Personal Brand Building Part Two & Actionable Steps to Influence

On this week's Her First, we're talking personal branding – the real deal.  We're breaking down how to actually build and grow your brand, not just exist online.  Think auditing your current vibe, creating a visual identity that pops, developing a content strategy that isn't snooze-worthy, and, of course, networking like a pro.  We even pulled inspo from the big leagues – Tim Ferriss, Taylor Swift, Amy Porterfield – you know, the works.  We're getting into what makes content actually engaging, how to chat with your audience (and have them actually listen!), and how to use those platforms to your advantage.  Oh, and don't forget to join the Her First community – we're all in this together!

Time Stamps:

00:54 Recap of Part One

01:08 Action Steps for Building Your Personal Brand

02:02 Auditing Your Online Presence

04:29 Importance of Consistency Across Platforms

15:26 Developing Your Content Strategy

23:38 Networking and Collaboration

31:30 Common Mistakes in Personal Branding

39:04 Sustaining and Growing Your Brand

[🔔 Subscribe | ⭐ Leave a Review | 📢 Share]

🚀 Join the Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/herfirstcollective/

📅 10-Day Course Creation Challenge (Joanna)
💻 Build a Successful Online Business Using Kajabi
🎙️ Get Descript for Podcasting
✅ Try Out Monday.com

📱 Social: @themichellepualani | @joanna_atwork
📩 Michelle: hello@michellepualani.com
🌐 Joanna: millennialmktr.com

Transcript

Part Two Personal Branding
===

Michelle Pualani: [00:00:00] When it comes to the personal brand is that everything that she does and she talks about directs and funnels people into her agency offering of course building and product development through Kajabi. So you don't have to have a big following in order to have a clear cut, specific, strategic, personal brand that draws in the type of client that you're looking for.

Her agencies did over a million dollars in sales last year. 


Hello, and welcome back to the Her First podcast, where we talk all about high achieving women, what they've been successful with, how they face challenges, and how you can use that information to better propel your personal brand. I'm Michelle Houston, founder of To Be Honest Beverage Company and personal branding and marketing coach.

Joanna Newton: I'm Joanna Newton and I'm the co founder of Millennial Marketer, an agency that helps business owners and creators launch their own digital products.

Michelle Pualani: if you haven't yet, go back and listen to part one. That is but today's part two of building out your [00:01:00] personal brand. In part one, we got into the foundations, the why behind your personal brand, what you have to ask yourself before you even get started. And today is all about the action steps that you're going to take.

So again, just go back, listen to part one so you can get the foundation, ask yourself the questions about your core values, how you see yourself, what you think you want people to say about you, and then come back to this episode. Okay. If you're ready to dive in, let's go ahead and start with those practical strategies.

alongside the advice that we're going to give you today, we're also going to share some very tangible statistics that help kind of drive the point home and why these things are so important. If you are a coach, a content creator, an online business owner, someone who is trying to drive traffic in the online space, magnetize an audience to you, build a community, grow your email list, grow your following.

This concept of personal branding is so incredibly important. And we'll explain exactly why that is as we move through this and using these actionable steps, you'll be able to see an [00:02:00] impact and change in your growth and how you're showing up.

So let's go ahead and dive in with the first step, which is Auditing your online presence or auditing your presence wherever you happen to show up. Again, the first part talks about all about the foundations and the why. So we're assuming that you already understand the base concept of your personal brand, why you're showing up, how you intend to do that, who you're hoping to attract.

Now, in order to do that, take a look at yourself. Google, what comes up? Is it a Facebook page? Is it an Instagram account? Is it a website? Do you have Pinterest, TikTok? What platforms are you on and where are you representing yourself? I want you to go through and figure out where all of those places are because we're going to need to address them as you move forward.

It's important to acknowledge and identify that when people are looking at you for trust, for authority, they're likely going to do something similar. Maybe they don't Google you exactly, or maybe they're looking you up on YouTube or on some other platform, but they're going to dig in a little bit, [00:03:00] see what other people have said about you, see where you are showing up, and see if they can trust the authenticity of your brand.

Or the reliability of what it is that you offer consumers are becoming more discerning all the time. It's not as simple as just having one presence with a landing page anymore. I know that some people can get away with that. And for a long time, that's what was being promoted. But now I think since people have been burned so much and Joanne, I want to hear you comment on this is that people have been burned so much that Consumers are discerning between the people that they go with when it comes to coaches, when it comes to digital products, when it comes to coaching offers or training programs that they're doing certifications that are looking to get, they're going to do a little bit more digging.

