In this episode of Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business, we’re talking about how to make your personal brand your Personal Brand Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!
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Strategic Counsel: The Power of Your Personal Brand Series: How to Make Your Personal Brand Your Biggest Competitive Advantage
We just launched our new book! You can grab The Power of Your Personal Brand: A Playbook for Struggling Middle Managers Who Want to Do Big Things on Amazon or at ForthRight-People.com
In the latest installment of The Power of Your Personal Brand Series, we’re talking about how to make your Personal Brand your biggest competitive advantage. When we are in the midst of a middle manager struggle – or any struggle – we have the tendency to doubt ourselves. The imposter syndrome kicks in. Am I really that good? Do I have what it takes? What is wrong with me? The key is to tap into what makes you YOU and modulate appropriately to shift perception. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:
- Job experience is table stakes, not your true differentiator
- How others’ feedback surfaces your competitive advantage
And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.
Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:
Show Notes
- The Power of Your Personal Brand Series: How to Make Your Personal Brand Your Biggest Competitive Advantage
- [00:01] Welcome to Strategic Council by Forthright Business
- [01:22] Imposter syndrome and adopting a persona is not the key to persevering through struggle
- [03:17] Job experience is table stakes, not your true differentiator
- [06:08] Your personal brand is the experience of you — the sum of your characteristics, not your resume
- [09:57] Anne correctly guessing coworkers’ songs by tuning into their personal brand “vibe”
- [13:29] April’s client’s feedback revealed her gift for memorable phrasing
- [17:30] When you’re struggling, it’s a characteristic misfiring, not something wrong with you
- [20:22] Reading the room, checking your appearance/behaviors, and identifying triggers
- [24:58] Anne overcorrecting as a “fixer” in nonprofit volunteering vs. corporate consulting
- [28:15] April wanting to fix things outside her control, and resetting to protect her time/energy
- FAQ
- [32:22] Bringing personal brand into your resume
- [38:52] Why “fake it till you make it” erodes authenticity and trust
- [42:09] Get started by tracking your best/worst moments, asking for feedback, reflecting on your best days
- [46:07] Tactical tip: ask people directly what value they want you to bring to a room
- [47:24] Where to find the book, workbook, and personal brand assessment
- Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
- [48:18] Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn
What is Strategic Counsel?
Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.
Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic.
Transcript
Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
00:01
Welcome to the Strategic Council by Forthright Business podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place. In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team and your business. Now let’s get to it.
00:28
Welcome to the Strategic Council podcast. I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we continue our series, The Power of Your Personal Brand. The series is based on our new book, The Power of Your Personal Brand, a playbook for struggling mental managers who want to do big things. And today we’re going to talk about how to make your personal brand your biggest competitive advantage. Now we talk this a lot as the why behind being intentional in developing your personal brand.
00:57
as well as the impact of fully activating it. So today we’re gonna go into just how powerful your personal brand can be. Yes, when we are in the midst of a middle manager struggle or frankly any struggle for that matter, we have the tendency to doubt ourselves. That imposter syndrome kicks in. The question, am I really that good? Do I have what it takes? What is wrong with me?
01:22
Many times we have seen managers adopt personas thinking that if they can just act like someone who seems to be more successful, they will persevere. But this isn’t the key to persevering. The key is to tap into what makes you you and then modulate appropriately to shift perception. Yes. And just as a side note, even though our book is focused on mental managers, we’ve seen this at all levels. even remember being at P &G and talking to one of my senior executives and they were going through a struggle.
01:51
oh And they were having the same doubts and the same um worries about whether or not they were good enough. this is at every single level. So it’s going to be relevant for all of you guys out there because struggles aren’t just limited to middle managers. That’s right. It’s just the target of the book. Just the target of the book. Make sure we were something to someone. Dang, it’s like we know about marketing. we know this.
02:21
Awesome. All right, so let’s jump in to how to make your personal brand your biggest competitive advantage. All right, first let’s define competitive advantage and what it requires to have one. So your competitive advantage is your ability to differentiate from others in a way that provides value. So inherently in that, you need to have differentiating qualities and they need to be of value. Okay. Makes me chuckle. Makes you chuckle, right? mean…
02:48
If you didn’t get it the first sentence. you know, say it, say it again, say it again. You’ve only said it once. You’ve never said it right. That’s right. And you say a little bit differently because hopefully it resonates. And the reason why this is such an important statement and why you hear us saying it again and again is because many will try to deliver this through their job experience. Right. They feel like that is their biggest differentiating factor. But me and April are here to tell you it is not.
03:17
Right? If you put 10 resumes of ambitious high performers side by side, chances are they’re all very impressive. Right? So if you think that your job experience is your clear differentiating factor that’s going to add value, it’s just the first part of getting your foot in the door. It’s really just the table stakes. It just kind of gets you into the consideration set. We can’t differentiate by job experience alone. We have to bring more to the table. And we’re going to dig and tat in a second. I was going to let April.
03:46
comment on that one. Yeah, mean, you know, joking aside, the statement that I made in the intro about tapping into what makes you you is really what comes into play here, right? And I know we’re going to talk about resumes specifically later, but it occurs to me just as you were going through that piece about the resumes and lining them up next to each other, we get a lot of not necessarily pushback, but uncomfortableness, if that’s a word.
