Embracing Authenticity: Unlocking the Power of Personal Branding for Executives

Eric James Eden: 0:59

Welcome to today's episode. Our guest today is Michelle McCarthy. She comes to us from Australia and she is a personal branding expert with over 15 years experience. She has a framework around personal branding that we'll talk a little bit about today, Michelle, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. We appreciate it. So thank you for making time to talk to us from beautiful Australia. Tell us a little bit about personal branding and what you've been doing with that.

Michelle McCarthy,: 1:33

Yeah, so personal branding is I suppose it's obvious by the name, or some people think it is branding yourself personally, getting to know yourself. But I think the biggest shift for me came when I started taking it seriously and really delving into what it means but in particular, what it meant to me. I had worked designing logos and working with brands for the best part of 15 years. I knew how to build a brand strategy. I knew what it took to create brand identity suite, but when it came to doing it for myself, I found it very difficult. I couldn't figure out how I was able to talk about branding in like a meeting Google executives, but when it came to launching my own personal brand, I couldn't do it with any success. I kept wondering why I found it so hard. I should know this stuff, but after sitting with it for a while, I realized that the answer was pretty painfully obvious I had forgotten the person in personal brand and, even though I knew how to build and design enterprise brands and develop an enterprise strategy, building something from scratch is a completely different ballgame altogether, and I think one of the biggest problems that I had was that I was taking company strategies and I see people doing this a lot, taking company strategies and applying them to my personal brand, and these filtered down to some really cringy stuff. Like I started talking about myself in the third person, I kept saying we, when it was quite literally just me sitting at my kitchen table at home by myself and I kept presenting myself as this big, like this big corporation or this big agency. And while that may work for some, it really wasn't authentic to who I am. And I think this is like the biggest problem when it comes to personal branding is a process of self discovery, like authenticity, and I know that word gets told around a lot. But authenticity builds, builds connection, builds brands. But you can't really be authentic if you don't know who you are beyond the surface level of the products and services that you sell. So you know long roundabout way. That's what personal branding is. It's about discovering who you are, accepting who you are as well, and then letting that filter true to all your marketing and your relationship building and everything that you want to do. And I find that the people who don't do it, they always seem to hold themselves back. There's always a certain ceiling, whereas when you have discovered and integrated who you are into your brand. We think this becomes so much easier.

Eric James Eden: 4:20

So that makes sense. Tell us a little bit about some of the success you've had doing this with personal branding.

Michelle McCarthy,: 4:28

Yeah, like I'm getting asked to do speaking gigs, I'm being asked to be on podcasts, people are asking me my opinion. I have clients that I bring through this framework that I have developed and also brought myself through it as a beta client. The success outside of people asking me for my opinion and me becoming a little bit more of a thought leader in my industry is the actual self confidence that I have, and I think people like to just pass that off as woo and yeah, that's all really nice, but it really is the foundation for everything you want to do in business, particularly if you want to be a thought leader and build your own personal brand. So the success while I have some metrics, I think the biggest success change has been for me personally, where I can just show up authentically. Everything is just coming so much easier. Everything is just a natural extension of myself and I think that's the biggest change.

Eric James Eden: 5:30

Is part of the self-discovery being able to concisely, accurately describe who you are, what you stand for, to other people, so that it doesn't come across in a weird way. So you're like to use your example, not talking about yourself in the third person, but in an authentic way.

Michelle McCarthy,: 5:53

Yeah, I think people get scared. I think it comes back to a lack of confidence and at least in my case it definitely was. I thought I had to present myself. This was back when I was doing brand design. I was trying to position myself as this big agency, thinking that it would be really trustworthy and that's how I would build trust. But it was all like a facade, it was all. And people I'm not sure if you're into like energetic I'm quite into it and whether you are or not, people can seal your energy. People know we have great BS detectors and maybe they may not be able to verbalize or put their finger on Something's awesome about you. And if you're not, because you're not being authentic, you're not being real, you're like terrified that they're going to realize that you don't have the speech-bending agency. You're sitting with your laptop at your kitchen, at your kitchen table. So while being able to communicate about who you are and the services that you sell is all really important and we definitely do that in the framework Learning to know yourselves is also looking at the parts of yourself that you don't like, that you really hope people don't find out about, and accepting them. So there's a lot of mindset, work in it, so that then further down the line this stuff doesn't creep up on you and doesn't derail you and your efforts. So I think when people think of brand strategy, whether at a corporate level or personal branding level they think of your mission, vision, values. That is absolutely in it. But it's really asking yourself and delving into what are really your values like really underneath it. Underneath we all think we know what they are, but really delving into what is actually important to you and then presenting that to the world in a way that attracts opportunities, attracts your dream client and attract people that are interested in you and what you have to say and that are more people like you, building that community.