They're going to look up reviews. They're going to see what other people have said about you on other platforms. And if there have been any discrepancies or any things that would lead them to not purchase or seek out another option. So as an example, Taylor Swift, actually, we love talking about Taylor Swift on this platform.

She's an amazing [00:04:00] representation of a personal brand. And she actually wants to raise her social media before a really big. Rebrand in order to recreate her identity. We talk a lot in part one about the identity that you're creating. And we have a really great episode on Sabrina Carpenter and how her rebrand of creating a personal identity in front of, pop culture made her so famous and successful in what she's doing now.

So in order to create that buzz and control the narrative of what you're putting out into the world. You've got to identify all the places that you are and make sure that they're either in alignment or that they're representing the way in which you want people to see you think about your personal brand, speak about your personal brand, keeping in mind with some of these statistics.

So 50 percent of all searches are expected to be voice searches by 2025, 70 percent of web traffic comes from mobile devices and 93 percent of online experiences begin with the search engine. So if you think of those statistics backwards, so 93 percent of online [00:05:00] experiences begin with a search engine of some kind, whether that's YouTube, Google, or on a certain platform, that's almost 100 percent of people looking for something.

If they're looking for help with their anxiety, if they're looking to. Start yoga. If they're looking for a certain type of product, they're likely going to search for it. So you need to think about how you're showing up in the digital space in response to those searches. And then 70 percent of web traffic comes from mobile devices.

Why is that important? Because the content that you're putting out into the world needs to be formatted to mobile devices. So when you're thinking about which platforms you're.

Moving into which platforms you're creating, which platforms you're on already and auditing that digital presence are they formatted to mobile devices? And then I thought this was just an interesting statistic that I wanted to put in there is that in terms of your marketing and the messaging and the languaging that you're starting to use for your digital presence, think about how it's being said.

There's a difference between what we type into the computer, what we're writing versus how we're actually speaking. [00:06:00] So 50 percent of all searches are expected to be voice searches by 2025. That means that what you're putting out into the world in terms of your personal brand and how you show up should be catered a little bit more toward how people are speaking and what they might.

Ask in a search as opposed to type.

Joanna Newton: your online presence is so important to have control of over and understand what's happening. And if you're listening to this podcast and thinking, well, I don't have a really big following, I don't do a lot, like I don't need to do this audit because no one's looking at my stuff anyway. I would definitely argue that they probably are, I don't have a huge LinkedIn following or a huge Instagram following or this like massive website traffic to my business, but a lot of people Google me before they get on a free discovery call with me, or maybe they me before booking that discovery call. And when I meet with them, will tell me what their online experience was. Googling me, and I try to make sure I have a consistent, presence across platforms. And I know [00:07:00] that makes a difference. Someone will say, Oh, I found your profile in the Kajabi Expert Marketplace. I then went to your LinkedIn and saw what you were doing there.

Your profile was so great. Then I went to your website and I watched the video on your website. We're not getting Crazy amounts of traffic to any of these places, but it affects that one person's of me immediately. And I know that that presence, even though again, I wouldn't necessarily call myself an influencer, I know that Presence makes people trust me before they get on that phone call and helps with that sales process because there's consistency. know who I am now. Some people might see my content and be like, I don't want to work with that girl. She seems like a feminist. I'm fine with that. and if they're not comfortable working with feminists, they shouldn't work with me. And, and that's great, but that's just something to keep in mind that people will Google you.

I actually saw a really really fascinating statistic. don't remember the exact percentage, but it was something like 70 percent of hiring [00:08:00] managers will look at LinkedIn accounts while going through, job interviews and candidates. at the very least, if you are on the job market or you're someone who's putting yourself out there for full time job contracting positions, LinkedIn is important to at least have your bio up to date, your picture up to date, your experience up to date. So it matches your profile and your applications and your proposals.

Michelle Pualani: We truly believe that personal branding is a non negotiable these days in the digital space and the digital age that we live in. Unless you have incredibly great references and an experience that is demonstrated by like clear cut metrics that don't require any online presence, which is true. Totally possible.

I mean, there's a huge, you know, network and lots of industries that work within that space. But if you're in our industry, there is some digital footprint that you need to be conscious of and you need to be aware of. And people go down that rabbit hole before I buy anything, as a more research type.

