Table of Contents
Key Takeaways: The Step by Step Guide to Building a Personal Brand
- Personal Branding = Opportunity Creation
- It’s not about fame; it’s about building your network and reputation to unlock opportunities.
- Influence isn’t about vanity metrics—real influence can’t be faked.
- Find Your Role in the Game
- People approach personal branding differently; identify your natural style:
- Storyteller (sharing personal experiences)
- Curator (highlighting others’ work)
- Documenter (showing the journey)
- Thought Leader (offering expertise and insights)
- The best approach is the one that feels natural to you.
- People approach personal branding differently; identify your natural style:
- Confidence is the First Hurdle
- Every industry leader has had doubts. The key is to take action despite them.
- Don’t overthink; focus on consistency and incremental progress.
- Experiment & Learn from the Audience
- You don’t have to get it right immediately—throw ideas out and see what resonates.
- The best content comes from identifying key problems your audience faces and solving them.
- Community First, Audience Later
- Instead of chasing numbers, focus on engaging a small, relevant group first.
- Nurture your connections—respond, engage, and be genuinely useful.
- Make Personal Branding Fun & Sustainable
- If it feels like a chore, you won’t keep it up. Find ways to enjoy the process.
- Collaborate with others to stay accountable and motivated.
- Visibility Creates Perception
- The more people see you, the more they assume things are going well.
- Be intentional about where and how you show up.
- Intentionality Over Algorithms
- Play to your strengths and goals rather than chasing trends.
- Focus on creating valuable content, and the right audience will follow.
- Become a ‘Signal Master’
- Let the world validate your expertise—through speaking, media features, awards, and industry recognition.
- Every touchpoint (social profiles, website, content) should reinforce who you are and what you stand for.
- Long-Term Thinking Wins
- Personal branding is a lifelong game. Don’t rush it.
- Keep evolving—what you talk about now may not be what you talk about in 5 years, and that’s okay.
Final Thought: Personal branding is career planning in disguise. Build visibility in a way that aligns with your goals, and the opportunities will come to you.
Transcript
hello everyone it’s so lovely to have you here today thank you all already for
0:07popping in the chat where you’ve been watching from uh I’ve seen folks in Spain I’ve seen people in New York City
0:14uh I’ve seen folks in Devon Manchester Burnley uh St Ives the west of Ireland
0:20the list goes on thank you all so much uh for taking the time today what a thrill it is to have you here and uh I
0:28can see a couple of you already found a new re actions buttons with the hearts heading up um if you haven’t already
0:34because I can see uh some folks uh popping in some messages into the chat
0:40uh that are presently going to hosts and panelists only so Becca uh and Cardiff I’m looking at you uh right now um if
0:47your messages are going to hosts and panelists in the chat uh please do switch that to everyone so everyone can
0:53see your messages uh throughout the duration of today’s session the way you do that is you head into your chat
1:00feature you see the button that says host and panelist switch that to everyone we’ll have a lovely time um
1:06let’s get going introducing today’s speakers um so today we have Ash Jones
1:11and Claudia cardinali uh two absolute Legends uh and returning Heroes uh to
1:18the marketing Meetup let me let me move this image so it’s not distracting there you go look at that um so Ash and
1:26Claudia uh have been friends for years um but last spoke at the marketing meet I think about five years ago speaking on
1:34quite a similar topic on personal branding now in those five years uh A lot’s changed and so it’s great to
1:41revisit this topic um probably in a space where we’re all recognizing the personal brand uh might give us the ick
1:47as a term but is actually still uh increasingly important so uh I think
1:53we’re just going to have a really really brilliant session we’ve got Adam in the chat who’s saying these guys were my first ever marketing Meetup talk so back
2:00full circle how work is that and thank you for continuing to be part of the community like that Adam as well that’s
2:07really really amazing before we get started uh as ever I just want to say
2:12thank you to our sponsors and this week’s featured sponsor is Cambridge marketing college now cambrid marketing
2:19College uh if you’re looking for anyone in apprenticeship or understanding marketing apprenticeships from the
2:25perspective of bringing in an extra pair of hands uh into your organization then
2:31Cambridge marketing College are a great place to start that search um there’s a QR code there to
2:39find out more about apprenticeships also a big thank you to frontify story block plannable Redgate
2:45and score app uh we speak about each of our sponsors on rotation uh this week it
2:50was Cambridge marketing college but we want to say a big big thank you to all of these companies for being able to bring these sessions to you so uh that’s
2:59my introdu uction done so uh Claudia and Ash it’s um it’s over to you and thank
3:05you so much for for coming back five years later our pleasure pleasure thank you so
3:12much um God there’s really people from all over the world here so thanks for
3:17making great influence global yeah just to check can everyone see our slides and can everyone hear us okay we can
3:24actually see if you can or can’t so got your slides y yeah perfect okay amazing
3:31amazing um first I’d say if anyone has we’re going to do like 15 minutes at the
3:37end hopefully a bit longer in terms of questions around personal brand and I think everyone has interesting questions
3:42on it so if there’s anything that you’re thinking that you’d like us to maybe touch on at some point drop it in the
3:48chat and we’ll make sure that we’re on top of things um but yes Welcome to our step-by-step guide to building a
3:54personal brand um we’ll start with I guess personal branding as a space I feel like
4:03it’s very interesting time to work in personal branding has been actually interesting from the start since I joined back in 2020 but for us I think
4:11there’s so much advice out there there’s so many kind of like different niches n niches different ways people are looking
4:17at it like when we were thinking about how we talk about this to everyone we were thinking how do we maybe approach
4:24it in a bit of a different way and I think maybe like try and broaden people’s perspective Ives on it and
4:31again like help everyone understand it as an industry as much as anything else because I think like people are
4:36definitely starting to understand it more but for us it’s like how do we translate that and make it into something that’s like really actionable
4:43that people can use on like a daytoday um so when we were thinking about it I don’t know if anyone’s read this book
4:48but if you have for me it’s a really good example of kind of like taking
4:53things that are happening in your life and transferring them into something else so the kind of like plot of this is
4:59like three um people meet at college and they’re super interested in video games and they end up building this company
5:05and it’s how they bring elements of their lives into the game and when we were thinking about personal branding
5:11and how we kind of do that like this is what kept popping up in my head in particular um so we’ve kind of thought
5:17about how we see personal branding as a bit of a game yeah and I just add into
5:22that as well I think we were talking about this earlier how um for me
5:28personal branding is an element of it that’s for everyone from a professional
5:33sense um in terms of your career or job or whatever you’re doing whether you’re freelancer a Founder the world’s biggest
5:40CEO it doesn’t matter who you are in a professional sense there’s elements of it that you can take and apply to you
5:46and I think part of the issue with the idea of personal branding is that people
5:51look at it in quite a limited way and therefore go it’s not for me because they go I don’t want to I’m not the kind
5:58of person that would speak speak on stage therefore personal branding isn’t for me or I’m not the kind of person that would do video content so therefore
6:04personal branding isn’t for me and kind of the way that we think about is instead thinking what are the
6:10opportunities that I need to create professionally to help me get ahead in some way shape or form and then once I’m
6:17clear on those it’s you can take you can leverage elements of personal branding to achieve those opportunities and
6:24outcomes so to speak um so as with any game we’ve got a
6:29few terms of the game to begin with influence is a really really key one
6:34obviously and I think it’s just worth like touching on each of these things because again if you’re thinking about personal branding as an industry there’s
6:40so many things like banded around like even personal branding in itself I think has so many different meanings to
6:46different people and for us like we always come back to the conscious and intentional effort to build your network
6:52and reputation and anything beyond that that’s around like Fame followers kind of like Fame for fame sake like what we’re
6:59trying to do here like to Ash’s point we’re trying to think about how we increase opportunity and then just
7:05things like credibility is always banded about Authority authentic in particular is one that I hear so so often like I
7:11want my brand to be authentic for me that just literally means in its simplest form not fake um so just to
7:18touch on kind of like some key rules of the game here yeah there was um I watched the Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl as
7:25many people did and uh I was trying all week because I loved it so so much to find a take on it cuz I was just like I
7:32personally love this how could I post about on LinkedIn and I didn’t think there was one and I kept coming back to it and that ended up being a line that
7:39he said about um they tried to rig the game but you can’t fake influence and it
7:45just really kind of like highlighted that idea of what personal branding is to me like we’re in a we’re in an era
7:51now where like we we were uh we had a meeting with someone about a book launch and they’d sold like a few thousand
7:58copies of a book we like how did you do that and they were like well most of our clients like bought copies and I was
