What Is A Personal Brand & Why Is It Important?

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey guys, it's Stephanie and welcome to another episode of the glam life real estate podcast. So quick note programming notes. I decided this past week I was normally airing all the episodes on Tuesday and it was a little bit of a challenge just because of the way it fell in the week for me with some other things that I have going on Tuesday mornings. So I'm actually gonna start airing episodes Wednesday mornings. I just wanted to give you guys a quick update on that. That way you don't think you're missing something and then if you're not subscribed to the show, make sure you subscribe because any bonus episodes that I do put out on other days here and there, you will not be notified if you're not subscribed to the show. So just want to make sure you're aware of that. Today we're going to talk about all about personal branding, so I'm super passionate about it.

Speaker 1: (00:43)
I'm sure you can tell from my voice. I get super excited when we talk about social media, personal branding, image, all of that good stuff. The reason we're talking about that today and kind of an overview format is because the next few episodes, I've got interviews already recorded with experts in their field on the different social platforms and talking about branding, and so I thought this would be kind of a good segue into getting your wheels turning on what is a personal brand? Why do you need one, who it's for, and really how to start thinking about how to elevate your voice so that you can get in front of your ideal clients. You can build your authority, all that good stuff. I've got a really cool thing at the end. Stick around. I'm going to give you the link for it to do. It's a free little quiz that a lot of people have really enjoyed taking to get an idea of your style, so stick around for that.

Speaker 1: (01:35)
Stay tuned and let's get to the show and before I forget, don't forget the May, 2020 the end of this month. It is the end of the giveaway. We're giving away two signed copies of Chris Urban's book, Quito answers, explaining everything about the keto diet. Chris was on the show earlier this month and I had so many questions about keto and how to be healthier and how to reduce inflammation and lose weight. I really wanted to provide more resources for you guys, so go to the glam girl, boss.com forward slash giveaway, the glam girl, boss.com forward slash giveaway you can enter to win. You can enter multiple times. It's something I really just want everyone to do. So you guys have access to this book and we're going to be doing the giveaway at the very end of this month, so you still have time to do that. All right, let's get to the show.

Speaker 2: (02:18)
You're listening to the glam life of real estate podcast where we talk about everything from productivity tips, social media strategies, business hacks, and more to get ahead of the curve and crush it as a real estate sales professional. Whether you office out of a model home or your car where leopard print and high heels never go out of style. Here's your host, top producing real estate agent, social media strategist, and for baby mama Stephanie Linda mood.

Speaker 1: (02:51)
All right. So we're about to get into one of the things that is probably on my top three lists that I love about. And um, I thought what we would do, I've done a couple of different episodes, interviews that I haven't aired yet and we're just going to be on different platforms like social media, like YouTube and Instagram and Facebook. And so what I thought I do is before we get into those interviews, I really wanted to talk to you guys just in general, kind of an umbrella interview about personal brand and what it is. And I've done some of these on another podcast and I've linked him and it's a question I get quite a bit just because people see some of my marketing and they'll see, you know, the podcast and then they'll see some stuff I do on social media with either my real estate or my blog, the glam girl boss.

Speaker 1: (03:38)
And it's something I'm super passionate about. And so I just wanted to get into it. And then I really want else feedback because I'm working on doing some other things, some resources that might be beneficial to see what you guys want, what you guys would enjoy. So just to kick it off, like let's talk about what a personal brand is, especially if you've never heard of it. And I also want to talk about it expecially if you're an employee, not just a real estate agent, not just an entrepreneur, because I think we have this thing in our heads that says if I'm an employee, then I don't need to market myself. Because if I don't want to work here anymore, I'll just go get another job. Okay. And so I just really want to dive into that. So let's just talk about what a personal brand is.