Buyer, like there are different and distinct types of buyers. Some people are a little bit more [00:09:00] impulsive and that's okay, but a lot of people are going to research and they're going to check things out and they're going to watch the videos. And so you have to have things in place that capture them where they are and funnel and direct them where you want them to go.

Joanna is a great example of this from a personal brand perspective, because even though she doesn't have a huge influence when it comes to following, she's not like Forleo or Jenna Kutcher or boss babe, super like. big, big titans in our space, yet, not at, in the, at the time of recording next year.

I don't even know where you're going to be at, Joanna. You're like, exponentially growing beyond, don't, don't forget about me. Okay. Don't forget about the little people when,

Joanna Newton: You'd come, you, I just bring you along no matter what.

Michelle Pualani: I love it. Okay. So, When it comes to the personal brand is that everything that she does and she talks about directs and funnels people into her agency offering of course building and product development through Kajabi. So you don't have to have a big following in order to have a clear cut, specific, strategic, personal brand that draws in the [00:10:00] type of client that you're looking for.

Her agencies did over a million dollars in sales last year. When we talk about personal brand, it doesn't mean you have to have a huge impact, but it does need to have a specific and strategic impact. So what does that take? Step number two, after you've audited is in the creation process, I want you to think about a consistent visual identity that is also represented in your messaging.

So you want to think consistency across platforms. If someone finds her on Kajabi, they go to LinkedIn, they go to the website. There should be similar language, messaging, visuals that people can identify with across the platforms so that they don't get confused. Once you start to break the trust of that consumer through their customer journey process, it's unlikely that they're willing to invest in you because there are discrepancies across platforms.

So being mindful and thoughtful about that. And thinking about kind of like your big names, Marie Forleo, Boss Babe, Jenna Kutcher, Mel Robbins, Brendon Burchard. If you think about their brand and their [00:11:00] identity, usually a color comes to mind, usually a type of, language or a certain acronym in order to describe the type of brand that they represent.

That's what you want to try to elicit. Through your digital presence, your digital footprint, the way that colors are coming across the way that your text is coming across. And of course, the messaging and the language that you're using across platforms,

really thinking through this will give you an edge and it'll just really help kind of smooth things over. It also makes it a lot easier. Easier thinking through some of the color palette options, the fonts that you're gonna use. You can keep it all super simple. Jay Shetty is a good representation of like neutral tones, monk, calming, relaxing.

It fits his vibe from like a fashion perspective. It fits his content, it fits the way that he shows up. and creating a brand does not have to be like as big, as bold, or as like cutting edge as you think it needs to, knowing that you don't have to like go out and hire a huge branding person, it's just really about [00:12:00] first and foremost, consistency across platforms. And I know that this conversation comes up a lot in the digital space. Obviously we're like. In this place of AI. And I do want to highlight, this is a statistic that I thought was very helpful in thinking about AI is that 80 percent of marketers are using AI to enhance their digital marketing efforts.

What does that mean? That means that you're not relying on AI to do everything for you. You're not copy and pasting, but you can use AI to help you through this process. Go back to part one, ask the questions, talk back and forth with AI from a strategy perspective, have recommendations, even asking like, what do you brand colors represent in human psychology and having those conversations and discussions?

Because marketers are using AI and everyone is using AI and it's used to streamline efforts, but it's not used to replace your personal brand and identity. So what I don't want you to do is get on AI and expect you to have all the answers from what needs to come. from within you. you still need to have that [00:13:00] distinct, unique, and creative approach to your own personal brand and just use AI as support.

Joanna Newton: Yeah, this isn't about saying, Hey, AI, give me 10 LinkedIn posts that appeal to such and such niche, and then copy and paste them and make those your LinkedIn posts, but you can use AI strategically. And that might be an interesting episode. Michelle, for us to kind of talk through how we use AI in our business for content creation where it's enhancing what we do and not replacing our brains because that's, we want that authenticity and we want that. And I definitely want to circle back to what you were talking about in terms of not worrying about having this like crazy brand package and this perfect brand to get started. Don't let Not having like really specific brand guidelines keep you from starting brand packages are kind of expensive.

if you get someone good to work on your brand, you're looking to like a five or 10k project for like a good starting, starting up brand kit, sometimes [00:14:00] more depending on like what your needs are from a brand perspective. But if you're just getting started out or you have a LinkedIn or you're doing something, I would just think of like, One or two fonts, a couple of colors, an idea of what type of imagery you want to have.