8:03like you can just like you can create the perception so now so easily with
8:09like Book Sales followers like views streams like everything that you see can
8:15be manufactured in some way shape or form but if you’re manufacturing them
8:20you’re not creating the actual point of those things which is to try to again it like what is real influence and personal
8:27branding is a tool to create influence personal branding isn’t a tool to create
8:32this a perception it’s to try to help create an influence to create opportunity um and that was the point I
8:38was making around the Kendrick thing it’s like he says you can’t fake influence and I think there’s um we’re
8:44in a bit of an era now where there’s so much out there that is faking Authority and faking perception and faking so much
8:51and the thing to focus on is actually like how can you create something that’s that’s real that’s not um just a false
8:58perception and actually at the end of the day it helps impact something for you on the other
9:05end so how do you complete the game uh
9:11and I think there’s kind of like two schools of thinking about this yeah in
9:16so every if you think of the game as like there’s levels to the game and unfortunately in this game it never ends
9:23it always is ongoing um and every level is you’re in a room and there’s a locked
9:28door and you have to find the key to open the door and there are different keys but
9:34you have to find a key to open that door and kind of How It’s structured is like
9:40no matter what phase you’re in what stage you’re in with personal branding or your career or whatever it is you are
9:46in some kind of room and there’s some kind of locked door and there’s some kind of key that you need to find to
9:51open it um so we thought we’d put in obviously now everyone knows they’re in
9:56a game and there’s no getting off the game um so we thought we’d put in kind of like a bit of an understanding for
10:02everyone to get a grip of kind of where they’re at so some questions to ask yourself before we get into the levels
10:08of the game do you find getting business opportunities really easy yes or no the
10:14people that don’t that I don’t know in the room recognize me when I walk into
10:20it would they be able to easily reference your story or ideas so have a
10:26think about these simple yes or no answers and then depending on what your answers are depending on kind of like
10:31where you’re sit so you’ve got a gauge of like now we’re entering into the game exactly where you’re at and with this
10:38it’s like uh if you’re like the game is on easy mode if you walk you walk into
10:44rooms and people like take I’ve worked in the past with Steven B I’ll use him as example the majority of rooms that he
10:51walks in on a professional level most of the people know him in that room now there most of them would be able to
10:57reference something from him in terms of a story an idea an opinion something and he probably finds getting business
11:03opportunities really easy so the game for him every level is on easy mode
11:08almost but that’s as a result of him putting in so much in terms of personal branding um and I think everyone for the
11:16first one do I find getting business opportunities really easy and I think of like myself in this in that I would say
11:24that I maybe might be playing the game on medium mode at this point but I still
11:30find getting business opportuni is not relatively easy so there’s things that I could do to again like the rooms that
11:37I’m in to find a key that opens the door easier that I’m not doing right now um and that’s kind of the concept of it
11:43like everyone is in those situations where we need to unlock some kind of door to help us get to the next stage um
11:50so hopefully everyone has a bit of a gauge of where they’re at next thing to think about obviously is selecting your
11:58player for the game um got yeah so there’s there there’s a
12:03bunch of different types of player you could be and I think the idea of like a player is it makes it easier for for you
12:08to show up in the first place if you’ve got a bit of a guide of the kind of person you’re trying to be the one of
12:14the things that you hear a lot with um personal brand is like I don’t know how to show up online or I don’t know what
12:19to say and I think there’s a bunch of different routs that people can take that can make it quite easy and within
12:26the uh like marketing space especially these are probably four that are quite applicable so you’ve got like the
12:32Storyteller and this is somebody who’s good at telling their own story where they’ve come from what they’ve overcome
12:38all those kind of things the the classic hero Arc kind of thing the curator is
12:43everywhere in marketing from my point of view it’s the person that like posts the latest brand campaigns that’s a curator
12:51like they might give their opinion on top they might just create them for other people the documentor is somebody
12:56who like documents what they’re doing like I’m actually doing an element of this at the minute on my own LinkedIn
13:01where I’m in London like we’ve essentially started moving down here and I’m documenting that every week on my
13:07LinkedIn to try help um create a bit of network there and then the thought leader is is probably self-explanatory
13:14the person who shares ideas on on what they do if you think of this from a marketing lens if you’re in like
13:19Performance Marketing you might share your thoughts on like the latest meta ad
13:25updates and how they impact your industry and what it means longterm like that that’s what the thought leader is so I think it’s worth thinking
13:31beforehand like what kind of player am I which one feels easiest to me and which one leverages what I naturally
13:38gravitates towards and I’d imagine the majority of people in this room especially if you’re kind of at the
13:44start of this journey it’s easier to be two and three than one and four because two and two is just you you’re looking
13:52at what is happening elsewhere and three is you’re just providing a view into
13:59something that’s already happening whereas the Storyteller and the thought leader take a bit more effort um up
14:05front so yeah choose your player wisely I think the thing with this as well that is really helpful is like when you sit
14:11down let’s say and you’ve decided to build your personal brand one day like you’re staring into an abyss a lot of
14:18the time and it’s really hard to kind of like get a bit of a handle on the direction that you want to go in like where to start is a major like challenge
14:25that I think people have initially and like looking at like and like a bit of a process just gives you a bit of a
14:31foothold so you’re not like sat there thinking like oh my God what do I want my personal brand to be like essentially what we’re trying to do is like create
14:38barriers that make it easier for you to think and figure out as you go um so
14:44level one is all about doing the dance and I don’t think you can enter into any other level until you’ve been through
14:50this phase um and I guess using myself as a bit of an example like right now I’ve been posting on LinkedIn for four
14:57maybe five years and I feel really confident with doing that and I’m now trying to transfer that onto another platform which is Instagram I know how
15:05to do it I’ve got the resources I’ve got the ideas but for me the biggest barrier is confidence and like I’ve created a
15:12page I’ve posted a couple of things I’ve set myself some goals and targets some of them I’ve kept some of them I haven’t
15:18and for me like the whole like thinking around it like the biggest challenge the big the biggest block is like that
15:25confidence piece and every single person we’ve ever worked with that great influence whether it’s like Premier League football player or founder of
15:32like multi-million pound business Global corporate leader whatever it is at some point or another all of them pretty much
15:38without exception have had the thought or voice to us like is anyone going to care what I think and I think the second
15:44that you start to engage with that you’re kind of like you’re going down a one-way track and you almost have to at
15:50this point like put that to a side and I think a really kind of like easy way for me to get around this in theory is
15:57thinking what are the opportunities that I want to drive for myself and is the fear of kind of striking out worth that
16:04and I think the second that you start to engage in that conversation it makes this phase a little bit easier but I think you have everyone has to go
16:10through this um and then if we’re thinking about like cheat codes how do you get around this thinking for me
16:17again it kind of goes back into that staring into the abyss moment of like you lying your outfit out the night before means you’re not sat the next
16:24morning thinking like I need to think of an idea I need to think of something to do like everything’s kind of like pre pre-planned you’ve already got something
16:30there so you’re not relying on like immediacy to figure something out I think the other part of it is like the
16:36harder you work the easier it gets and I think the more that you get yourself into the routine the more you get
16:41yourself into the Habit the easier this phase becomes because you’re looking at it in incremental steps rather than
16:47thinking like okay I need to reach a million people you think I just need to show up and I think taking that pressure
16:53off yourself makes it a lot easier um and then I think a major one that I think a lot of people would benefit from
16:59is like find someone to do the dance with you if you know that there’s someone else close to you or in your
17:04industry or who’s thinking about kind of like taking the steps into like publishing their ideas to the world
17:10whatever format that’s in I think it’s really really helpful to have someone that a keeps you accountable but also be
17:16can beit be a bit of a soundboard to your ideas yeah we had this we had a we
17:21me and Cloud did a uh we had a group chat I don’t know why given it was just us to um but we had a group chat where
17:28it was like we made a commitment to post every single day and if one of we had a forfeit yeah if one of us missed it we
17:34had to send the other £30 yeah God yeah I got
17:41richs so yeah it’s good to have that like accountability with someone else uh
17:46I think especially if you’re starting off yeah finding a community is quite common you find um I’ve had it when I
17:52worked at Social chain we had a little group chat of maybe six or seven people who were all trying to figure out like
