Practicing the Art of Personal Branding can Double Your Business

Intro: 0:01

You're in the marketing world and you're looking for inspiration, or you're a business leader who wants to understand what good marketing looks like. You're busy. You don't have time to sit around listening to a rambling 3 hour podcast. We get it. This is the Remarkable Marketing Podcast, where we celebrate the marketing rock stars that deliver truly remarkable marketing, and you'll hear short interviews with marketing execs who share stories about the best marketing they've ever done, how it delivered a huge impact and how they overcame all the challenges to make it happen. If you aspire to be remarkable, you'll walk away with ideas on how to do truly epic marketing. Getting right to the content of what you need for busy professionals, this is the Remarkable Marketing Podcast. Now your host, eric Eden.

Eric Eden: 0:56

All right, all right, all right. Welcome to the next episode of the Remarkable Marketing Podcast. I'm here today with Tanya and Michael. They are personal branding and executive branding experts. They've been doing this for a long time and they have some great success stories to share with us today about personal executive branding. Tanya and Michael, welcome to the show.

Tonya: 1:21

Thank you, eric, thanks for having us.

Eric Eden: 1:24

Thank you, sir. So you guys have been involved in personal branding and executive branding for many years. You help clients with this. This is a topic that I'm very interested in because a lot of executives that I know, in marketing and otherwise they say they want to do this, but they just don't invest the time in it, they're unmotivated, they don't prioritize it, and I'm not suggesting that it's easy, so there's some good reason there. But I think you guys have had some remarkable success with some of your clients, and I think, michael in particular, you've gone through this process yourself, so I'd love to hear from you guys what sort of success you guys have had yourselves and with your clients.

Tonya: 2:11

Absolutely so. I'll start first of all by saying I've been in the personal branding space for probably 32 years. I was in the media world for a long time, and early on in that timeframe I would pull my clients into the studio and help them position themselves, tell their business story, create compelling messaging and become actually local business celebrities in their markets, and that ran for a lot of years before Brandface was actually founded in 2013. So it's been something that I've been very, very passionate about all along, because there's a huge difference between branding and marketing. And, if you don't mind, eric, before I hand this over to Michael and let him introduce himself, I want to start there because you're absolutely right, there are a lot of people who don't think they have to invest in branding because either they have a misconception about it or they don't understand it, and so I want to clear this up once and for all. Marketing is utilizing different platforms or channels to get a message and image out to your ideal customer, but that message and image that goes into those marketing channels and platforms, that's your brand. So you can go out and buy 12 billboards tomorrow, but if they're blank, what good does it? Do you Right? That's a marketing channel, right, but it's what you put onto those billboards that makes all the difference in the world, and so that's why people should be really concerned with the brand, because it's also a huge reason why a lot of marketing fails because the brand isn't dialed in first. So back to Brandface again. When I founded the company in 2013, that's around the same time that I met Michael and I started working with him, he was the first entrepreneur in Brandface that I had branded, and he focused more in the real estate space, and I'll let him tell you about that, but his results were so extraordinary from the way we positioned him early on, that that's really what I want to talk about first, and then we'll share some other client stories with you.