Just have a baseline that you're going to follow everywhere. Then when you blow up and you're huge and you have some money to have a brand package, you can use that as the starting point. If you love that brand, or you could start over, you can always refresh. You can always change and then go back and kind of edit and refine your older stuff. Just have something in mind, some sort of consistent imagery, look, feel, colors, fonts, so that every single post doesn't have a different font, and every single post doesn't have different colors. Even if you're like, I'm going to use purple backgrounds every time with Arial font. It doesn't have to be that fancy, you just have to have something so that there is that consistency.

Michelle Pualani: Absolutely. And we're not encouraging you to go out and invest upfront, you know, 50k and getting your website done and, and, Creating the [00:15:00] brand and buying all the stuff and getting the person to do the thing. It's like you can start super simple. It takes a little bit more thoughtfulness in terms of what you're putting into it and some awareness.

So a little bit of that strategy, a little bit of thinking through each of the pieces and then just creating that cohesiveness in the digital space. So step one, get that online presence audited. Step two, create that consistent visual and messaging identity. And then I want you to think of step three as essentially developing your content strategy.

So now that you have this great foundation of your personal brand, who you want to attract, how you want to show up, you're looking to create community. And in order to do that, you've got to develop some type of content. now we've talked on the podcast about so many ways that you can develop reach that you can get in front of people, there paid ways, organic ways, collaborative ways, unique and interesting ways and leveraging other people's on audiences or creating your own content on so many different platforms.

We honestly have so much access. And [00:16:00] whereas on one hand, that can be really overwhelming. It should really unleash a sense of like creativity and opportunity within you to say, Ooh, where do I want to be? How do I want to show up? And in what way? way and treat it as that. Look at it as something that you can look forward to that you're engaged in, that you're excited to do, and it's going to completely change this process for you.

So from a content strategy perspective, you've got to be able to share your story as a personal brand. You are consistently and regularly sharing your background, your story, the focus of what it is that you do, why you do it, and how you do it with folks. And then offering some type of value. People talk a lot about education.

Value doesn't always come in education packed content, But being able to add something to their lives, people are getting onto social media platforms for various reasons. And I just want you to think about meeting that need. How are you going to do that? And how are you going to do that in a very humanistic way?

So instead of speaking to a group of people from a very like uptight corporate [00:17:00] perspective of a business, and I am professional and I have to speak in this way, and this is what I have to say, because this is what's expected of me. I want you to think of it as you're speaking to a friend or you're speaking to the ideal client directly Conveying value and information in a way and to the person that as if they were right in front of you So thinking through that value opportunity in a really personable human way instead of again thinking about it from like Oh, if I have to say the right thing and it has to be spelled correctly and it has to be grammatically correct and it has to sound official.

Actually, the more relatable you can be in your language, I think the faster you'll see traction. And then engaging. So, the way in which you can engage through Communities through groups. We have a group that will tell you a little bit more about here shortly, but being able to engage with the people who are starting to come into your community.

How are you responding to comments? How are you getting them into the DMS? How are you asking questions on your stories? How are you engaging and getting them to engage back with you and thinking through some of this? again, as you're [00:18:00] developing this content strategy, some of the people that we like to look to, for examples, you know, Tim Ferris is someone who has a very big personal development brand.

The type of clout and conversion that that man is able to elicit in his audience is something that I will. Always, always appreciate if you are a brand that wants to make a ridiculous amount of sales to like high achieving, high performance, personal development based people. Tim Ferris is your influencer because if he brings you onto his podcast and features you in his newsletter or some of the content that he's doing.

You have to be able to deliver a certain volume of sales just to keep up with the traffic that he's going to send your way and the type of person that's going to buy from him. he's really transparent about what he's been through and his own experiences and using that as an example, how can you use that transparency to your advantage and how can you bring in the same type of audience and groups of people that you're looking to attract?

By sharing your story, sharing your narrative, [00:19:00] looking at examples like Amy Porterfield, who teaches guides, provide so much value in a lot of her free content, a lot of her lead magnets and how she shows up in educating the community from a business building perspective. And then just thinking through how you're going to reach people and how you're going to connect with them.

What platform is that going to look like for you as we move forward? 82 percent of global internet traffic will come from video streaming and downloads. 82 percent of global internet traffic. Video is so much a part of our future. And there are brands, Justin Welch is one that comes to mind that have created great personal brands around written content, but video is dominating and it will continue to dominate.