Eric James Eden: 7:54

It's interesting, I think, that most people return the same energy to you that you give to them, and I am definitely like that. If people interact with me, they're like oh heck yeah that. I'm like oh heck yeah in with them, and if they're undercooking with me, I'm undercooking with them for sure. That's what comes naturally, and so I think there's something really interesting there about if you can't give off the right energy to other people when describing who you are and what your values are, then I think people will give you something that's off-back and that's just a really weird social dynamic that I've noticed. But I think that's out there for a majority of people actually.

Michelle McCarthy,: 8:44

I think so. I think the whole Agro culture is definitely in there. And I know a lot of people tend to just pass it off and go oh, that's all real fluffy stuff. But we are inner jet creatures and, like I said, people may not be able to verbalize. The vibes are off. Our intuition is pretty strong. It's what you go to buy a car and the sales person is really pushy. You're like what's wrong with the car? Why do you want to sell this? And it's like that in all our marketing or even just interpersonal relationships. If someone's being really pushy or being a bit off or you feel like they're lying, you're not going to hand over your hard-earned cash to them, you're not going to invite them into your world. So there's a lot to be said about building a brand in that way and building it congruently so that it matches. And then my favorite thing at the moment is I take celebrities as the example. I'm not massive in pop culture, but we all know who these people are. But looking at how celebrities fall when they do something that is with the off character or off brand for them, it's because they build these personas, but that's not who they are behind it. So if you do something that is not congruent to who you've presented out to the public, go, this is not right, we don't like this. Whereas if you were always, you know, we'll just say, like a bad boy, you cursed, you drank, you did or whatever you know. Like these rock and roll people, when they do things outrageous, we go, huh, you know, okay, he's at it again, kind of thing. Whereas someone who was like a Disney child and got brought up in that kind of way and present themselves as, oh, I'm such a good boy or a good girl when they do stuff like that, we're like huh, shocked, even if the scenario is the same, the really like basic example. But I think you can bring it back to yourself as well and be like you're afraid that someone's going to find out this about you and you don't want to show up online. But if you just own it and just be like this is who I am, then like people just people just tend to accept it rather than you trying to skate around the topic.

Eric James Eden: 10:53

Yeah, I think a big part of the advice is you have to set the example for who you are and what you do. You can't really pretend to be somebody else because you can't really do that in the long run. Anybody can pretend for a short period of time a couple of weeks, maybe even a month or two but beyond that I think it's pretty hard to pretend that you're someone different. And if you set the example of who you are, that's the best way to find the right connections of other people. I've worked with some CEOs, for example, who said if we're hiring marketing people and they don't even have a good LinkedIn profile, then we're not going to hire them because they this is the best they're ever going to be is their LinkedIn profile. And so if they don't even have a picture on their LinkedIn profile, they didn't even bother to put a cover image up there. And this goes to what a lot of HR people say if you make a typo on your resume, that sort of represents like that, you don't have an attention to detail and it goes through all the things that people do. I noticed like, how do people show up for meetings? I show up for meetings sometimes and we're wearing like a hoodie and look like you're hungover from the night before, and maybe they are. But okay, that's who they are, that's fine. But everything that you do should take your brand forward, and I think a lot of people don't necessarily think about it that way. They just think about what is my picture on Instagram, and it's really a lot more than that.

Michelle McCarthy,: 12:26

Yeah, exactly, and so much more. Just on the whole hiring thing that's happened to me I've been hiring people and like that, they don't even have a LinkedIn photo, they no cover letter or two sentences and I'm like you would have been better having no cover letter than like this sloppy Tron Together thing. But I think it's everything. It's not just your photo. And coming back to the pretending to be someone, it's exhausting. It is so exhausting because you're going through everything with the spine tooth comb, being like is this on brand? Is this I should present myself? Whereas when you have built a congruent, authentic brand, everything you can just word vomits because it's exactly who you are. It makes everything just so much easier.