Speaker 1: (04:23)
The definition. So personal brand is basically a combination of your personality, your areas of expertise to values, et cetera. So in a sense it's your image, but since we have online and technology now, it's like your online image or reputation. Newsflash, we all have a personal brand, whether we are intentional about it or not. As Jeff Bezos says of Amazon, a personal brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room. And so basically it's evolved now to be a digital brand. Your online reputation, I. E. How you show up, you see it would be how you showed up in person. Now with technology, it's how you show up online or how you don't show up, right? So let's say you go to a hotel or something or a go on a trip and you try to check into a place and they have no social presence.

Speaker 1: (05:15)
What is your first thought? Like? Oh my gosh, they're kind of behind on the times, right? So people judge you based on your personal brand, whether you have an online presence or not. So if you don't have an online presence, you're going to get judged for that just as much as you are for what your personal brand is. So you can choose to let it develop organically or you can be intentional about it. Examples of this would be like Steve jobs of Apple, right? Like Steve jobs had a personal brand that people identify with when they think of him, whether it's the black turtleneck, whether it's the way he carried himself. Um, Elon Musk of Tesla, right? Richard Branson, a Virgin. So there's different people that you can look at and say they have a personal brand separate from their organization or company that as a human to human we identify with.

Speaker 1: (06:04)
And so I think it's just really important to kind of get clear on what it is and why it's necessary because then that's going to make sense as to when we have these X interviews, why it might be important if you're not on YouTube, you may want to get on YouTube or what have you. Okay. So let me give you an idea. Back in the day, like this is going back like Whoa, this is back in 2011 or so. I worked for a big technology company and that's when, you know, LinkedIn was still kinda new. Um, Facebook and Twitter, like basically what I went to go work for this company. What I did is I was covering a state that was like five States away. Okay. I was covering Minnesota and all of my accounts were there. So I was basically calling accounts over the phone and through email and trying to get meetings set up so that when I would travel there, they would meet with me and then I could talk to them about the technology products that we were selling.

Speaker 1: (07:03)
I know super sexy, right? And so what I would contact these people, I would say, hi, my name is Stephanie, I'm your new client rep for blah, blah blah company. And they're like, Oh great. You're like the fourth one this year. Wonderful. And I thought, so how am I going to differentiate myself to these people that have no freaking clue who I am? I'm five States away and I'm asking to have sales meetings with them. Right? So the first thing I did was I got a picture taken of myself. It was super high quality. It was in my formal dining room with a beige wall behind me with my probably iPhone at the time, maybe probably their regular camera because I don't even know if our phones took pictures back then. I know I'm dating myself big time. Okay, so I got that picture developed, I got it on digital, digitized, I put it in my email signature and then I put the exact same photo on my LinkedIn profile and back then most LinkedIn profiles did not have a picture on their profile.

Speaker 1: (08:00)
So what I did was I created a quote unquote connection between my email brand on my signature and my LinkedIn brand and a lot of people thought it was really dumb. They were like, Oh my gosh Stephanie, cause I had come from new home sells, then went into technology and then went back into real estate. They were like, this isn't real estate. Like okay, yes realtors put pictures on their business cards but we don't do that in technology. That's kind of weird. And I was like whatever. Let's just see if it works. Well what happened was about three months later, I had a trip plan to go see all my clients and I went to go meet with my manager and I'm like, Hey, I'm going to be leaving on Sunday night to go out for a week, um, business trip, go meet with all these clients.

Speaker 1: (08:41)
And I said, he's like, great, let's talk about who you're meeting with and what your goals are and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay. So I have 15 meetings set up and I just kept going and he was just looking at me and I'm like, what? He goes, you have how many meetings set up? And I said, I have 15 meetings set up. He's like, how, how the heck did you do that? I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, that's a lot of meetings. And I'm like, well I'm, you guys are paying to fly me up to a state and a hotel. I had to have enough meetings to justify it. And he's like, yeah, but how did you get this many people to agree to meet with you? And I just kind of looked at him and I'm like, well, I've been emailing people and I've been working on connecting with them on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1: (09:22)
And when I connect with them on LinkedIn, I send them a personal note and then I let them know I'm going to email them. And then I send them an email and that has the same pictures. My email is my LinkedIn profile. So they're putting two and two together. And then I'm like, so I created this conversation with them on multiple platforms and then I had the same picture. So they had a connection piece and he was just like, I can't believe this is amazing. I can't believe this. And I thought it was just normal, right? Like, okay, I gotta get in front of these people and let them know who I am. And they gotta figure out that it's the same person contacting them on multiple platforms. And so that was kind of my first experience with why it's so important to build a personal brand.