Michael : 4:17

Yeah, I was. I'm a serial entrepreneur. 34 years now I've been on my own. I came out of high school I became an auctioneer than a real estate broker. I'm still a contract auctioneer because I love the industry. Never thought I'd be a real estate broker, but time and space just sort of pushes us in places that we didn't think we would go. I've been involved in over 81,000 real estate transactions and most of those in the auction world in the late mortgage debacle Came out of that and I opened up a real estate brokerage. And that's where I met Tanya and I thought, just like everybody else, I needed marketing. So I hired her firm at the time to give me what I thought was marketing, and what she gave me was branding. Never heard of it before that. She came into the space here I'm thinking that she's gonna help me design billboards, radio commercials, things like that. We spent hours and hours and hours and hours just talking about what got me to that point and I kept wondering why you doing like what does it matter? Like that, don't we just come up with a logo and Put a logo up on it, on the billboard or something, and I make a lot of money, and she's like no one, nobody's interested in the logo there, instead of doing business with a person, who's the person? And she wanted to know who that person was. And then she got to know that person and she positioned me. And when she positioned me, we were able to direct the message directly to an ideal client. And in the real estate business, you know everybody be like oh, I don't want you sell a house to anybody. Well, the answer that is true, but if I'm gonna spend marketing money, what I had been doing was spending marketing money for everybody and that means really I had nobody right. And so when she positioned me and then we focused that positioning towards the people that we wanted at the time it was buyers, nobody was messing with buyers. And at the time we said, okay, he's America's top-senial real estate auctioneer, he has the properties you won't. And she pointed that direction at that brand and me is that our business quadrupled in the first year. They have doubled many years since then. We've only had one year and 12 years that we didn't surpass the sales goals and surpassed a year before, and that continues to be the case. Now We've got 22 agents. Many of them are branded, personal branded, the exact same program. Seven of those were professionally branded by brand face. If you took one of those seven, they do more business in volume than all of the others 15 combined. So it's it's really amazing and I was so impressed with it. And then looking if she said, look, I helped me write the second book in the series, focused right at real estate agents, and so I was honored to do that. And then that was a success, even a international business Number one bestseller, which surprised us and we were super happy about. So she said, you know, hey, you want to buy into the company and I did. And then we've been helping coaches, consultants, author speakers, real estate agents, veterinarians, lawyers, doctors and auctioneers to really brand themselves and Go after that ideal customer. And it turns everything around and we'd love to share some other case studies with you on that. But I want to add a caveat for your audience out here. You know any of you that are out there thinking, hey, I just spent a lot of money on marketing. I can't tell which part of this works. It's because you may be missing that brand Component the minute that you begin to dial in that brand and you get that brand out in really good, I'm gonna tell you you can actually track, dollar for dollar, what is working, what is not working, and you can position yourself, change the way that ecosystem looks and make the phone ring. And that's the key to making it work. And personal branding is in, 100% the first step. Even if you've been an entrepreneur, like I was, for 20 years, before I even knew what a brand was.

Eric Eden: 8:05

So, just to put a fine point on it, you were able to Forex your business because you invested in Personal branding, and I know that marketing is very broad. So your guys message, which I think as well made, is that marketing is a broad area and personal branding is one specific thing Within it. Just so, just because you're investing in other marketing things, if you don't invest in your personal brand, you may not get that sort of exponential forex result in business, right?

Michael : 8:34

Absolutely, I agree. I'll give me a quick example, like if you go in Greenville, south Carolina we're actually outside of Atlanta, but I've done a lot of business in, especially in the southeast and in Greenville, south Carolina there was a certain real estate broker. He's a great real estate broker, did some deals with him. There's nothing wrong with the guy had a bunch of billboards. Every billboard had a different message. They were. Some of them were funny, some of them were upside down, some of them were eye-catching. But then there was a competitor, came out of Atlanta and now he's all over the Eastern seaboard, has one message it's always the same message. It's always the exact same billboard. It's always the exact same face on the billboard, it's always the exact same website. The guy that had the different message the funny message is the different message is like he's gone, like no more money for billboards. The guy with the one message that's always the same and dialed into his ideal customer, he buys more billboards every day. So it's just like almost a living proof of this thing that you've got to get your ideal customer dialed in. You gotta build your brand and point it at them.

Eric Eden: 9:33

Makes sense, all right, tanya, you had some other examples. You've done some other great work for clients and gotten good results. What's here about that?