17:58what what should we post on LinkedIn and we were giving feedback to each other’s ideas um I yeah I found that really
18:04useful at the start um level two and I think like
18:09again this is for people that are maybe starting out a little bit earlier but level two is basically all about throwing and I think again like
18:16common advice maybe that you hear is like pick one thing you can talk about forever like pick a niche pick a topic
18:22and I think it’s good to pick a player and a Direction but I think at this phase like you’re still testing out like
18:28you’re in the experimentation phase you’re trying to figure out what people want to hear from you and I think that
18:34again it’s like taking the pressure off element of it where it’s like you’re throwing stuff at a wall like okay yeah
18:40you might pick a couple of like directions that you want to go in but ultimately you’re you’re wasting for the audience to tell you what they want to
18:46hear from you what do they value from you um and then if we’re thinking about
18:51a couple of cheat codes you have unlimited dots like no one’s going to say stop talking about that thing you’re
18:58waiting for feedback for maybe people to tell you that it’s not the right thing but you can go again and you can go again and you can try another platform
19:04and you can try something else and again I think it’s like that reframing thing of like take the pressure off yourself
19:10the best thing about social in particular is that it’s old news the next day and you can just start aesh um
19:18and then again I think it’s really helpful if we’re thinking about just like narrowing in the barriers to make it easier for yourself for me there’s
19:25like three really key buckets like your industry knowledge bucket so if we’re using kind of like personal branding
19:31it’s like the theories the principles the facts I guess that I believe to be true um and then the second bucket is
19:37like The Advocate bucket so who can I be an advocate for which group of people do I really want to Champion so again if
19:44we’re thinking about personal branding for me that would be the employee so how do I speak to them as kind of like on
19:50mass like how do I really Champion for that group of people um and then the final one is like the activity bucket
19:56like what am I actually doing in that space like what can I talk about that is like an actual event or something that
20:02I’ve done and again it’s just like you’re bringing in the parameters so you’re not starting from up here staring
20:07into the abyss like you have a bit of a foothold to go off um and then the next one is like you gain more points by
20:14having fun essentially what we’re thinking about if if personal branding is like 10 20 year lifelong investment
20:21like you physically cannot sustain it I don’t think especially at this phase if you’re not actually enjoying the process
20:27and again it’s like getting other people involved like creating that discussion like for me it has been a really enjoyable thing to do for myself and
20:33also for other people because like you’re trading in ideas your trading in conversation and like interesting bits
20:39that you can connect the dots with and I think that’s like such a cool thing to be able to do um and then the final one
20:46like the earlier you see yourself as a Creator the better and again it’s like that reframing piece um but I think it’s
20:53this is just like a mindset thing more than anything else like you have to essentially become like a publisher of ideas years constantly and I think the
21:01earlier that you kind of like get on board with that mind frame the better it’s such a hard switch to make as well
21:08like not easy so that was a caveat yeah first it takes a lot of time but you do have to always try to keep it front of
21:14mind and I think the the point about having fun like I referenced the Kendrick lar post earlier and it’s like
21:21that’s the perfect blend for me of like I loved that thing and I was thinking about all week just for me personally
21:26and then I brought that into my professional life and it was like doing that post to me was fun like figuring out that point was fun and then the
21:33comments were all like I could feel it itd hit a good note with people and people have also been watching the thing
21:39so yeah I think the more the more that you can have fun with it and bring a bit of what you’re actually passionate about
21:45I think that’s how you have fun with it is like are you actually passionate about the things you’re speaking about tends to mean that the process is fun
21:52rather than a chore just the longterm goal um level
21:57three is all about building a small village and again if we’re thinking about like trying to reach people on
22:04mass like the best advice I could give is like start really small like pick a few people that you’re very like or
22:10target audience and speak consistently and directly to those people um so a couple of cheat codes for
22:19this level like give Provisions don’t take them I really had a conversation this morning with someone who’s like
22:24trying to make the next step in their career and thinking about like I know all these things and I’m really interested in these things and I have a
22:30lot of knowledge and information but like I don’t want to give it all away for free and I think that’s really the
22:35wrong mindset to be in because like ash always says like you can say all the things it doesn’t mean anyone’s ever
22:40going to do them like it’s a completely different skill um and I think it’s really really valuable to like give
22:46people like value in itself um and don’t take them straight away like again if
22:52you’re thinking like long game which I think this whole thing is long game uh
22:57don’t start taken straight away after that um like any small village you should spend time nurturing your guests
23:04so when people are paying attention to your content like don’t forget them again I think a major thing in terms of
23:09like publishing is like the mindset immediately goes to like how do I reach as many people as possible whereas the
23:15reality is like you’re trying to keep it small in the beginning like for us we’re always thinking about like how you reach
23:21a really core audience of key people that you actually need to speak to rather than like hundreds and thousands
23:27that are maybe not relevant for what you’re trying to achieve for yourself or for your business do you know what’s interesting on this point is like a few
23:34people that I know of that have done really well in this space personal branding um and actually in hindsight I
23:42did this at the start as well is like nurtured a lot more than I do now and when I worked with Steve bartler he at
23:51the start it would be very common for someone to DM him and him like send them
23:57a 15minute voice note in a DM of like hey mate here’s some advice and you just repeatedly do that over time and someone
24:05uh came up to me recently and was like oh you probably don’t remember but you sent me like we dm’d five years ago and
24:11he showed me the DM and he was asking for like personal brand advice and I
24:17sent him like literally a 20 minute voice note and my advice was like don’t build a personal brand like do these things d d d and like it I look back
24:26then and how I was operating was like if somebody even showed the slightest bit
24:31of interest in what I was talking about I went way over the top in giving them
24:36as much as I could in terms of advice or anything like that and I got that from Steve because he would do the same in
24:41the first year obviously now it’s probably impossible for him to do due to the size of his audience but in those
24:47early days um and I think a couple of people that I’ve seen as well that have done really well the first year they
24:53actually just focus on like the the five 10 15 people that are interested and
24:58they go way over the top in terms of trying to engage with them build a relationship with them give them as much
25:03as they can it kind of goes back to the first point as well of like give provisions and don’t take them um I
25:10think another really import important point to consider on this is like visibility like I think in terms of like
25:17psychologically thinking like if you’re consistently visible in someone’s feed or at events or popping up like Here
25:22There and Everywhere like they equate that to success yeah it’s a very very bizarre
25:29I’d love to understand the psychology behind it if anyone in here has a psychology degree um but just by showing
25:35up online people assume that business is going really well it’s a weird
25:40phenomenon um and I think it’s again it’s like you can leverage it
25:46where you want people to think that you’re doing well and things are going on because it helps create opportunities
25:53and you don’t even have to talk about what you’re doing how things are going but just by being consistently visible
25:59in some way shape or form people perceive that to be like ah it looks like there’s so much going on and things
26:04are going really well um and then the final one for this is like pick a group of people you want to side with and make
26:10it obvious you’re on their team kind of speaks for itself but I think the thing to think about with this especially at
26:16this phase in kind of like the game is like you’re trying to get people on board and I think like you’re not
26:22picking fights you’re not Burning Bridges you’re not tearing down houses like you’re trying to get everyone onto
26:27your team and I think again that’s just a really nice way of looking at it yeah I think someone who may be like we’ve
26:34got a key player example but there’s someone else that kind of Springs to mind I think someone like Dave Harland
26:40who’s done a lot with the marketing meet up before if anyone’s aware of him he’s somebody who I think did that idea of
26:48like he found a group of people and was in with them and then because he did
26:55that so well it gave they they essentially put him on a platform and they put him on a stage rather than him
27:01putting himself there um and again there’s different ways that you can approach it but you can focus on like
27:07just trying to be one of the crowd and adding a lot of value into the crowd and being visible in the crowd and then if
27:13you’re good enough at that thing you don’t even have to put yourself on the platform like other people do it for you
27:19as a result and like he’s somebody that I think of that’s done that really well he’s not he’s almost like not tried to