Speaker 1: (10:01)
Because to be quite Frank with you, it did not matter that those, it was a really big technology company. I worked for it. It did not matter that those three letters that I worked for was the company. They could care less. Okay. They could care less what technology I was trying to sell them or what hardware or services they might be interested in or could benefit from. But as soon as they realize that I was a human being and they could put a face to a name and that now face was following them around on other platforms that they were on, they started to build a relationship with me. So that's really key. The other thing it allowed them to do was see my authority in the marketplace. So if I posted an article or I wrote about something, they were putting that as in, I was getting that credit for being an authority in that area.

Speaker 1: (10:45)
So the one thing I really want to let you guys know is personal brand is going to build the authority so that when people think of that industry, they're going to think of you or they're not going to think of you, right? It's one thing or another. So if they only have the capacity to have, whether it's real estate, whether it's their sales professional, and for a car what have you, they're only going to have a certain amount of capacity to remember so many people. So you want to be that person. They think of that's top of mind when they think, Ooh, I need to go buy a house, or I want to work with this person and the financial planning space, or Ooh, I want this hairstylist to do my hair, or whatever it is. You want to be the person that's top of mind.

Speaker 1: (11:24)
And one way you can do that is by building your authority with your personal brand, by sharing things, by showing up, by being consistent. Okay? Because like I said before, some people look at building a personal brand is unnecessary if they're an employee or their employer. May even look at it as unnecessary because they want marketing to control everything and to control the voice. But we'll talk about that here in a little bit. But it is very important for employees, you guys, to build your own personal brand, both for yourself because you don't know if you're ever going to be at that company for your entire career. If you are a great, if you're not, you want to continue to build your personal brand online and your online reputation. But also, and we'll talk about this in a little bit, it benefits the company you're with to build that personal brand.

Speaker 1: (12:07)
So why is a personal brand important? People expect to see you online and they want to see an authentic you. Okay? And it's also your new resume. Newsflash. So when I work with people, if I go Google them on LinkedIn and they're not, they don't have a profile immediately in my mind I think, Oh, they're not very social. They're not very connected. They're not very, it's a negative in my mind. Okay. Or if you Google somebody and there's just not a lot out there or it's low quality, people are going to judge you on that. It's just like I tell my clients when I listen to our homes, we could take iPhone pictures and we can take, you know, pictures of sings full of dishes and toilet seats up in closets overflowing. But we're not going to do that because why? People are going to judge us based on how we show up.

Speaker 1: (12:55)
So when you show up online, you want to make sure you show up well with the personal brand that's thought out. That's quality. It can still be authentic. It doesn't have to be quote unquote professional perfect, but it needs to be well thought out and put together and I'm going to help you guys with that here in a little bit. I'm going to give you a tool that can kind of start guiding you along that path. People buy emotion and they want to feel connected. They want to do business with those that we all have heard the saying no like and trust and the way you can build that personal brand. And build that know like and trust factor is by showing up and bringing value, bringing some entertainment, bringing some inspiration, whatever it is that you do, bringing that online because trust is huge and people are tired of being sold.

Speaker 1: (13:43)
They want to be educated, they want to be guided and they want to be led to make a decision. Okay, so back to my story about about the personal branding at the technology company. Fast forward a few months and then they kind of like nominated me and said, you know, I was, I don't remember the actual award, but it was like a quarterly award. It was kind of the big deal. And basically it was for my social media strategies and presence and I basically ran this little workshop where I would work with people and say, okay, you know, people had this complex that, well, why would I be on LinkedIn if I'm not looking for a job? Because in their mind you're only on LinkedIn if you're looking for a new job. Okay. And that might be true of some of you guys today or they had a complex like why would you be on Twitter?