Tonya: 9:42

Yeah, absolutely. So I'll highlight one of these. His name's Mike Asherbranner, and he is really really well known on LinkedIn. He started a network called the Hounds of Business Community. Well, he came to us because he wanted us to position him to make money as a LinkedIn coach Because he'd been doing financial advisement, and if anybody out there knows financial advisement, it's a very compliance driven industry. There's so many things you can't say, so many ways you can't market right, and so he was trying to figure out okay, how do I grow my business? And what he realized was he could get more financial advisement clients if he could show them how to grow their professional network. First I thought it was genius. So funny thing is he is branded as the redneck financial coach. Now you're gonna have to go see his LinkedIn profile to see what I mean. It's absolutely genius. This guy is from Louisville, kentucky, and he has a kindred soul, because I grew up in the South, so, and so did Michael, and so we all get along so well. His personality is just off the charts, but he's one of the most genuine, intelligent people that I know in this space, and so he was already kind of known as the redneck financial coach. But what we did is come in and kind of pulled the concept together grow your network, grow your net worth, right. So now what he's doing is he's helping his prospects grow their network so they can align with the right people to grow their business, and then he can help them grow the money that they have made in doing that. And so it's a one-two punch and a primary and a secondary ideal customer too, which is what most of our clients have. So, as a result, he has built an incredible network that hounds of business community. It has exploded. He's almost quadrupled his business once his brand was dialed in and he continues to grow his LinkedIn coaching, which is the most important part. Everybody always wants to know. What about the money? Are we making money? Are we making money? Well, that's really where our own focus comes in, which is profitable personal branding. So, yeah, he's making money.

Eric Eden: 11:50

I thought you were gonna say that he was done so well, was able to get into the redneck yacht club, but it sounds like four acts is still pretty good.

Tonya: 11:58

I think I'm gonna have to nominate him right after this, and I'll credit you for it. Which is an awesome song, by the way.

Eric Eden: 12:07

I couldn't resist that reference for that nickname for himself.

Tonya: 12:11

Yeah that's really great.

Michael : 12:13

We have another one. Heather Markell is one we branded and she's very interesting. She needed a position for her new career in a way that would attract people to pay for her services. Okay, she was a corporate person who was beginning to have health problems from being involved in the corporate world and whatnot and was not happy living the life that so many people do, that they're just she's just not happy with it. And so she loved to travel. She's like is there any way that I can make money as a full-time traveling coach? Like, can I travel professionally and make money in other countries and then teach people how to do that exact same thing? And so we said sure, I mean, we can build a brand for anybody, and I think that this is a good concept and we can make this work right. And so what she does is full-time travel coaching for burned out professionals who are seeking flexibility and freedom, and she helps them figure out how to start this extended travel or work remotely while traveling, and she helps them with the money to mindset and a mastery for a travel lifestyle. All of this came out of our building a brand for her, and her positioning was did your desk discover your destiny? And she had never made any money before she came to work with us and we built that brand on it. She had pretty much just been burning through her life savings, traveling right and trying to figure out how do I get clients from this. And she is another one that is now making money with the brand and teaching other people how to live that same lifestyle, Working with people across the globe and still traveling to be an example for her clients, and I can't remember. It's like 50-something countries she's been in now or it's amazing Like she got caught in COVID at somewhere like New Zealand spent a year or two years? Yeah, new Zealand couldn't get out, you know. But she worked, sustained herself, got clients while she was down there through the power of the internet, hallelujah and she has no permanent address. So you know another success story from building a brand and focusing at an ideal customer and attracting the people that will pay you to learn how to do the same thing she was doing.

Tonya: 14:16

But you know, it's one of those things, eric, that at a glance sometimes is that brand identifier. We coined that a brand identifier. It's really that tagline or slogan, that one thing you want to be known for. And when we came up with ditch your desk, discover your destiny, everybody goes whoa. That's awesome, right, but it's memorable. It's that unforgettable thing that captures your attention and it doesn't sell your products or services. It gets people to open the door and want to learn more. It gets them from the front porch into the entryway, right. It's like, oh, this looks interesting, let me learn more. And so that she really loves and she's been able to do a lot of different things based on her positioning.