27:25put himself like build his own personal brand just shown up and other people have done it for him because he’s been
27:31good at what he’s done and been good at being part of a community of people um
27:36so we’ve got a bit of a key player example here Sophie Miller is a great Village keeper um and I think there’s a
27:43few reasons for this like one of them is visibility like she’s always in my feed I see her pop up all the time so in my
27:48head I’m thinking oh she’s got a lot going on I couldn’t immediately tell you what those things are but I know there’s a lot going on um and then I think that
27:55you actually see her like you see her face you see mannerism she’s doing video she’s speaking at events like again I
28:01think at this phase you’re trying to build a couple a couple of things and that’s like memorability and
28:08relatability so again if you’re thinking about getting people on your team and on your side like you’re trying to be
28:13relatable to the group of people that you’re targeting um and she speaks in the same language as her audience got a
28:19couple of examples of posts here and again it’s like pre marketer is like young uh marketing community and I think
28:26it’s in those micro moments that you can really really tell how much someone cares about their Village keeping um
28:32because even things like this like the little meme on the left here it’s like Hello Kitty like that’s such a minor
28:37thing like there’s a million memes I’ve seen like that but she specifically picked this one and I think like you have to be paying attention to those
28:44like micro details if you’re thinking about like long-term impact to a very specific group of people um and then
28:51again on the right here like she’s showing up at events it’s like consistently themed around like the audience that she’s trying to to Target
29:00um we couldn’t really have done this without mentioning chat gbt in some way
29:05um and I think that for me it’s like a really amazing thing on one hand but a
29:11really frustrating thing at the same time to see like chat GPT seeping its way into content at the moment and I
29:17think that in my head anyway maybe people are using it in a little bit the wrong way and I think that if we’re
29:23thinking about how to incorporate it into like the process of personal branding and ideation and that kind of
29:29thing like I would think about how you embed it in the journey a lot earlier so at the moment it feels like a lot of
29:35people are using it to write the actual content like for me at as it stands
29:40right now I think there’s very few tools that can come close to replicating the actual like caliber of content that
29:46you’re writing yourself I think we can get there but as it stands right now I think about how you can embed chat gbt
29:52earlier in the process to make that bit easier um so I’d start by thinking about like I ideas so this is something like a
30:00bit of a template that I would use like I’m trying to build a public profile around this thing can you give me a list
30:05of five of the main key problems and challenges so the problems and challenges part is really important so
30:11like what are the audience you’re trying to reach experiencing and how do you solve that for them um so I’ve used
30:18myself as a bit of an example like I’m thinking about the topics around like enhancing your career and employee
30:24generated content like two things that I speak about quite often on LinkedIn at the moment can you give me a list of
30:29five of the main key problems or challenges the entrepreneurs and employees two categories of people that I’m trying to Target uh might face right
30:37now with those things and then if you scroll through my LinkedIn feed essentially what I’ve done is like think
30:43about each of these problems and how I would solve that using the skills and information that I have right now in
30:49terms of personal branding and I think like again it’s just like narrowing the like parameters again and again and
30:56again so I’m not starting from scratch I’ve got a really clear idea of who I’m trying to speak to and exactly what the
31:01problems and challenges those people are facing are and then I’m giving my advice I’m nurturing my audience like I’m being
31:07visible consistently and I’m constantly speaking to these people and I’m showing them that I can solve the problems that
31:13they have yeah I’d use it as like a springboard and for me it would stop here I wouldn’t ask it to do anymore and
31:20then I’d take that as a springboard to my own idea and opinion I’d pull that out and then I’d actually take what I
31:27public and put it back in and say this is what I did is there any more potential
31:33threads of theme thematically that I could expand on this point and again it’s just using it as like a web of
31:40ideas as a springboard to just you just need to spark something in your head a lot of the time I think the danger is
31:46when the next step after this is this sounds great can you write me a post for LinkedIn and it Springs out that and
31:53that’s when you get into dangerous territory for me um I think the thing with chachy at the moment and how like
31:59saturated it is in terms of content like it’s frustrating to see it the space kind of like fill up from the bottom but
32:06at the same time for me that leaves like a big opportunity at the top and if you are using CH GPT in this way as opposed
32:12to like directly asking it to write posts for you or create Instagram content or whatever it is like it’s just
32:19giving you like a competitive advantage that other people aren’t thinking about and that they don’t have right
32:24now um so in terms of back to the game the levels I feel like at this point
32:30everyone’s kind of maybe still assessing a little bit probably most people have experienced the last couple of levels um
32:36are maybe just about like thinking okay I’ve published a little bit I want to get into the swing of things a bit more
32:42figuring out what to say like where do I need to take this next so still
32:47assessing um and again if we’re thinking about like checking back in with ourselves and like where everyone’s at
32:54on this personal brand game um a few questions to ask yourself what goal am I
32:59trying to achieve that this can help with who is it important and useful for me to build a network of what’s the most
33:06important perception shift I could make right now am I realistically what is realistically maintainable and am I
33:11enjoying this and I think for me again with all these questions here it’s not like what should I say what do I need to
33:18be posting content about what’s the hook what platform should should I show up on like we always think about personal
33:25branding it’s much wider in terms of like what are the Le that only you can pull that directly positively impact
33:31your business and I think like taking stock of all these things and understanding exactly where you’re at
33:37and the impact that only you can have on the opportunities that you’re trying to create is really really important yeah
33:43with these questions um the importance of it is that you give yourself the right again Cloud was talking about like
33:51barriers and guard rails and we’re working with someone at the minute and
33:56we were speaking yesterday about positioning and we were trying to get to the bottom of why like what’s the
34:03biggest thing that matters and from our point of view this person runs a bit of
34:09a hybrid business that is like a media company that’s also a brand that’s also
34:15got an agency so it’s a bit like there you could position in multiple ways and from what they were saying earlier in
34:21the conversation our thinking went to okay you need to be driving sales so you
34:26need to position yourself as an agency owner that’s trying to connect Brands to the media and the agency owner kind of
34:32thing that was our thinking and then they said something that completely changed it where it was like the
34:39ultimate goal that we’re trying to do here is sell the business and the way that it works is if it’s um being sold
34:46as an agency the multiple is lower than if it was sold as a media owner so therefore for this person as the CEO
34:53it’s more important long term to what they’re trying to achieve not to position themselves as an agency owner but as a media owner so again it’s like
35:00the the questions that you ask of like what am I trying to achieve how am I trying to position yourself position
35:06myself what’s the long term that I’m going for essentially it sets you up to make the path kind of predictable for
35:13you you don’t have to think about it and I find that if you don’t ask yourself these questions you can end up posting
35:18things and it’s almost like effort in is in somewhat in vain because you’re you
35:24don’t know why you’re posting those things it’s not clearly aligned to something that you’re working towards
35:29and again all these things this whole presentation so far is essentially taking away the guesswork of everything
35:35it’s making it a lot easier to just get into the flow of knowing what you’re doing and how to do
35:41it um so I guess just to take stock a little bit we spoke about Network and
35:46reputation at the start and how important those things are but for us thinking like longterm and again like
35:51narrowing in like there’s three major things that feel like really instrumental in the success of driving
35:58your network and reputation unique ideas and storytelling we’ve kind of touched on a little bit and if we’re thinking
36:04about like the different players you could choose at the start like this is obviously directly associated with one a
36:09couple of those um but I think that people like people speak about storytelling as like this kind of like
36:15etheral thing that everyone should do and I think it is really valuable if you’re really good at it um and I think
36:22getting really good at it is is a really important skill if you’re thinking about personal branding long term um and then
36:28also UniQue Ideas again in such a saturated content Market that exists at
36:33the moment like unique ideas are actually really really really rare and if you’re thinking about like the high
36:39value ad like I think spending a bit of time like working on what your different
36:46takes are is really really important I think in marketing especially I was speaking to uh vice president at adweek
36:54last week and she was like where have all the interesting ideas gone in
36:59marketing like where are the people with the interesting ideas and I think it’s a bit of a response that’s maybe like says
37:05something about where marketing is at right now and that it’s from a Content creation and people building personal