Speaker 1: (14:27)
Because at the time it was like, Hey, this is what I ate for lunch, posted on Twitter. They're like, I don't care to tell about what I ate for lunch or breakfast. Why would I ever want to be on Twitter? Okay. And so basically we were talking about those social platforms and what they did and the point behind them and since that time, that was what, almost like 10 years ago, all of that has changed and evolved even more to where now most people don't even think if you're on LinkedIn, you're looking for a job. It's just a way of growing your professional network. Right? Um, same thing with some of the other platforms and that's why I'm going to start highlighting some of the platforms that you can beyond, because to be Frank with you, there are so many, I don't necessarily recommend being on all of them, especially starting out because it can be a little overwhelming, but just trying to figure out like what you're trying to accomplish.

Speaker 1: (15:14)
So whether you're a real estate agent, whether you're in management with a builder, whether you're a sales professional, whether you're an entrepreneur, like what makes sense for you, starting out with what is your area of genius, what are you really good at, what do you really like? Because those are the things you're going to like talking about. And then those are the things that people are going to get to know you for. So a personal brand establishes you as an authority or the GoTo in your industry. It allows you to do a couple things. It allows you to tell your story, how you got on the business, why you do what you do, um, your day in the life, those kinds of things. Okay. It allows you to educate your clients and your potential clients. So one thing that I'll do a lot of is I have kind of a video series where it's like ask Stephanie, right?

Speaker 1: (15:59)
And I have a lot of sellers ask the same question over and over. And so I basically film a question and I answer it so that people understand, okay, great. That's a resource for them. But then they start to realize that I know what I'm talking about. Like, okay, wow, this girl actually has had this issue before. She's overcome it and she has advice around it. So that starts to build that trust. It allows you to share your expertise and your body of work and it also allows you to build community and relationships. So it's not just a one thing that your personal brand does. Again, it's an extension of who you are online. Now let's say you're an employee, like I don't need to have a personal brand. I don't need to do all that because my company does marketing for me. So a couple things.

Speaker 1: (16:44)
Let's talk about human to human. People want to see the person behind the brand, right? Like what was the biggest part of the wizard of Oz? It was seeing who the person was behind the curtain, right? So when we talk about how buyers want to work with someone they know like, and trust. Yeah, they're building a home with a builder or yeah, they're buy X product that has brand name X on it. But ultimately the reason they're buying it is because of the person they're working with that's helping them through that process. They want to know who's behind the website, who's behind the blog posts. People want to connect human to human, so that's why it's really important when you're an employee. It's also really important as an employer because according to a study done by Nielsen, 92% of people trust recommendations from individuals even if they don't know them over recommendations from companies.

Speaker 1: (17:40)
So think about an Amazon review. Okay, are you likely going to trust an Amazon review from a person that bought the product and then reviewed it or from the company's website that says how great the product is, right? Or that may have testimonials from only people that they vetted and then they posted their testimonials. I go on Amazon every single day and the reviews are a huge indicator of what I buy versus what I don't buy because I know that those are real reviews that I can trust because there are people just like me. Studies also show that social media posts have way more weight, like 500% more reach when employees share brand messages compared to when just companies or brands sharing the message posted on social media. So it's, I know it's hard sometimes, especially for big companies to feel comfortable with letting their employees speak about the company and share about the company because they do want to control the messaging and watch the branding and make sure things match.

Speaker 1: (18:42)
And for compliance purposes, I totally get all that. But from a, from just a principle in mind set perspective, understand that the consumers out there, they might be hearing your brand and your company's message, but if you can get your employees involved and you can get them advocating for your company, speaking about the benefits, the consumer is going to connect more with those employees because it's human to human. And so it's just understanding that and trying to figure out what that looks like for your organization, how to allow that to happen, where you can still be compliant and still protect the image and the marketing and all that's important. But it's understanding the way consumers and human behavior is and just the realities behind it. So we know that building a personal brand has a lot of benefits. It builds trust and rapport faster, right?