Eric James Eden: 13:15

It's interesting because one of my main reasons for starting this podcast is over the years as a marketing executive. When I'm building out teams of marketing people and I'm interviewing them, I would ask a key question, which is okay you've had X number of years experience at these previous jobs. Tell me the one or two things that you're most proud of that you did at those jobs. And it's really interesting because a majority of people can't share something interesting, and that's how the people talk about themselves and the value that they bring to the table. I gave them a softball and I'm shocking that a majority of people couldn't knock it out of the park and say these are the best things that I did. This is what I stand for and this is what I can do for you. That's what I'm looking. But what I got back a lot of times was people saying I was at this job and they didn't give me budget and they didn't give me an opportunity and the company was in an industry or had product problems, and they have all kinds of reasons and those things all happen. I get it, but when people have let's call it five years experience and they can't share anything remarkable that they've done to date, then why should someone take a chance on them in the future? And so being able to package up and talk about things that you've done that are remarkable is one of the reasons that I started this podcast. But what I really realized is that if you look at the bell curve in companies, there's a lot of talk about the bottom 10% of people often get let go, and the top 10% of people get disproportionate rewards. They get promoted or they get bigger raises or they get bigger bonuses. That's what people want, but they don't necessarily aren't willing to do the things that are required to do that. But 80% of people in the middle are on a scale of one to five, get rated a three or medium, as some companies I've worked for call it. I'm like, I really don't like calling people medium. It's really a real bummer your medium. Actually it's very similar to like their mediocre, and so the reality is that a majority of people aspire to be mediocre, which is unfortunate for them, because a lot of people rationalize that they say I don't have to. I do a quality work, I can be paid the same if I do C or B quality work, and that's the wrong way to think about it because if you do a quality work, you always move faster in your career. But I bring it back to personal branding just to say how you represent yourself and the work you've done and how you can share that with other people and how you can help other people. Going forward with what you've done is really, I think, a big part of what personal branding is that a lot of people miss, that they need to be able to package their experience up in that way. Do you see that?

Michelle McCarthy,: 16:12

Yeah, definitely, and I think it also comes from a lack of confidence as well. Like, even when you said that question, like my brain was like oh my God, what have I done? What have I done? Tell me something remarkable and then, like I said, thinking of things. But it's the confidence behind it. Some people have done remarkable things. They are those people who are just like yeah, I just, I show up to work, kind of people. But there are other people who do good work, who actually care, but they don't have the confidence, so that when you ask them telling me something amazing that you did, they're like I don't think it's that amazing, but I'm not going to share it, don't worry about it, it's not that big of a deal. So part of the work was hidden, because I don't advertise this as the work that I do, but it comes true, naturally is building up that confidence when you realize that you have done amazing things. Now, this is who you are and people like who you are. Like you said, we package everything up and be like this is who you are, this is who you're going to present yourself to the world and you are amazing and just rock those interviews or whatever keynote speech or anything.

Eric James Eden: 17:19

One analogy that I've used for this that I think is very relevant to personal branding is I like to hire people who, for example, when they were in college, they were very into athletics, because that tells me that they're competitive. And also in sports there's a lot of scoring and there's a lot of statistics, and so if you ask someone oh, you played football in college or university. What was the result of that? We won the championship and I scored 10 goals. But you can quantify it pretty easily. But it also goes to the fact that people who do that sort of thing it's extracurricular and it's above and beyond the effort of people who just skate by doing the minimum that they have to do. So I think the sports and being competitive is just one thing. I found that's like an interesting analogy to it. But I have one more question, which is a lot of people that I talk to, senior executives that are chief marketing officers at my level, that have worked at big companies. I talked to them about personal branding and their executive brand and a lot of them will nod and say, yeah, I'm willing to do that, but then actually, when it comes down to it, they're busy and they don't spend time on it, and so it's an interesting dogma to me, because all of those executives also want to get speaking slots. They want to be recognized for the work they've done, they want to move forward in their career and get other opportunities in terms of things like board seats or advisory opportunities, or to get to the next level in their career, but they're actually not motivated or maybe they don't know exactly what they need to do to build their personal brand. So what would you advise people who are in that situation?