37:11brand and talking about as an industry it feels I don’t want to say saturated
37:16but the majority of people are are touching around the same things and no one’s marketing is one of those spaces
37:22where you do have to go to the edges to be interesting and it feels like everyone’s hering around the center
37:29right now um and I think it’s a space wherever you whatever discipline you’re in within it that if you’re able to pull
37:35back from that and take the time to understand how you can sit around the edges a little bit that I think that’s
37:41where this idea of like how do you stand out because so many people are showing up now within this space and Community
37:47like personal brand for me if you think of like Industries this is one of the ones where it’s highest and most prevalent because people it’s just way
37:55way more exposed so you’ve got more way more people doing it and again it rather than it being like a a a threat it’s an
38:02opportunity but it’s an opportunity if you do something a little different from everyone else and I think the idea of
38:07like taking time to figure out what what’s interesting how can you say something different how can you pull
38:13together to different worlds to make a new point I think that stands true in marketing in this community more than
38:19any other I would actually ask everyone a question at this point if we’re thinking about like publishing your
38:25ideas when was the last time that you spent more than maybe five minutes
38:30sitting and writing a post or you’ve got an idea about something and I think an easy way to like immediately level up if
38:36you’re thinking about UniQue Ideas is like the next time you go to do it spend 15 or spend 20 and see if you can extend
38:44that thinking period because the publishing bit is easy it’s actually the thinking bit and the idea generation bit
38:50that will level you up compared to everyone else that’s that’s what I said to her I said the problem is people take
38:56two minutes to write a LinkedIn post that’s why there’s no interesting ideas out there because we never spend more than 5 minutes on them and whereas she
39:04was referencing maybe like the blog era of marketing and blogs by Design like
39:09you think if I’m going to write a blog ah this is going to take me like at least an hour to write a blog that’s
39:15just the natural way that you think with blogs whereas a social media post a LinkedIn post nobody ever thinks it’s going to take me an hour it’s always
39:21like an off thee cuff like quick idea bang it out um and the reality is that you probably going to find it difficult
39:28to find anything interesting to say in the space of two minutes um the next thing is like
39:34personality and I think like again conflation with personality and EXT
39:40being an extrovert and I don’t think that’s necessarily the case like I think again with chat GPT and like easier ways
39:47to create content like there’s just a convergence of everyone kind of sounding the same and I think there is so much
39:54value in an identifying like what makes you a bit different um and then again with social proof it’s
40:01like how is the world telling everyone else that you’re someone to be listen
40:06to um level four is all about like owning the spotlight and I imagine what
40:12happens in people’s heads when we get to this kind of level is people thinking like that’s scary or that’s daunting or
40:18that’s something that I don’t want to do and the spotlight seems like a bit of a scary place but I think in terms of like
40:24generating opportunity for yourself like you have to start thinking about like how you do get people to pay attention
40:30to you um and then a few cheat codes for this level um create the Gap list so for
40:37me this has been really valuable in my own career like looking at people that are maybe like two three five six steps
40:43ahead in terms of the opportunities that they’re getting not how many followers they have or like where are they showing
40:48up but like what stages are they speaking on who are they speaking to how are they getting into the rooms that I want to get into and like making a
40:55really comprehensive list of like the steps that they have taken to get there and essentially like figuring out how
41:01you can do the same um and then I think kind of what we just touched on there like mixing up your inputs to get
41:06different outputs like what you’re consuming again is if it’s the same as everyone else in your industry you’re
41:12got to get the same results so how do you switch that up even thinking about like I read tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow
41:17which is a book that I referenced at the start has nothing to do with personal branding but actually was a really big
41:22influence on the talk that we’ve shared today so it’s again like how do you bring different things in connect the
41:28dots um know your hot takes kind of speaks for itself but if someone’s going to quiz you on your industry like you
41:33have to have an answer and then the final one create as many feedback loops as possible again speaks for itself but
41:39I think is really really really valuable at this point again in terms of like publishing your ideas and what people
41:46find valuable from you and what they’re interested in like how do you create as many of those as
41:52possible the final level is you have to become a signal
41:58master um and essentially what we mean by this is like kind of goes back to that social proofing element is like how
42:05do you create as many touch points as possible that the world is telling people that you’re someone that’s worth listening to um and for me the major
42:13like the place that I would start with this is become an expert in window displays and what we mean by that is
42:19like every single I guess portal or touch point that you have with the outside world whether it’s like a
42:24LinkedIn profile Tik Tok a website whatever is do a super in-depth analysis
42:30of what that says about you to the world whether it’s you’ve got a blurry head shot or like you’ve got a bio that’s
42:375,000 words long or whatever it is like what you’re wearing and like so many features that you can have control over
42:44that dictate what other people think of you and take them actually in your control um the next one is ask for the
42:52signals that you think you deserve um and what I mean by this is if
42:57you think that there needs to be an adjustment in the way that people perceive you ask for it um whether
43:03that’s a promotion or whatever it is like again it’s like thinking about how you bring those things into your control
43:09more um a really interesting thing happened to me in the summer actually um so thinking about like I’ve been posting
43:15on LinkedIn for maybe three or four years um in the summer two things happened one I my role changed to
43:22strategy director from a head of operations role so that was like a signal to the world that they needed to
43:27look at me in a different way because the role that I was doing great influence is different and the second thing is that I got an awarded uh
43:34awarded top Voice by LinkedIn again like a signal to the world that my ideas are maybe worth listening to by some people
43:41um and I think that like again being conscious of what those things say is really important in terms of perception
43:47and how you can control that um and then the final one is find your yellow yellow
43:52jacket Ash actually isn’t wearing his yellow jacket today however he often wears like a bright jacket or something
43:58to an event and if you’re thinking about like again back to the start like what you’re trying to do is like relatable and memorable like find the little easy
44:05wins that you can become memorable to people and like consistently show up doing that yeah do you know what’s
44:11interesting is if there’s um if there’s anyone in this chat that’s used dating
44:16apps you’ve done personal branding just not on a professional level um you become an expert in window displays on
44:22apps like hinge and Bumble and stuff like that and you probably be able to tell if you look at my Instagram right
44:27now that I’m single um because I’m becoming an expert in window displays from a personal level because I’m
44:33thinking like even your hinge profile it’s asking you to like give prompts to let people know of your personality and
44:39what you sound like and what you’re interested in and it’s all it’s all a window display to try to get somebody
44:45again like interested in you but for the actual authentic person you are I think
44:50is is the good thing about it um so yeah when we’re forced with something like
44:57we’re trying to find a partner we all become experts in window displays and it’s just taking that thinking and
45:03translating it into business I think maybe LinkedIn could maybe mimic hinge a
45:08little better and and set people up to be more yeah masters of window display getting blown up by the way yeah we’re
45:15all masters of it um we just need to translate into the professional World um so a bit of a a key player
45:23example of someone who is a really really good signal Master Mel Robins absolutely everywhere at the moment
45:28she’s in every timeline that I’m seeing um but also this has been a really long game like she published her first book
45:35over a decade ago so if we’re thinking about like investment over time visibility over time and consistency
45:40over time like she’s a great case in point of doing all these things over a really long like time frame um and again
45:47but if we’re thinking about signals like she does have a significant number of followers and I think it gets to like
45:52further into the game where that does become valuable to an extent she’s author of four books that tells you
45:58everything that you need to know about her ideas and the way she’s thinking she’s regularly on podcast she hosts her own podcasts she’s got ideas think like
46:05going viral all the time the morning routine the Latin Theory like consistently people are debating And
46:11discussing her ideas which signals to the world that she is someone worth paying attention to um you can see just
46:17like in the last 30 days and nearly a million followers which is insane growth um that is the end of the levels
46:25and therefore the end of this game um we’ve done a bit of a recap there of of things to kind of like pay attention to
46:31but I think for me the most important thing is like making sure that you’re checking in with yourself and asking yourself those really important