Eric Eden: 14:56

Now One question I have for you is that I think a lot of executives across industries that I know the big challenge they have, other than not being motivated to prioritize time to work on their personal brand, is that their personal brand is boring, and I asked them what are you going to do about it? They're like I don't know. So what should people do if their personal brand is boring?

Tonya: 15:26

Well, definitely, come see us, because we don't have boring people around here. Yeah, that's right.

Michael : 15:31

Well, first off, I want to say this if they have a personal brand, even if it's boring, congratulations. Most people think they have a personal brand and don't. If you have a boring one, we can fix that for sure.

Tonya: 15:41

That's like that that can happen. Good point. We like to laugh a lot, for sure. But you know, the serious part is and I just had this conversation earlier this morning I cannot begin to tell you the number of people that say I'm really not very interesting, I don't really know what sets me apart, and you know I'm pretty boring. Literally those three statements come out of their mouths and I like to tell people you know, everybody has this star inside and when you tap into what it is that really makes you unique, you set the world on fire with it, because most people just don't have that inward sense of self-worth that they really need to have and they need to understand that building a personal brand is not about look at me, look at me. It's hey, look what I can do for you. That's really what a personal brand is all about, or should be all about. And so once they get that concept and they realize, hey, I really do have something special, something to offer to people, there's no such thing as boring. It's either I appeal to this sector or I don't. Right, and the number one job of a personal brand is to precede you. Whether you even meet somebody or engage with them, they should already be familiar with you and what you stand for. And if not, that's when you've got to realize I don't have what I thought I had. And I'll tell you one other thing too, eric. That's really really common is people think, hey, I've got a photo, a logo, a tagline, my colors are consistent and I post every day. I've got a brand. And to that I say, okay, how is it working for you? Are you making money with it? Because really, a brand is an entire ecosystem. We look at 77 different criteria when we build a brand, purposefully, because that's what it takes to make it profitable. And so, for those of you out there thinking I don't have a story, it's very boring no, it's not. And also to those who think I already have a brand, I do all these things, that is possible but probably not. So it depends on whether it's profitable for you, and that's really. It all comes down to numbers, right?

Eric Eden: 17:45

I like those two points that everybody has a star inside them, and the other one is that your personal brand is not about you, but it's about what you can do for other people. I think those are two excellent points that don't often come out in the personal branding conversation. So love those two things. My other question is what does success really look like? I mean, if you can get quadruple your business like you did, michael, that's fantastic. But how, broadly speaking, do you look at success if someone's built a successful personal brand? You mentioned there are 77 things you look at. What is the measure of success in personal branding?

Michael : 18:30

It's personal. I think that's it. Like you know, success to me is not the same as success to somebody else. Success to somebody else isn't the same as success to you. We work with clients that they don't want any more business. They want easier business. We work with clients that want a whole lot more business. We work with clients that are building firms and teams and doctors, offices and podcasts and one on bigger stages. Some of them want more money. They want to be able to demand more money.

Tonya: 18:59

They want to raise their rates. They want to raise their rates.

Michael : 19:02

So success is in the eye of the beholder and actually I think in a lot of ways that is a hold back to each individual Maybe I'm speaking to an individual listener right now that you know, don't compare, whatever you do, because success should be built in your own mind for what you want. It should not be leveled against somebody else that's even in the same industry, because if you're studying them and competing against them, you're really living their life, not yours. But success has to be decided in the confines of your own mind and heart. And then you go build that brand and go after that ideal customer. You're going to get that success.

Eric Eden: 19:42

Okay. So, and you said you guys have said a couple of times this is for everybody, it's not just for people who are personal coaches or people who are speakers, it's really broadly across industries, for all people who are in business that want to take their personal brand to the next level, right.