Michelle McCarthy,: 19:21

Yeah. So these are the exact lines that I work with. There's a couple of things. One is ask yourself is that priority? And make it a priority If it's something that you really want, or is it something that you think that you should do because everybody else is doing it, because then that's not right with. Also, it's a very daunting task, and what I would say to those people is it's really even especially those that are in marketing it is really hard to do what you do for either your business the business you work for or your clients To do for them what you do for yourself, what you do for them. So, as an example, I have built this personal branding framework. I can't bring myself through it. I had to ask my business coach. Here's something I have developed but I need you to bring me through it because I can't do it myself. You need someone to coach you or do accountable and create that container and that space. So I think accountability is really important and, like I said, it's very daunting. Especially, it brings up all this different stuff. It can bring up a lot of mindset stuff and we can just tend to put it on the back burner and just kick it down the road and be like, yeah, I'll do that later, I'll do that later, and it just sits there and it makes everything else a lot more difficult. So what I would say to them is make it a priority. Really sit down, see what your values are and what your big audacious goals are. This is what I want. My role on my framework is we sit down, figure out what your big math of audacious goals are and who you are and where you are now, because if you don't know where you want to go, obviously it's out of the key shape, but if you don't know where you want to go, like you're not going to get there. So that's what I would do I would make it a priority figure out what your big, huge, audacious goal is, find someone to hold you accountable and then just start doing it, however small, just start chipping away at it.

Eric James Eden: 21:21

Do you think the hardest part is a self-discovery, or is it making time to do it, or is it knowing what things to do that'll have an impact?

Michelle McCarthy,: 21:33

I think the knowing what to do is Because I don't think a lot of people don't realize that self-discovery is in there. So that is a real daunting task. But a lot of people, I think, just when they think of personal branding, we think of corporate branding, but for a person, when it's not, people think of websites and logos and just presenting yourself into the world and creating your pitch, where it's a lot more like. Also, where I'm looking for deeper level than that, that's all the funds we get to do afterwards. So I think really it's knowing what to do and I think everyone has an idea and they're not really sure and they might start over here and then they bounce over here and they're not actually getting any traction and then they're like, oh, this is too difficult, I'll do that later or after this project is finished, I'll get back to it, and they don't really have a system in place. And that accountability as well, I think, is really, really important.

Eric James Eden: 22:30

So it's interesting because a lot of executives I talk to they don't know what to do. And they get certain advice or tidbits from some people and it's maybe you should post something on LinkedIn every single day, and then that takes things off as a weird conversation. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just that a lot of people they're like I don't know what to say every day. I'm like dude, I don't have something to say every day, and so I think that's where people, when I say they don't know what to do, is it like should I spend a lot of time applying for awards, or should I go get certifications? Should I get a new headshot? There's so many possible things. So let me ask you one final question. This isn't to give away the secret of your framework, but if you could say what are the most impactful things that people should do in terms of executive and personal branding?

Michelle McCarthy,: 23:21

The most impactful thing is take a pause, because people want to rush to all the things that you said the headshots, the posting, the social media strategy, the website, the pitch, their book framework. This is all the stuff and they feel like they're getting somewhere. But the reason that they're spinning their wheels, or they do it consistently for a while and then they stop, is because they haven't done that, that groundwork, that grunt work. So really, that's like where you really need to start and it's so easy to just pass it over. So, like, the most impactful thing is really to take a pause, just be like slow down. Figure out where you are, where you're going, what you want to do, who you are. Do you like who you are Like? I think a lot of that comes back to it as well. If you don't like who you are, you're not going to present that to the world. You're going to try and show up with someone that you like and then there just becomes this kind of like inconsistency, this weird, not a thing. So, yeah, I think take a pause, do some inner work and figure out everything about yourself, or not everything. Figure out who you are at a core level, where you want to go what your big goals are, why you want all this stuff, and then do all the fun stuff, which is all the headshots and the website and whatever it is for you, the makeover, all the titrual stuff yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric James Eden: 24:46

All right. Thank you for spending time with us today. I would encourage everyone listening to share this episode with your friends. People need to know how to think about personal branding in these ways. Please rate, review and subscribe so that we can have great guests on the podcast, and thank you for spending time with us today. Thank you for sharing these insights. We're going to link to your information so anyone listening who wants to connect with you, get a consultation and have a look at your framework.