46:38questions uh that you’re conscious and like really intentional with your time and your ideas um and that you also
46:44actually enjoy what you’re doing thank you so much well done both
46:51of you uh absolutely smash what I loved is that having taken people on the
46:57journey of acknowledging the confidence thing right off the bat like I think that’s such a big barrier for folks
47:03right at the beginning of their journey and like for you to acknowledge that because uh I think it would be easy for
47:09the two of you given you the clients that you have and and everything that you see day today to kind of go ah
47:14everyone’s got this everyone’s got personal branding they they understand it so for you to both sort of like
47:19acknowledge that up front is so important talk we were talking about earlier where I think any bottleneck
47:27really if you’re early on in the journey it really if you strip it back it it does come down to the self-confidence
47:33it’s like oh I’ve not got the time I don’t know what to post when really if you just strip the layers it’s a self-confidence thing and the way that
47:39I’ve always because like I’ve always tried to frame it is I’ve had the
47:45fortune of like for example we’ve worked with Gary Neville for four years and I
47:50was with him when he went to do have I got news for you and he’d never done TV
47:56like that before he was used to live TV and that’s very like your everything’s
48:01planned and on cameras you got to look into this one and that one and beforehand he was saying to us like how
48:06nervous he was to go do it and I thought how bizarre is that like you’re on TV every single week for a decade and you’re still nervous um and I’ve been in
48:13rooms with people who have like built these huge businesses and you’re like what have you got to be nervous about
48:19and then they’ve conf like confided in you that they’re nervous about doing this kind of stuff so again it’s like I
48:26remember that everyone everyone that you see doing this stuff has an element of like uncertainty about doing it and it
48:33never goes away but the difference is it’s like a small group of them feel that and do it anyway and then the
48:40majority of us feel it and get put off by that and I think that’s the difference like the you only build confidence by doing it it’s like the man
48:46in the arena Theory um and yeah for me it’s like the feeling doesn’t go away so
48:51you’ve just got to learn to act regardless of the feeling for sure you know I fully agree and and it may be
48:59certainly my personal experience of it um not that I’m an expert but my personal experience of it is like
49:04sometimes you get over a lump and then you’re kind of doing all right for a bit and then the confidence dips again and
49:10then you have to sort of rebuild again you know it’s a it’s an up and down Journey it’s not it’s not just like an
49:15up and to the right thing you know so it it’s definitely it’s definitely both um
49:21the other the other point which I think um was so important to raise and by the way we’re going to get into the Q&A in
49:26just a moment so folks if you see a question that you like in the Q&A uh
49:31please do give it a thumbs up or feel free to contribute your own uh and and we’ll make sure to to get those
49:37questions answered but the second point I just wanted to highlight was that well the fun thing I think is genius and
49:43speaks for itself and I think it’s so so important but this point about intentionality um because it’s easy to
49:51sort of to use your language Claudia you know to sort of look into the the abyss and
49:56of go I want to do personal brand but uh kind of have some intentionality behind
50:02it um hopefully also takes away some of the first point about confidence because you know I know that I need to do this
50:09or I’m working towards a thing and I find that such an important point
50:14because I don’t think that’s necessarily one that we think about when it comes to to personal Brands so I just wanted to
50:20thank you both for racing that because I think it it makes a profound difference to how we approach these things um
50:27shall we shall we get into the Q&A yes Wicked so um the first two questions the
50:34first one comes from Anonymous and then the second one comes from tier um both follow the same theme um which is about
50:41personal brands in an employee context now I know that both of you primarily
50:48work with Founders uh and and stuff like that but I’d love a take if you have one
50:54on how to get the fine line between personal branding and your organizations’s branding should I
50:59combine my personal brand with my business brand uh the next question is
51:05employees can our personal Brands coexist with our business’s brand uh so like there’s a lot of questions here
51:10about personal Brands and them intersecting and interacting with uh existing businesses yeah I’ll go with
51:17this in that I was part of an agency called social chain for four or five years and looking back now I wish I’d
51:25taken advantage AG of being part of something that was in there was stuff going on because I at that point didn’t
51:33do anything because I had nothing to say like I was learning um and I realized
51:39now that it didn’t have to be about me at the start in the first one two three four five years of you doing this it
51:45doesn’t have to be about you so you can make it about something else which is actually for a confidence point of view
51:51it’s much easier for it to not be about you at first because it’s quite daunting if it is about you and I had this
51:57opportunity of working at Social chain and there was always a lot going on it was interesting there’s at least things
52:02I could have done on a semi-consistent basis that had nothing to do with me and didn’t put me in any kind of uncomfortable position and just talked
52:09about the agency and what we had going on and documenting the growth of the agency and what was happening um and I
52:16just never did any of that and it’s like the one not that I have regrets but if I could go back like it would I’d I’d have
52:22built a good audience and I left Social chain eventually and when I left I did my first ever LinkedIn post now I was
52:28like I’m looking to meet people and fortunately I got some meetings but if
52:34if I’d have spent three four years building like doing something when that
52:39moment came when I actually needed to ask of people there would have been people there invested enough to go do
52:44you know what I’m going to give this guy 15 minutes of my time um so yeah that’s
52:49my point of view on it I would just quickly say that I think it kind of I get this question a lot and I think it
52:54sits in two camps like if you’re associated with a really well-known business I would really Leverage The like social proof that business has and
53:02basically like rinse it for all it’s worth um appreciate that like maybe
53:07people are thinking about taking a bit of a different career direction to the role that they’re already already in
53:13what I would say that is say to that is like it’s I’d see it as like a stepping stone like you’re still creating a network and reputation for yourself by
53:19being in the situation that you’re in and it’s like how do you leverage that to get the max out of it um but I have a
53:25lot of thoughts on that so if they want to message me after then I can give some advice love that
53:31and I guess there’s also a selling in thing which is that a business may look
53:36at this and go they may either see it as a threat or they may see it as an opportunity you know an opportunity to
53:42businesses would see it as an opportunity absolutely and so um there’s there’s that opportunity there to to
53:49kind of pitch it as such um let’s take the next question from from James
53:54because there’s 11 open ones and well five minutes uh remaining in theory uh
53:59so uh James asks uh what are some exercises or thought prompts we could
54:05use to start creating a case for our personal brand figuring out our own
54:10identity um so James finishes this with any book recommendations but I’d
54:15probably sort of widen it out that thought about thought prompts and and sort of
54:21deciding what you’d like to be known for uh figuring out your own personal BR
54:26because I guess that speaks to the the abyss Point yeah I I think for me it’s always
54:32like where are you at right now and what’s what could you open up so I’m
54:40going to use myself as the example where it’s like I’ve been doing this six years into great influence 10 years into
54:45personal branding built a bit of an audience around it get asked to do bits
54:51of speaking every now and then podcast every now and then it’s not like load some there’s a bit of a foundation there
54:57and I think that I look at the phase that I’m in now and I go right okay I’m here what is the like the big step that
55:06I could step into if I really went at this um and it’s it’s probably things
55:12like I should be active on all platforms now posting content on all of them and
55:17experimenting in the way I did with LinkedIn solely for three four five years doing that across all platforms um
55:23it’s writing a book like those are the things that I should be thinking about a bit longer term now and how do I
55:29generate those things so again it’s like what phase are you in right now where are you are auditing what you what
55:36you’re doing right now and what you’re not doing and what the next opportunity that you think is like possible and how
55:43to position yourself to get there again like none of the thing that comes into my head is anything about like content
55:51or hooks or LinkedIn or followers like uh you it’s it’s the wrong kind of
55:56thinking it’s like what what opportunity would be useful for I’m thinking from
56:01the point of view of like great influence it’ be really useful for great influence for me to like have a book on
56:07personal branding is one of 50 things that I could do to help great influence right now and I’m at a stage where I
56:14think that door is that door is open for the first time and it’s like right okay I need to think about positioning myself
56:21in a way to make that something I can step into and it makes sense for me um and again it’s like the questions that
56:28we had in the presentation of like what what what are the goals what’s the point of doing all this what’s it trying to outcome and then kind of reversed
56:34engineering from there yeah I would just really quickly say on that that a thing that I did when I was staring into the
56:40abyss and I didn’t know what to talk about was like set myself a bit of a challenge um I did stopped over and have
