Episode 58 – Why You Should Invest in Your Personal Brand

Katie Hankinson (00:00):

Welcome to building while flying a Sasha group podcast, where we interview business leaders about how they tackle challenges, stay resilient and navigate ever changing skies.

Julia Balick (00:13):

Hello, we are back on the building while flying podcast. On this week’s episode, we’re giving you an exclusive look into the Sasha group’s 4D’s, which stands for digital discovery and deep dive. It’s an action packed day full of great speakers, including GaryVee. Here’s a sneak peek into our module on personal branding taught by Jess Morgan who leads social organic creative at the Sasha group.

Jessica Morgan (00:39):

Okay, everyone. Why are you thinking about this building your brand equity? That’s what this is. You could sit in the marketing meetings. You can do your paid meeting, which we do very, very valuable, but your brand equity, isn’t part of the personal branding. We believe that you own your own story, your IP. This is all like when I say you and I mean, your company, your brand, it’s all you like. No one else is controlling this narrative. Um, you control your, the time, the conversation you’re gonna connect directly with your audience. You’re gonna get, you’re gonna be able to retain your own data in reason until you get bigger and bigger, then those other things to do with data. I, um, you create your platforms, what you, you control like what you’re doing, what you’re and what are the endeavors, which we’re gonna get to that we’re gonna get to objective is a big thing about personal branding.

Jessica Morgan (01:33):

Um, clearly the talent you decide, who’s front of show. What is the face of your brands? Um, and then here that says it right here, the ultimate goal build leverage and the right attention and deploy your newfound owned attention towards whatever your objectives are. So through every slide and everything we’re talking about today, we are still talking about brand. We’re still talking about what is the objective of your brand, right? The objective, by the way, I, it could be to become famous, but I’m just gonna go for this stage right now to say, I don’t see anyone in here who like their north star, their goal is to be famous. That’s not what Vayner is. Branding is really about either. We rarely take clients where that’s theirs. Um, that’s their goal. So we’re talking about objective, okay. It’s super easy, right? I’m like, yeah, let’s just go do it.

Jessica Morgan (02:25):

Let’s just go right now and build your personal brands. But how do you do it? How do you even start doing it? First thing is adopting the, my mindset. Next thing is content machine. This one that was all about the content machine. Okay. So the mindset, biggest one. If you remember anything about out this slide, the only thing, if there’s one thing, perfection, poison. Yeah. It’ll kill you. When it comes to your personal brand, we’re not talking your paid media, your billboard on sunset. We’re not TA you know, like, it’s just it’s you gotta like, just let it go. Do we step on an eye and it’s sound in the back. We’re all part of the branding team. Like, do we spend enormous amounts of time working? Yeah, of course. But it’s just like, there’s a churn to it. And the more you’re like, I wanna, I’m gonna, it’s like the resume issue.

Jessica Morgan (03:19):

Right? I have to perfect my resume before I go out and find my job. Well, I’m still working on my resumes resume. I wanna just get it just right. Just get it done. Like who cares about the resume, right? Same thing with your personal, same thing with that perfection thing, personal branding. It’s not selfish. It’s not about me. It’s about the brand. Well, that’s how we’re talking about. And I just want you to like, get that outta your mindset. This is a service to your brand follower account is in everything I mentioned. It’s not anymore Melissa’s followers, but that’s, there’s so much more to it than just followers. It’s a big part of it, but it’s not really, it’s, there’s about sharing and like ability and, and love. We, of course, when we’re working all day long with our clients, looking at following, we’re looking, we’re making sure that it is growing every day, every week, every month.

Jessica Morgan (04:06):

Um, but it’s not, I guess what this is saying is like, it’s really about your mindset. Like you get your mindset, you can’t be obsessed with that part. Cause because it is just, you gotta keep seeing the bigger picture of what you’re building. Okay. Um, be yourself. I that’s the most important thing, personal brand personal, um, and then be intentional, your content and your distribution. Like this is where we’re gonna get again through objective. Like what do you want? Like, let’s be intentional what we’re doing. Okay. Seven mistakes to avoid. Cause this is remembered. Today’s about the basics. Lack of clarity, what you do and why a specific, specific audience should care. Really gotta, we gotta start thinking about those things. Lack of consistency. You wanna do everything you wanna get out there. You wanna talk about this? I wanna be a female entrepreneur. I wanna sell this.

Jessica Morgan (04:53):

I wanna like, you gotta, we gotta like make sure that we are consistent. Um, not being yourself. I, who do I set? And I say this all the time. My background prior to Vayner was in reality TV. And I always say reality TV, never ask an act, a non actor to act same with you guys. Like it’s like, this is whether it’s you or like whoever whomever it is. It’s gotta be about like being authentic. Because right now, out on the platforms, they see three TikTok. You try and act on TikTok. They will slaughter you. Yeah. We fake. Every time we try and fake something, doesn’t go well, um, number one mission is to, cause remember just a reminder, we’re talking about content. When we’re talking about personal branding for your brand is to reverse and engineer you to create the least amount of work and the biggest amount of results.

Jessica Morgan (05:46):

That is something we talk about all day long in the personal branding team at Vayner. It’s like, we’re gonna take some of it off you. This is not to add more work to the brand, right? That’s I mean, clearly if you’re doing it in house, like there’s gonna be a little, but it’s, it’s really about reverse engineering it. Um, which means creating a core engine that we can build a sustainable volume of content that keeps you consistent. So whether it’s once a week, whether it’s, you know, once every other week, even it’s, it’s possible to create content from that. Okay. So how do we reverse engineer you? These are our four squares here. Objectives, audience, strengths, and weaknesses, and your pillar content. Those are the, you gonna fill those in to think about your, um, to create your personal brand. I love this, but I wanna do something really quick before.

Jessica Morgan (06:39):

It’s really cute. Uh, really quick, mad lib. So everyone take out a piece of paper. If you have, think about your brand first word that comes to mind when it comes to your brand. Ready, everyone. First word don’t hesitate. Okay. I wanna make people feel blank. Okay? Okay. I ready. We’re moving on. I want people to blank when they come into contact with my content. Okay. We’re coming up with three words. Get ready. Three words to that. Describe me are the three words that describe me are blank, blank and blank. Okay. Moving on. It’s fine. If you only got you, I don’t want to sound like blank. I don’t wanna sound like blank. Interacting with my followers makes me feel blank. All right. You wanna go? Alice? Sure. Okay, great. I wanna make people feel hard. I want people to blank when they come to blank, feel seen, feel seen when they come to contact with con content.

Jessica Morgan (07:46):

The three words that describe me are real optimistic disruptor. Right? I don’t wanna sound pretentious. Interacting with my followers. Makes me feel invigorated. Love it. Now for Alice I question, is that the brand like the brand or is that Alice? Which I kind of love that. That just happened because you are your brand. Alice is a great example of like the face of your brand, right? You are the, I mean, I don’t wanna compare you cuz who knows. You might sell your company for a hundred billion and not just whatever billion you’re the Sarah Blakely of you. Right.

Katie Hankinson (08:31):

Thanks for joining us for building while flying today. I hope you learned as much as we did. We’ll meet you right back here. Next time for another flight.

Mickey Cloud (08:43):

If you’d like to hear more about how business owners and brands are navigating these times, tune in to the next episode. And if you’re so kind, please rate and review us, plus we’d love feedback. So let us know what you think, what you’d like us to dig into next on building while flying across brands, businesses, marketing and more

Katie Hankinson (08:57):

Original music by Fulton street music group.