fully and so as long as I can keep educating and sharing what kind of the different things along the ways that we have, certain things do happen to you, you can recover faster. There are things you're not going to see coming. It's just impossible and so I leave room for that.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. I think, I think so many people don't leave room and that that's what sidelines you when those things come and they inevitably inevitably will come.
Speaker 4:Okay. Last question for you.
Speaker 1:The name of the show is Finding your It Factor and I believe the it factor is a really important part of your personal brand and just your business success online. How would you define the It Factor?
Speaker 4:The It factor to me is that unique, unique experience and perspective that someone brings. Everybody has it. I don't care who you are, everybody has it. Because I do think that's my super power is helping people figure it out. But I think for the most part people know what it is for themselves and they don't fully, I don't know if maybe it's a confidence thing for some people or maybe they need to ask other people or like the people closest to them what that thing is, but you start seeing patterns. If you start looking for it and you kind of start asking yourself those questions we talked about self awareness was like the what you like doing what you're great at, what you know, why you're triggered by something, why you like this other thing. If you start looking for those patterns, you'll find the It. But the It is, people say this about the niche. It's like the niches you, that's exactly kind of what it is. So you will niche down maybe in an area and maybe you do do personal. It's branding, but I also know that nobody else does personal branding the way I do it. I don't care how many people come into this space ever. I never worry about competition and you shouldn't either. That's a huge fear for people, but everybody has there It and it just comes from strengthening that voice. You already have it like you don't need to go finding it. It's there. You just need to practice.
Speaker 1:I love that. I think, I think that is such an important thing is that, and that's here's what's interesting. You talked about this, this idea around don't be afraid that other people are doing it and I'm just going to end with this is on face value. If you listen to what Brittany's talking about, if you listen to what I talk about in my show, technically I would say that we're competitors in the space of personal branding and defining your messaging and getting clarity on what you bring to the table that makes you authentic. You like, we technically do similar things, but what's fascinating is we do so many things that are so different. Like the angle that you take with personal branding that you're focused on LinkedIn and just all the other things you've been talking about, like they are so night and day different from what I do. But again, face value if you, if you take the essence of what we both do, it's technically personal branding, but I, I think that's a really great example for anyone listening is don't get scared off if you're afraid other people are doing what you want to do or what you already do. Like there is so much space in this arena for everyone. Like that differentiating factor is totally you. So I love that you brought that up. I love that you ended on that. Um, I'm just so appreciative that you were here today. So before we say goodbye, is there anything else that you'd like to add or any parting words that you want to leave?
Speaker 4:No, I think like when I was saying that like I know for you like a superpower of yours is probably helping people hone in on the story and what's interesting for them to share on stage and help them with their body language. But even if I might be able to see it faster than I think personal branding is super personal. That's something I say all the time. It's harder. It is harder to brand yourself and see yourself clearly. And so yeah this is faster sometimes have someone who sees it but you can see it on your own and it is there. And like you said with Heather about the competition, I don't see you as a competitor at all. When you do embrace actually like what you bring to the table. Like I'm excited to collaborate with Heather on different things because she does see things basically like you do see things very similarly and I think that's a benefit when you're actually collaborating with somebody. Like those are all benefits and you don't worry about it cause you're like, no, I'm me. So that's what it is. And if you guys can build together, great, but there's no reason to think competitively. It's like just deep dive into your thing and maybe even reach out and make friends with people who actually do something similar that you'd want to be doing. I don't know. I think that's, that's something that I've learned over the last two years that has been
Speaker 1:helpful. I think it also has been something that's probably led to a lot of success for both of us has embracing that piece. Just as a side note for everyone, so when Brittany interviewed me on her show, I dunno, that was like a month and a half ago, we recorded like a full episode and then we sit on the phone chatting though I think we talked for like two and a half hours that day. Like I had to clear my calendar. I know I'm a meeting with an accountant. It was the like you totally hit it on the head. We have so much common language that gives us that, that ground common ground to talk about, but it's just so fascinating. We get chatting like we are today and this is going to be the world's longest interview, but I love every second of it, but I think, I think people should look for those similar things in their field, find people that they have things in common with and not fear that competition piece
Speaker 4:100% and definitely feel free to reach out to me. Guys, I want to hear if you got value from this episode,
Speaker 1:please do. Let's do screenshots on tag me, tag Brittany, tell us what you loved about the show and if there were some things that Brittany talked about today that you want us to go deeper into. Shoot him over in questions either shoot me an email, you guys know how to get ahold of me or a DMs on Instagram is great, but let's get a list of questions together so I can build a case. Obviously Brittany's coming back. We know that's happening, but I love to have your questions with that, so pretty. Thank you so much and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you. I love this. Thank you, Heather. Bye
Speaker 3:[inaudible]
Speaker 2:Guys, thanks so much for listening to finding your it factor and Hey, if you have a talk coming up, you have to check out my free resource. It's called Nail your Next Talk. 10 must ask questions before taking the stage so you can show up as an authority and turn that talk into future business. These are the questions that I use myself to prepare for my life talks, and they're going to help you ask the right questions of the person who booked you for the event so the meeting planner or the client, and it's going to help you serve your audience to the best way possible. It's going to help you anticipate potential tech or Ady snags. Turn the Q and a time into a strategic place for content and make this speaking opportunity, a lead generator for your business. So go get it now. What are you waiting for? It's over at heathersager.com/ 10questions
Speaker 3:[inaudible].