Michael : 20:02

Absolutely. You know I use this example all the time. Okay, so if you look, there's two sides to this example, because you mentioned, you know executives at the beginning too, and you speak to those people. Those people have brands too, right? I mean, how many times do? If you're a professional investor and you're going to invest in a company on Wall Street, what are you going to do? You're going to look at who's leading that company. What do you do? When you look at who leads that company? You look at their accolades, you look at what their past experience is, what they do. That's a brand. You know, when you invested in Delta because Richard Anderson took it over, right, then you were following Richard. You know, if you didn't invest anymore when Ed Bastion took over, after Richard stepped down, then maybe you didn't believe in it, right? So it could even be huge corporations and Fortune 100 corporations where brands are supremely important and whether people identify them as that or not, it's still driven by the individual. And you know. The second part of that is like you take a Boeing corporation, right, if you say Boeing is going to build this giant jet airplane and they're going to buy their turbines from Westinghouse, right, and Charlotte, north Carolina, whatnot? At the end of that culmination of that contract decision, two people are going to trust that each company is going to do what they're supposed to do and you're buying from a person, even though it is a massive corporation that affects so many other people. So we hold to the fact that everybody has a personal brand and needs to point that personal brand at the persons that are, people that are valuable to the growth of themselves and their company, all the way down to the guy that owns a landscaping company and just cuts grass in neighborhoods he's known at in his community.

Eric Eden: 21:44

Being in charge of marketing at many companies over the years, in particular B2B tech companies. My job has always been to build up the personal brand of executives, because what a lot of them really want is they wanted to be recognized for what they're doing. Number one to win awards and to be recognized. The second thing that they all want is they want to speak at events. They want to be a keynote speaker with the best speaking slot. I worked with one CEO at a growth company and I asked him. I said what is success in public relations if we're going to invest a lot of money at that in the company? What does that look like? And his answer shocked me. He said Success looks like you get me a speaking slot on the stage at Davos. That was like let's go ahead and name hi then. But executives want that and often they don't know how to get there. It's left to the marketing people, from a PR perspective, but also across the different marketing functions, try to build up the personal brand of the executive team, starting with the CEO, all the way on down, all the way down to, in some cases, even managing the social media profiles. Sure, and so, because they're just like, well, I don't have time for this LinkedIn thing, can you write LinkedIn posts for me? And I just hear a lot of strategies of people saying, well, the way to build a personal brand is to post something on LinkedIn every day, and you hear CEOs say how would I ever have time to do that? There's lots of strategies out there, but I think that's the challenge is, a lot of people confuse, like I said at the very beginning, the marketing channels and tactics with what it takes to get a personal brand.

Tonya: 23:38

Yeah, and there's a huge difference to Eric in building the brand and promoting the brand. Posting on LinkedIn is promoting the brand right. You have to build it first so that you know what to promote on any marketing channel and that what is really defined by five questions in all exactly who do you serve, how do you serve them, what qualifies you to serve them, how does it make their life better and what makes you different from everyone else also trying to serve that same customer?

Eric Eden: 24:08

So, because it is personal for everybody, you guys offer a service where you do individual consultations for people and determine how you could help them. You also have a guide that people can get for free that walks people through if they want to know more and more details about how to go through building the personal brand. Is that right?

Tonya: 24:33

Absolutely, and you can find it's the ultimate guide to a freedom based brand and you can download that free at brandfaceguidecom Awesome.

Eric Eden: 24:44

I'll go ahead and link to that in the show notes. I encourage everyone to share this episode with your friends who want to build a personal brand and, if you can give us a rating review, subscribe. That helps us bring more great guests like Tanya and Michael onto the show. Michael, tanya, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing these insights on personal branding Fantastic, thank you very much.

Tonya: 25:07

Thank you, eric, thank you.

Intro: 25:12

You've been listening to the remarkable marketing podcast. Our passion is to bring you the marketing rock stars who share stories about the best marketing they've done, how it delivered and how they handled all the challenges that go along with it. And we do it all in 10 minutes. We only ask two things. First, visit the remarkable marketingio website for more great insights. Second, this podcast has been brought to you by the next generation social networking app, Workverse. You can download and use the Workverse app for free to build your professional brand, become a paid expert advisor and discover the best business events to attend. Download the Workverse app today. See you next time on the remarkable marketing podcast.