So in your content strategy, how can you mix in language? Written as well as video as you expand and then thinking through, we've talked about this so much before, but in this content strategy, we want you to think of a way that you can not just engage people in the social sphere, but how do you get them onto a platform that you own, your email list?

How do you [00:20:00] market to them in a way that you can control? Because email marketing still delivers an average of 42 ROI for every dollar spent. It's still one of the highest converting Locations for what time, energy investment and resources you're spending because those people have already opted in and decided to receive the content that you're sending directly to them, leverage it, grow it and have that be a part of the strategy in which you're approaching your personal brand.

Joanna Newton: Such good points, and I think we sometimes can discount that need for that flow. Right from the first time someone finds you on social or through Google search all the way to that customer standpoint. And what are those stages in between? And that's what your content strategy can really help you help you cover and understand. And I really like to think I were to get really nitty gritty on the type of content you should be posting and offering and all of that. You want to have. content types and posts that you do that have different goals in [00:21:00] mind. So I find some people naturally just sell, sell, sell, sell in every post.

Every post has a sales CTA or every post has a try my free thing CTA that goes to a funnel. But really, you need a variety of post types with different goals to really get that traction. So you might have posts that are meant and intended to like viral. Maybe they're a little less specific. Maybe they're following current trends and, and search volume. You know, maybe they're using trending music and maybe they're not. to your audience, but they get that wide reach, So, you know, we posted something about the TikTok ban. That's something lots of people were talking about. Not everybody who's the ideal listener of our podcast is interested in the TikTok ban, but some of them are. so. we're able to kind of hit that trend and get people to come to us that way. So you want to think of some things that are going to have like a super wide reach that you can post about, talk about, join the conversation, get on. If you're on a platform like [00:22:00] tech talk or in your own reels using trending sounds if you're doing written content, what are the, really hot topics everybody's talking about that you want to make sure you're showing up in those searches.

But then if you only post that, you're never going to get your target audience like into your email list. So finding ways to get people deeper and deeper and closer to closer to you is part of that funnel before they land on your funnel page. So from like big wide reach content to more intimate content to content that has an ask, send me a DM, leave a comment, get closer to me.

Then to that landing page than to your email list. So you're just creating a really natural flow of like little asks little breadcrumbs to kind of get people from seeing your content the first time and making a deeper connection with you.

Michelle Pualani: Taking them through that customer journey. It is an evolving process. It is an experimental process. It may take you time to establish what that really is. The biggest suggestion that we can always [00:23:00] offer is really to simplify. Oftentimes, people think they need to overcomplicate. They need to have all these steps in the funnel, in their content strategy.

They need to hit all of these different points. They need to talk about everything that they've ever learned. Really it's like dial it down. Dial in your three simple pillars. Dial in your five different types of content. just get really specific and strategic and consistent with it and trial that for an entire quarter before you make any shifts or changes.

Like thinking through it in a more simplified approach and trying not to overwhelm yourself through the process. So step one, you've audited. Step two, you've created that consistent visual identity. Step three, you're starting to develop that content strategy. And then the next Step is being able to grow that.

networking and collaborating strategically, I think it is a, is a really important step after you've been able to establish yourself. And the goal here with a personal brand is to create a magnetic personality and, identity or character we've talked about in the digital space so that people are attracted to you and interested in working with you.

They come to you, they wanna work [00:24:00] with you through. coordinated reels. They want to have you on their podcast. They want to bring you into the membership. That's a really great place to be. Now, of course you can also reach out. You can also engage them and say, you know, these are the a hundred people that I would like to work with ideally and reach out to them over time and, and work to build that up alongside your personal brand, but your ability to really Use this fear of community and collaboration to your advantage. having guests on a podcast, being able to go on to other people's podcasts, being featured in their YouTube videos, working again on collaborative reels and posting on both of your pages. There are all these ways in which our social presence is.

built on social engagement. I mean, that's what it is for. So you don't need to work in isolation. And I really want to encourage you. This was something that I struggled with when I first got started, even though I felt like I had expertise in my area and focus, fitness and coaching at the time, I didn't think that I had a large enough online presence in [00:25:00] order to reach out to people to collaborate.