Speaker 1: (19:37)
It builds that know, like, and trust factor. It builds credibility. You get to grow your networking community, you can increase business and sales and it opens up more opportunity for you. So even if you're happy with where you are in your job, let's say, what if you start promoting what you do and what you love about your career and your company that might bring you more opportunity where you're at in your current career with your company or it could open you up and your network up to other things. So there's a lot of benefits around it because it's truly your voice in a digital format format that allows people to connect with you and get to know you. And at the end of the day, that's what sales is all about, right? It's about rapport building. It's about the know, like, and trust factor. It's about helping people.

Speaker 1: (20:24)
And the faster they can get to know you, the faster they're going to get more comfortable with you and trust you. I can't tell you, and I'm not bragging when I say this, I can't tell you how many people, clients, sales professionals, colleagues will say to me before I meet them, Oh my gosh, I love your videos and I, I don't know what video, I don't know if they're talking about real estate videos or Bulletproof coffee videos or what it is, but they already have a really good idea of who I am. They know if they like me or not. They know. You know that I have crazy hair. Whatever it is in their minds, we are already connected and it's great because then I can talk about, great, what did you see? What did you like, what questions do you have? And it allows us to connect on a deeper level because I've kind of already put myself out there.

Speaker 1: (21:06)
They know where I'm at, they know what I know. So I can't say enough about building a personal brand. And like I said, in the next couple of episodes, we're going to talk about where you can start showing up what makes sense so that you can start growing your digital footprint essentially. So what I want you to do is start thinking about how you show up as a personal brand right now. And if it's crickets, that's okay. We gotta be aware of it, right? So is it, Hey, you show up on Facebook, just your regular timeline or newsfeed when you or dog does something cool or your kids do something fun and that's fine and well, that's, there's nothing wrong with that. But is that your quote unquote personal brand right now? This moment? Okay. So think about how you show up. What do you think people say about you when you're not in the room?

Speaker 1: (21:51)
Okay. Do you have an online presence? What are some ideas you can think of to enhance your personal brand? So one question I want you to think about is, okay, if I were to build a personal brand or build on what's already there, what do I want it to do for me? What could I benefit from by doing that? Is it getting more clients? Is it getting in front of more people? Is it they understand that I know what I'm doing. So instead of me spending all my time telling them that I'm good at what I do, it's more about the process and your client's goals. Right. So thinking about it this way, I have a friend that needed to have knee surgery. Okay. And they are referred to some doctor and they went and had a consultation with that doctor and they were felt pretty good about it.

Speaker 1: (22:36)
It was okay. Nothing crazy. Like it was just a normal consult. And then they were referred just through the grapevine, you know, and talking in passing, they were talking about, Hey, I need to get the surgery done. And they said, Hey, why don't you research this person? I have a personal experience with them. They were great and just, you know, you may want a second opinion. So this person went online, did some research. This particular knee doctor had tons of videos on YouTube and they basically were doing training videos with other doctors. They were talking about their experience, they were showing surgery, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Guess what happened? My friend decided they wanted to go have an interview with this doctor, but before they hit that meeting, they already had a really good understanding of what this doctor did, the types of surgeries that he was good at, his experience in the industry.

Speaker 1: (23:25)
And ultimately that's the doctor that my friend decided to go with for their knee surgery. So it can work in any industry because it's just about showcasing what you already do in a digital format. How do you want your audience to people to perceive you? What are some of the things you can offer your audience in a market that would build that connection? Okay, so that's one thing I want you to start thinking about is you might be sitting there thinking, okay Stephanie, like I don't even know where to start. Like I do my business every day. Like how do I build a personal brand? What does that mean? So start thinking about things of value that you can bring to your potential audience. So one easy way to start thinking about that is take out a notepad. If you're driving, make a mental note.