56:47not stopped talking about it since then but the value that other than making me stop drinking for a month was that I had
56:54something to talk about and document and I I just spoke about like what I took from the experience and I think that
57:00again if you’re like kind of starting at zero that’s a really valuable like trick I guess almost to like trick yourself
57:06into just thinking about that one thing so whether it’s like I don’t know you have you set yourself a challenge to
57:12have like four me interesting meetings with different people in different Industries and you just document that thing and I think that makes again it
57:19just takes the pressure off a little bit Yeah someone said here about um the interplay of personal branding career
57:24planning it’s very very applicable the two and I’ll share a little bit of like
57:31with working with Gary Neville from day one there was like a fiveyear career plan in the discussion
57:39of like this is where we’re really trying to go and everything that came
57:45has led the path to getting there and it’s a conversation we’ve had every single year even though it’s not been on
57:51the horizon at all so if you’re thinking if you’re like a say your social media executive now you’re thinking in 10
57:57years or 5 years or however long I want to be social media director what would that person need to
58:05be able to have that role they’d need to have they probably like the the skill and experience to be able to do it maybe
58:12some kind of authority around the space of social media like what are the things that that role and part of your career
58:17phase of your career would that person be doing and require to be in that position um and there’s an element of
58:25that it’s like don’t don’t think of it as personal branding think of it as career planning and using the tools of
58:30personal brand to help achieve the career plan love that so much and and another element which I think you’ve
58:36alluded to but I think is so important here is that it takes away some of the pressure as well to sort of say this is
58:42me forever um because like I think sometimes when we sort of speak about stuff like content pillars and and and
58:49all those kind of things which people have spoken about before sort of saying I’m going to be known for these three things for the
58:55rest of my life that is it and I think some sometimes with that there becomes a fear that like
59:02you know I can’t speak about anything else or um if that stops serving you
59:07that you can’t speak about something else or I would like to achieve something else but how do I reposition my whole brand the fact that you’re
59:14relating these to far more shortterm short and long-term sort of goals I think is really really helpful uh as a
59:21mindset so um but Claudia I think you started speaking there so I was just going to say again like something that
59:27really helps me with that like I don’t find content pillars that useful and again like what do I want to be known
59:34for is like a really daunting question to ask yourself so when I’m thinking about like how we make that valuable is
59:41like I just shift the thinking to like what’s a mission that I could have right now so for me it’s like uh I don’t know
59:48championing employees building their personal brands in a workplace is a really clear Mission rather than a
59:53pillar which would be employee generated content so it’s like if I’m helping drive that mission in my content then
59:59it’s just yeah helpful in terms of reframing love that so much and like that is a social media snippet in itself
1:00:06there because I think that content pillar stuff has been spoken about for so long um I think it I’ve spoken about
1:00:12it too in previous occasions but to hear that thinking from you cloudia is something um is is really important so
1:00:19thank you very much I really appreciate you saying that um before we went live
1:00:24um this isn’t me taking complete Advantage Ash and Claudia mentioned it was okay to carry on asking questions so
1:00:30so that’s it but uh if you want to let me know by waving aggressively uh when
1:00:37when it’s a good time to stop then then we will um but uh so let’s go to the next question from Mel uh so Mel asks uh
1:00:45how do you convince Founders to show more of their personality I’ve worked with people who are legitimately
1:00:50hilarious but don’t think it’s professional to let that come out on their LinkedIn profiles so they end up
1:00:56sounding like everyone else which is uh you mes put yawn in it you know so like
1:01:02how do you how do you bring that out in people tell them about the
1:01:09opportunity no how do you out um I I think it’s about creating an environment
1:01:16that makes it really easy for them to get on board with so when started
1:01:22working with someone five years ago and the first thing that he said to me when I walked into the meeting was just so you know I’m never going to do any
1:01:28photos and I’m never going to do any video and it was immediate like barrier up um and it’s a it’s not that that’s
1:01:35the aim is getting them to do something in terms of format whatever it’s just like you see something in them and
1:01:43you’re like this it’s actually how it started with Steve is like I went and saw him speak in 2012 and I was like
1:01:51you’re so good at this why don’t why does nobody know about it and I’d hang out with him and he’d always have these
1:01:57like interesting ideas and it was like you should be sharing this like you need to start a YouTube channel
1:02:04and essentially it was like he was so nervous that first time it took so long to convince him to do something and then
1:02:11the way that we kind of set it up was that it made it really easy for him to
1:02:17do it like there was no backing out for him because he was like okay I can do that that seems like not daunting and
1:02:23quite comfortable and yeah I think we’ve had it for where we’ve worked with clients and they it’s video content is a
1:02:31big one where this happens and there’s little tricks that you can do where it’s like for me I did it actually might have
1:02:38been a a marketing Meetup talk in person in Manchester the first time that I ever
1:02:44watched myself on video and thought I can live with this because I actually didn’t it wasn’t being film I had
1:02:50someone come and just sit in the corner and I was down the barrel to a camera the fil the talk was just filmed and I
1:02:57kind of forgot it was happening and then I was sent the footage afterwards and I was like ah it feels natural like I’m
1:03:02I’m comfortable with maybe sharing a clip of this for the first time um and I think it’s that like you have to get
1:03:09them in a a setting that they’re very comfortable just dipping their toe and what you find is that the majority of
1:03:16Founders are lying to you when they say they don’t want to do this they’ve all got Egos and you’ve just got to get them
1:03:23to dip their toes in and then all of a sudden they grow the confidence and it starts to come out in them a bit and
1:03:28they become like more comfortable in their own skin of doing it um and yeah you see the process of like one step
1:03:35turns into two three four five but make that first step as easy and as
1:03:40comfortable and as not daunting as you possibly can and that’s kind of the trick that I have with anyone that finds
1:03:46this intimidating yeah I would just add to that that like if anyone tells me
1:03:52what to do like I immediately don’t want to do it so I think they’re like fig like telling them that it’s a really
1:03:58important thing doesn’t always work whereas for me it’s almost in like how you pose it and how you frame it like
1:04:04and if you pose it as like I want to try this experiment because the data doesn’t lie ultimately at the end of the day and
1:04:10if you go to them with like I want to try this experiment let’s post two things that are in this style two things are in this style and then the data
1:04:17tells you that the personality driven pieces are the thing that people want to see which it probably will then you’ve got the casy study to take to them and
1:04:23be like I was right love it that’s so good um thank you
1:04:30that’s really really solid advice uh let’s take the next one from Carl um because it’s it’s a great question and
1:04:37uh I think it might be something a lot of people struggle with so Carl says how do you balance wanting to create content
1:04:43that is engaging and actually enjoyable versus battling the algorithm um and
1:04:50hopefully this might relate to some of your answer around fun um but I I know
1:04:55there’s there’s so much there’s there’s a Nuance discussion here about engagement and likes and and how that
1:05:01feels and stuff like that but um how do you balance up between engaging and algorithms
1:05:08um so hard I hate this question because I’m I’m really I’m really I’m both I’m
1:05:15both sides on one side of like forget about it on the other side I understand the power and influence and use it has
1:05:22and I really really really realized that for the first time when um I’m in talks
1:05:28at the minute with penguin to write a book on personal branding and I went and had the meeting with them and they I
1:05:34think that I got that opportunity by not focusing on algorithms and instead focusing on trying to be interesting
1:05:41around the subject of personal branding consistently over time I think I could have done things that were way more
1:05:48algorithm like um yeah driving in personal branding than what I’ve
1:05:53actually done and it was kind of like that’s just how I wanted to do it um but
1:05:59the good news is like you can do it that way and create certain opportunities that are very highly valuable to you I
1:06:06genuinely believe that there’s a theory of like a thousand true fans if anyone’s interested in it it’s like Google it
1:06:11it’s a music theory like you only need a thousand true fans to make a career as a musician the same is true in business in
1:06:17marketing in anything you only need a thousand true fans and it’s this idea of like especially in this day and age not
1:06:23playing to the algorithm and just trying to build a small circle of people who deeply find you interesting so you can
1:06:29do it but at the same time depending on what you’re trying to get out of it the numbers the algorithm the reach play a
1:06:35critical role in that like signal influence and all that kind of thing if you’re running for example you’re
1:06:42running a small agency that only works in a niche space you don’t need to worry about algorithms and reach you need to