And that really, really held me back because I was letting my follower count determine my worthiness to be able to offer something of value to someone else when really that doesn't dictate it at all. And a lot of people are looking for content pieces and ways to engage other folks and provide value to their audiences that you can offer right now with your certifications, your training, your coaching ability, whatever you have in terms of your focus and what you're trying to build your personal brand around.

Just talking about your story and what you've been through can be such a huge impact for someone else that you're working with or their audience by candidly talking about what you've been through. So don't discount how you're showing up now in your personal brand and how you're able to let that out.

Be of value to other people. And so reaching out, networking, collaborating, working with other influencers, going to events you know, Joanna and I met at a conference. I think that we [00:26:00] discount the in person Opportunity to connect and how we can leverage those partnerships strategically in what we do.

Now what I don't want to encourage you to do is like cold pitch people and just waste or take their time in order to benefit you somehow. I always want you to lead with some type of value. Some type of win win partnership or strategic relationship. So a lot of quote unquote, networking is wasted on like, Hey, like, can we grab coffee?

And I want to ask you some questions. And then you just end up chatting or I'm sure that everyone has had this experience where you feel like you just had an hour long conversation coaching or teaching someone for free. And you're like, why did we? Even get together. Like what was the point of that? And so you have to be smart about how you are connecting with people what you're offering and what you're expecting of them But the more that you go into it with a giving mentality with an impact mentality the more that you'll be able to increase your reach and Build a sphere of influence that really kind of builds and comes up together if you look at a lot of our Again, big titans in the [00:27:00] space.

They often came up or worked collaboratively with five to 10, like close partners and grew over time. And I've also worked with a ton of other influencers in their niche or in their space. I think I've talked about this before, but Brendan Burchard and his mastermind does this so incredibly well is that.

As a part of their group, if someone's marketing a book, if someone is launching a podcast, if someone has a course, a program or something that's happening, all of the other mastermind people are talking about it. not only do you have your personal brand and influence, but just imagine 10 other people who are all talking about the thing that you're marketing right now, reaching their audiences and the exponential.

Impact that you're able to have through those means. If you're launching something, even reaching out to 10 partners who have, 1000 to 2000 people on their list gives you 000 people that you wouldn't have otherwise to be able to collaborate with and launch to. thinking through some of those collaborative networking [00:28:00] opportunities strategically, As you are building out your presence and your personal brand. 

Joanna Newton: Yeah. 

And one of my favorite ways to do online networking for like social growth and like content reach is think that very intentional collaboration networking can work very, very well. But a really easy way to get started is just start interacting with people on their social accounts. So if you are on threads or Instagram or LinkedIn, pick like this. 10 people that serve similar niches to you and just start engaging with their content. I find this works really well and they will just start engaging with you back.

Like they're going to appreciate you commenting, liking, sharing, engaging with them. They're going to engage back and you can kind of, I say it's like having like little internet friends, that are just conversation and being part of what you're talking about. I have different internet friends on, different platforms for different reasons.

And, one, I kind of like it. I feel like they're my friends, but we're also helping boost each [00:29:00] other's content. really great way. that we want to help you boost your content and help you grow on social and all of that is through our Facebook group. we have a Facebook group. It's absolutely free to join. We had 20 new members join in about the past 48 hours, all female business owners looking to grow together. The goal here is that you can share your content. Share your offers, ask questions, get advice, and we will help by commenting on your stuff, following you on social media, sharing what you have. maybe we want to be an affiliate for your program.

there's so many ways that we can support each other as female business owners. And we want you to join us there. As we grow the group, we're going to get creative and do fun things together and really figure out how to help. Elevate and amplify each other's voices as female business owners in this space. Maybe you're looking to collaborate with someone. They could be in that group. Maybe you need someone to guest blog post on [00:30:00] your blog about a certain topic. They might be in that group. come join us. We want to see you there. When you come in, say hi, and we're looking forward to meeting you in there.

Michelle Pualani: And those groups, I have them for both of my businesses. You never know what sort of opportunities are going to be available to you and what opportunities you're going to be able to provide. Again, when I was first getting started, I was so embarrassed about how either little followers or little impact I felt like I had.

Like I was having from what people could see in the digital space that I didn't feel comfortable reaching out. But as I've grown in impact and influence. I now see it as I'm gifting an opportunity to someone else to be in front of our audience. So like guests on this podcast, we're really discerning about who we bring on the podcast because we want that individual to be able to provide value to our audience while also being thoughtful about, who their audience is and what they're bringing to the table.