Speaker 1: (24:10)
Just write down the top 10 questions you get asked every single day from your clients. It doesn't have to be really big questions. Okay. And let me give you an example. So if I was doing this list and it's about real estate, I would write down, um, people ask me all the time like, Hey, how do showings work when I have pets? That's one question they ask me. What is my, what needs to happen to my home to get it on the market? They ask me, um, what happens when we get an offer? Like what does that look like? They ask me, uh, what are the fees I pay as a seller? Like how does that, what does that look like? How do I estimate them? Um, they may ask me, Hey, when we close, do we have to be out of the house the same day?

Speaker 1: (24:54)
Okay. Let's say you're in new home sells. Someone may ask you, um, what's the difference between, uh, uh, building a home and buying a home? That's already finished. Like what are the pros and cons? They may ask you, what are the pros of buying new versus pre-owned? They may ask you, um, it might be community specific, like, Hey, where are the nearest parks? Okay. Or something like that. They may ask you what are the top upgrades that most people put in the homes? If you're in a different industry, it might if you're a hairstylist, right. I was talking to my hairstylist about the other day. It might be, um, what are the most popular trends in hair right now? It might be, um, if I'm going gray, is it better to lighten my hair or dark in it for maintenance? Uh, what is the normal timeline for people to go for women's go between getting their hair colored.

Speaker 1: (25:50)
I'm just off the cuff, just thinking through this. Okay. So think about 10 questions or more that you're asked over and over and over. And because those things that you're answering over and over and over, even though they're not that big of a deal to you, they are a big deal to the person asking the question because they are stressing about that. Even if it's not a big deal. Okay to you, cause you know the answer to them. It's like, Oh great, this person's knowledgeable. So start thinking about those 10 20 questions that you get asked that you can rattle off off the cuff that that's just what you do every single day. Then we're going to talk about in the next couple of episodes, how you start producing content in a way that's value based to your audience and you don't have to do it all.

Speaker 1: (26:36)
Yeah, I've got a YouTube channel and I've got a podcast and I've got a blog. I kind of have done all a lot of this stuff to figure out what best and what works for me, but you don't have to do it all. You can pick one platform and branch off of that and we're going to talk about that in the next few episodes. What I want to be able to provide you guys some guidance on where to start. So start with making that list of 10 15 questions that people ask you over and over and over because that's what you guys are going to start building as your personal inventory of value based content. Okay, cool. So the next thing I wanted to offer you guys, it's totally free to do, I'm super excited about it, is a brand quiz and I run it out there on Facebook and a lot of people have taken the quiz.

Speaker 1: (27:26)
So what you can do is go to the glam girl, boss.com forward slash branding quiz, the glam girl, boss.com forward slash branding quiz and you can take the quiz to figure out what your brand style is. So it's super fun. It gives you some good insight as to what your brand style is. And then what I want you to do is I want you to screenshot your results and I want you to DM me on Instagram at miss Stephanie Lindamood and I want to know your results because we're going to chat about what's next. Because once you figure out what your brand style is, once you get these 10 questions, we're going to talk about what you do with them. So staging for that. So go take the quiz, the glam girlboss.com forward slash branding quiz. Think about those 10 or 20 questions that everybody always asks you.

Speaker 1: (28:10)
If you haven't subscribed to the show, do that now. Make sure you let me know what you think about this episode. Send in a quick review because I get super pumped about this and I want to give you guys more content. So the next few weeks are going to be all about platforms, how to create content for your voice to really get in front of your audience. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Let me know what you think and we'll talk soon. Also, don't forget about the giveaway. It ends at the very end of this month. May, 2020 go to the glam goalball.com forward slash giveaway we are giving away two signed copies of Chris Urban's book keto answers. It's all about understanding the keto diet. He was on the show a few weeks ago, so for the month of may, we've been running this giveaway. Don't forget to go to do that. I will also post it on social, but I'm wanting to make sure that you guys don't forget. All right.