1:06:48focus on a small Market of customers and tailoring things to them and building that community and being valuable but if
1:06:54you’re like now in my position when I went into that meeting they said if you
1:06:59could just do something about your socials in the next six months that would really help the case and in that
1:07:06moment I was like ah there’s a level where numbers and algorithm and followers and viewers didn’t matter to
1:07:12what I was trying to achieve but now in this new level again going back to the game in this new level it does now um so
1:07:19again it’s like what level are you at and do those things matter right now I’d argue that for people in here here and
1:07:26I’ve had it as well where it’s like the phase I’m in I don’t have to worry about the algorithm I have to worry about
1:07:31being interesting and valuable to a small group of people and then once I’ve done that maybe the second room or the
1:07:37third room or the fourth room means that I have to start thinking about the algorithm but it’s worth considering
1:07:43what phase you’re at and whether the algorithm matters right now and if you come to the conclusion that it does then
1:07:49it’s really important that you figure out how to for me the algorithm thing is
1:07:54like how do you play to the algorithm while still being true to what you’re about and who you are so for me like the
1:08:00perfect blend for me was that post that I did on Kendrick the other day it did well algorithm wise because it kind of
1:08:06tapped into something people speaking about but it was still what I find interesting and fun to do and it was a
1:08:13good point like it still stayed true to my values of that I actually turn someone in my team recommended another
1:08:20post for me to do about Serena Williams and I said no because it’s not what I
1:08:25would talk about and it I saw it 6 hours later someone else did it and it went crazy viral and I in that moment was
1:08:33like she was right that it was going to do well but it’s not for me it’s not that’s not what I need I should be doing
1:08:40well on so I think it’s like understanding what viral means you should be going viral for what you
1:08:45should be going viral for um yeah that’s my two sents on it it’s a sticky yeah
1:08:51not easy it is a hard one I think for me like you have finite brain brain space with these things unless you have unless
1:08:58you’re able to bring in a team and I think if it’s a tossup between using that brain space on how the algorithm
1:09:03Works versus interesting ideas like I’d always prioritize interesting
1:09:08ideas love it Cloud you you’re so good um and like it it’s hard it’s it’s an
1:09:16it’s a game of ego it’s a game of everything right you know but I think again one of your key points from today’s presentation was about
1:09:23intentionality and so if you’re making uh the intentional choice just to
1:09:28rephrase and restate what you’ve said here Ash you know if you know what you’re trying to achieve then you can
1:09:35optimize the metrics which matter um and and that is you know important and like
1:09:41trying to take the ego out at that stage is probably easier I guess because you know what you’re trying to achieve um
1:09:47and I say all this from firstand experience not not sort of like just Theory um let’s uh
1:09:56take one last question um
1:10:01from uh let’s take it from Joe Lloyd because he Joe contributed to the question earlier on about mixing the the
1:10:08player types but um I’ll take this one instead which was uh can you remember a
1:10:13particular turning point in your own personal branding where you started to see a real difference or impact from
1:10:19what you were saying posting or creating like has there been a switching point in
1:10:25in your your own posting uh strategies and what can folks take away from that
1:10:30yes for me uh about the back end of last year where and it actually speaks to
1:10:37like becoming a signal master and uh social proof where I was uh featured in
1:10:45The Guardian on a comment on a z uh an article about Mark Zuckerberg and um the
1:10:52penguin thing came through as an email and I was like that’s wild and then I
1:10:58won creative entrepreneur of the year at the Great British entrepreneur Awards and this all happened in span of about
1:11:03two weeks and what happened with the guardian piece is I took that and I created this asset I was talking to you
1:11:09Joe about this the other day um and I made it look way better than what it was
1:11:14like I presented it in the best way possible and that along with the award along with me knowing the penguin thing
1:11:22was happening even though no one else did it made me re think my own like where I’m at and what
1:11:29I need to do now and it was very much like signals to the world of that meant
1:11:35that I was in a position that I could almost like level up and it wasn’t me doing it it was like the world doing it
1:11:41for me so yeah I think I think people underestimate the um I was talking to
1:11:49someone the other day about like do you get PR like is that thing with personal branding and it’s serves a purpose like
1:11:56any kind of external um validation or like something that’s not you telling
1:12:02the world that you’re worth listening to is really really important to be able to try to generate if you can um because it
1:12:11again it does a job like you can’t tell the world how great you are the world has to tell other people how great you
1:12:16are because if you do it people don’t believe it but if somebody else does it again it’s psychology thing um and yeah
1:12:24that for me is like it was a shift and it came from firstly four or five years of just like getting on with it like I
1:12:31never set out to try like win an award I never set out to get in the guardian I never set out to have penguin email me I
1:12:39set out to not play to the algorithm I set out to try be an interesting
1:12:44perspective on personal brand that was the only thing I’ve ever tried to do um
1:12:49and did that for long enough that then the world again the example I used before about Dave Harland he kind of sat
1:12:55in the community on the until the community went we’re we’re willing to put you on a platform teach us and give
1:13:02us Insight um and it’s kind of that approach to me like you do that for long enough the world starts to do the
1:13:08signals for you but don’t underestimate the power and in business you have the power as well if you’ve got a like say
1:13:15you’re running a small business you’ve got a there’s a bit of budget there like do you get PR if you can invest in it
1:13:20the odd thing can help serve some kind of you know external signaling to the world that can be quite useful and you
1:13:27get quite a lot of Life out these things as well so that like Guardian piece for example that’s going to be pinned to my
1:13:33Instagram profile forever as long as I’m single and trying to date trust me on that one um yeah you get a lot of life
1:13:39out of these things and it’s worth trying to figure out you can get them for free you also can like paid
1:13:45opportunities and things like that we had it a social chain the first um instances of Steve doing public speaking
1:13:51were paid social chain paid for him to be on those stages but him being on those stages positioned him as a public
1:13:57speaker that then created more opportunity for him to do more of that so yeah there’s ways that you can like
1:14:02Leverage it at first to help you get a step ahead in the sense a cyc um trying
1:14:08to think well I started talking about course life crisis when I first started posting on LinkedIn and gladly I’m not
1:14:13in that situation anymore um I think for me the biggest like I’ve had a few key things that I spoke about over the years
1:14:19CA life crisis initially when I was going through that phase shifted to when I became a manager and I essentially
1:14:25like documented that process but I think the biggest thing for me has probably been in the last six months when I’ve
1:14:30started really intentionally speaking about personal branding and I identified the things that I feel really confident
1:14:37and comfortable speaking about that I’m really interested in and the difference that that has made for great influence
1:14:43as a business and now the people that message me are potential clients um or people that would want me to speak at an
1:14:50event or something like that and since I’ve started intentionally talking about that as a thing thing it’s really helped
1:14:57like what I’m trying to drive but also I really enjoyed speaking about all the other stuff and it’s definitely said Val
1:15:02in my career I think I think you’ve shifted as your like what your career
1:15:07needs of VI has changed yeah and how you shown up has started to gear more towards the actual opportunity that
1:15:14you’re trying to create more and it’s become more tactical as a result so yeah again it’s like what phase are you at
1:15:20and what do you need to do in that phase and for every phase that you’ve done you did the thing that need to do in a yeah
1:15:26Court life crisis becoming a manager that’s all round yeah it that’s worked
1:15:31uh as as Joe says here uh in the chat not speaking third person uh Joe Lloyd
1:15:37in the chat here says amazing answers and insight from both thank you so much Legends of the game here um so um a
1:15:46lovely way to finish so Ash and cludia thank you so much uh for taking the time with us day and for going over as well
1:15:53that’s that’s ridiculous and so so gen us um and thank you to the community both for being here for your questions
1:16:00for being absolute Legends um it’s always always appreciated um and yeah
1:16:06just to share this experience with you is is just gorgeous every week so uh with all that said we’ll be back next
1:16:12week we’re taking a slight left turn on brand for one week only and heading into
1:16:18AI agents and what you need to know about them before careering back into uh brand for the rest of a season uh so I
1:16:25hope you can join us next week next Tuesday but in the meantime honestly
1:16:30huge thanks Claudia huge thanks Ash and thank you everyone in the community for just being absolute Heroes um one quick
1:16:38ask for me if you’re here at the end you’re part of the hardore elite uh please do uh give a thank you to our
1:16:44sponsors in the in the follow-up email if everyone in the chat today uh gave a
1:16:49thank you to our sponsors then I suspect we would have the ability to keep coming with these questions to you for the rest
1:16:56of time uh so please do continue to do that with all that said thank you so
1:17:01much and uh we will see you uh next week thanks so much everyone take care bye