We're giving them an opportunity to leverage our platform. that isn't right for everybody and that's okay. So think about how [00:31:00] as you grow, you'll also be able to gift the opportunity of reach and impact with development of your audience and your personal brand. those are the basic steps in order to get started.

We'll also talk very briefly about how you kind of sustain and grow over time. But for right now, those are the practical strategies. So audit your presence, create that consistent identity, develop your content strategy, and then really be able to collaborate and network strategically in order to increase your reach a little bit more exponentially instead of thinking in isolation.

Now, here's some common mistakes when it comes to personal branding and kind of overall marketing that Joanna and I see. We'd like to encourage you to kind of just be mindful of we're all going to make them at different times. You're going to keep going back. You're going to keep auditing. You're going to keep testing.

You're going to keep experimenting. But thinking through some of this as you're kind of moving through this process. So One of the biggest mistakes that personal brands and practitioners I see making, because they're not necessarily thinking from a marketing perspective, is trying to appeal to everyone.

So [00:32:00] in part one, when we establish who it is that you're speaking to, that needs to be somewhat specific. And we talked about the difference between psychographics and demographics, but from a psychographics perspective, thinking through the specifics of the type of person that you're speaking to and not wanting to appeal to or work with everyone.

We talk so much on this podcast about how polarizing is so important in the content that you're putting out into the world. And really thinking through how you're speaking, how you're showing up and in what way and not trying to be too politically correct, not try to speak to a group of a thousand people.

It's like, who is that one person that you're really speaking to? And really thinking through how you can be so much more specific and so much more niche instead of trying to talk to everyone all the time. 

The other thing is inconsistency. So often you're coming from a place of like, This is my education. This is my training. This is my expertise. And I just want to share all of these things all the time, but that can actually really confuse your audience and the type of person that you're wanting to draw in.

So when we talk about simplification, that [00:33:00] could mean you know, a thousand things, but you're not trying to communicate those thousand things in your content to your people. Maybe you're taking 10 of those things and you're distilling it down to five core things and they're representative of your larger picture and your larger whole and in your products and your programs, you go into like the deeper rooted things that you know, and how you want to share with people, but your You Really making that messaging very consistent by simplifying.

What are the core things, the core pillars that you're going to approach and on different platforms. Again, if people are going in different places, they're Googling you, they're paying attention to LinkedIn and they're looking at Instagram and they check your website. Ensuring that the messaging is consistent throughout the platforms is really key.

And that's why that auditing of the online presence is so helpful here. And then like Joanna mentioned, so many people focus on selling up front and the digital space is really about. Building a place in which you can share candidly as much as possible. Gary Vaynerchuk is not someone I [00:34:00] follow for like everything, but one of his core messages is create content constantly, all the time.

Keep putting out content. talk, teach, give your stuff away. Alex Ramosi is really big on that too, is like giving stuff away. Because people are always going to want to move to the next step with you. Never be afraid to share, to teach, to be available, to be relatable and create content. But not trying to just sell in your messaging and not trying to just sell in your content and really focusing on what is it that that person needs, what are they coming there for, and then knowing strategically how to take them to the next step through your funnels, through your systems, or through engaging on a deeper level.

Joanna Newton: other mistakes that I see creators often make when building a personal brand is giving up a little too early or a lot too early. I think sometimes we post for a couple weeks, we don't get traction and we think, Oh, this isn't going to work and we stop. And the truth is sometimes it takes a lot of time.

In our episode [00:35:00] about Sabrina Carpenter, we talked about how she had. Five studio albums before getting nominated for a Grammy for best new artist. so by the time you're listening to this, the Grammys will have happened and we'll know if she's a Grammy winner, but it took her five studio albums before getting a best new artist Grammy nomination, which is wild to think about all of that work, all of that effort before getting that sort of recognition. And so when you're creating your content, you can't just give up if it's not working in two weeks. you can't just, well, you can stop, but then you'll never potentially grow. You have to keep going, try things. If something isn't working, try something different. If it's not working on one platform, try another platform, like test and see and figure out and play around.

And that's going to really help you have that growth. The other thing that I see is people, I get it. We, I am busy. I have a lot going on. There's a lot to do, but people want to post and ghost, I think they say. Is that [00:36:00] the phrase? Like they post and ghost. if you post and ghost, don't expect anybody to want to follow you. Especially in your early days, you need to be commenting on other posts. You need to be sending DMs to people. You need to be responding to all of your comments, like, thoughtfully, not just with an emoji, with a follow up question, with with that interaction. That's how people are going to connect with you and find you. And yeah, you probably don't see Amy Porterfield doing that on her posts anymore. She doesn't actually need to at this stage. She probably has a VA that helps with that. I'm sure she does, but, or, you know, a team member or somebody, but in your early days, like you probably have to roll up your sleeves.

Talk to people, engage with people to see that initial growth. And a lot of these huge people started like that. a lot of these big people talk about going live every single day and talking to people and helping people. And if you want to get to that level, you've got to do the work and you know, those two things, giving up too fast or, or refusing to just like do the work and do [00:37:00] that engagement is going to really hinder your success.

Michelle Pualani: I was just advising someone on this I think it's so, so, so important. When I was first getting started, I was listening to a lot of big names in the space and their sales process is so dramatically different than what someone getting started is going to do. And I think there's a huge distinction in there that a lot of people miss.

In the beginning, there is a lot of that scrappiness. There is a lot of conversations in the DMs. There is maybe hopping on more calls. Maybe there's asking more questions, doing more client and customer discovery, really engaging with your audience from an early stage to figure out what some of that messaging is and how you're going to speak to people, the stories that you're going to talk about and how to be relatable.

This. Person is building a sober curious community and she's got like all the technical pieces in place She's got a great event in which she brings leads in she's got a great membership and community She's got great content. Like everything looks beautiful is all buttoned up But she lacks that Connection point.

And I think it's a piece that so many initial [00:38:00] business owners make especially when they're launching in the digital space, they think that like, Oh, if I get a hundred people to sign up for a workshop or webinar, I can sell 10 people into it and they're going to convert. And then I'll be fine. Or I'll, if I get a thousand people into my launch mechanism, then I'm going to translate X number of people.

And then I'll have, this many members and I'll be totally fine financially. But people are dropping out in the sales process. And a lot of times they come back just thinking like, well, I don't know what happened. I had all the metrics, all the numbers were there, but a lot of the connection points, the messaging, those pieces, because they don't fully understand the buyer yet are what's missing.

it's so important to take the time in the early stages and really, leverage this time and celebrate it. Not think like, Oh, I only have 10 people to work with is I have 10 people to invest in with my time, my energy to really learn from so that when I have a hundred people, when I have a thousand people and I can't have that intimate time, it's going to look different, but I'll be happy that I went through these steps.

So I think that is [00:39:00] such great advice. Please listen to that. If you're listening, we'll wrap up in just a moment. But some of the things to kind of think through as you're sustaining your brand over time is knowing that evolution is going to happen. Like things are going to change. Your interests will change.

being able to go from one type of content to another is okay. Like it's okay to pivot. Taylor Swift reinvents her music style. I mean, she used to be in country. And now she's like one of the top pop artists of all time. Like it's okay to reinvent yourself. It's okay to have different things that you focus on knowing that the content of what you produce is going to change.

So knowing that the important foundations of your personal brand are what's really important. And it's going to be the. Through line and people are going to invest in you to consistently use. Feedback is very helpful knowing that you don't have to listen to everyone. Not everyone is going to give you the right feedback for you and where you are in your journey.

And you don't always have to listen to other people's advice, but. If you feel like you're in isolation and you're just like throwing stuff out and you're not really getting it and nothing is really tractioning, it's probably time to talk to [00:40:00] people a little bit more one to one and hear what they're saying so that you can feed into that.

That's a part of content and your strategy. And then thinking about scale in the future. is knowing that you're going to diversify. So again, picking one or two platforms, but then being able to expand that, you know, maybe doing live events at some point, maybe you host retreats, maybe you have one launch mechanism of workshops and webinars, but then you shift to a different format of a challenge.

And just knowing that that's going to be part of the evolution and accepting that as part of the process is super important as you scale and being able to add on layers over time.

So her first is really all about, how, especially women, female founders can establish their personal brand and how they can be successful in their business, especially in the digital space, as they're creating that online. Footprint. thank you so much for tuning in. I hope that you found this valuable.

Take a screenshot. If you're listening, share to social media and tag us, and then go ahead and find the group link below. Join our group, ask for something, find opportunities, engage with [00:41:00] others, and don't be afraid to really relish in the experience, the expertise that you have and what value you're able to bring to the table because I know you have so much of it.

We'll see on the next one.