04:14
when we tell people that whether it’s their resume or it’s whatever component or item they need to put forward in order to talk about themselves and what makes them different, the knee jerk is to do the typical resume, write up all the things I’ve accomplished, write up the experiences that I’ve had versus really taking the time to analyze what was it about those experiences that led you to where you are today?
04:44
We’ve said about the book in other episodes and with everyone we talked to, know, identifying your personal brand is not an easy thing to do, but to get at your true competitive advantage, you have to take the time to really ask yourself and answer the question, what is it that makes you you in order to get to a competitive advantage that’s going to matter to people? And on a recent podcast episode, the topic of storytelling came up.
05:11
And I think that’s where this gets to be really, really essential is through a human lens, telling a story of who you are and how you got to where you are and why it matters. I mean, I think that’s so critically important because even if we think our job experience is what differentiates us, everybody struggles to use that as a way to self promote anyway, because they feel like it’s being too like full of themselves and you know, trying to
05:40
it comes off as being like very conceited and all those sorts of things. So it’s kind of like a little bit of an oxymoron. If you feel like your job experience to differentiate you, but you don’t want to use your job experience to differentiate you, there’s inherently something else that people are going to make the decision based on. that’s your job experience isn’t something that’s like at a day-to-day basis either. It is in a resume context. We’re going to talk about that later as April said, but your personal brand,
06:08
And I’m going to give you kind of the punchline first. And I’m going to talk about it here in a second. Your personal brand is the experience of you. That is what your personal brand is. And so that is what you bring to the table. So when people say, well, what else do I bring to the table? If it’s not my job experience, that is it. It’s your personal brand. And if we’re going to be really specific, it is the sum total of your characteristics. Okay. This includes your traits, your beliefs, your values and your points of view. And we have a
06:36
Really great episode on characteristics. If you want to deep dive there, it’s also in the book and in the workbook, it’s going to help you start to articulate those. And so when your experience can look very similar to others, your characteristics are unique to only you. Nobody else has the same traits, beliefs, values, and points of view. And it’s this unique recipe that you can harness to really differentiate yourself from others. It’s again, it’s the experience of you. And as April was starting to get to,
07:06
It’s not just about what you did. It’s about how you did it. How did you make people feel in the process? How were you able to unite a team to generate outcome? How are you able to build relationships that made a difference? All of these questions speak to who you are at your core. It’s what motivated you to do it. What were the intentions behind it? And all of those like emotional engagement factors that create a emotional
07:36
relationship with people in order to get the work done. And motions contribute around 90 % to our decision making. And that’s according to Daniel Kenderman. He has a Nobel Prize winning psychologist and author of this team book, Thinking Fast and Slow, which I think almost everybody has probably read if you’re in the business realm. So it’s reasonable to say that when people are deciding our value, if they’re thinking that, you know, is this a person that I want to
08:01
work with a person I want to promote, person I want to give this career opportunity to, their experience of us may actually be more important than what we actually did. I mean, just think of it for a second. Like when you’re just recalling people, colleagues, bosses, teammates, whoever, you know, you’re thinking about in your professional circle. If somebody’s like, oh, so how is April? You know, what do you think of April? You don’t say, well, April spent
08:28
15, 20 years in creative agency world. then she went on her own and she didn’t know. say, oh, April’s like really cool. She’s super smart. She has a really great creative background. When she comes to the table, she brings tons of really great insights. You don’t give somebody’s resume when you’re starting to, or their experiences in their resume when you’re starting to talk about who people are. You’re giving your experience of what it was like to be with them and how they make people feel.
08:58
when they’re with other people. So that is what starts to build your reputation. That’s what starts building your image. And those are the m impact of your appearance, your behaviors and actions or how your characteristics are manifested. That’s how people remember you. I didn’t know this was going to be a compliment April session. I like this. Oh, well, there you go. I mean, it was easy, I guess, to pull that out because it is so very true. And you’ve spent so much time with me. I have spent so much time with you.
09:27
And we are personal brand experts. So look at that. Oh, I have a funny story to tell about that, by the way, before you answer. Oh, OK. I get nervous when Ann goes off script. You guys all know this by now. All right. And I will give you a chance to answer, but this was funny. So I just came back from this workshop from Modern O’s Academy, which was amazing. And there was this like piece at the end where we had to provide a song that was meaningful to us. OK. And it was they didn’t know who like
09:57
put in the song like our leader Jed, he just put it all into a playlist. I guessed everybody’s right the first time. Holy cow, that’s amazing. And they call me the music shaman.
10:10
And I was like, I mean, how do you do? I’m like personal brand expert right here. I’m like, I, I, I I connected the song with the basically the vibe of the person. Yep. Yeah. And an experience of what I would see, like that person listening to. I was right. Even to the last person where they’re like, well, you know, it’s Sarah and I’m like, yeah, but it’s going to be a woman anthem theme. like, I know it’s going to be a woman anthem theme and it was Taylor Swift. Shake it off. So I’m like, I was just so focused and so tuned in. was like,
10:40
personal brand expert over here, so. Love it. That’s amazing. That’s like one of those, you know, fun fact about me things. Yeah. Yeah. And even though I will say though, Jed. How many people are we talking? 10? Wow. Nine? That’s a lot. But Jed also though, he tricked me because it was down to like three and I was like, it was a song like, oh, that’s Jed’s song. I know it’s Jed’s song. I had a peg from like the first like couple of lines and then he threw me off by like.
11:08
because somebody asked who wrote it and he started mispronouncing the person’s name. And I was like, oh, well, and I guess that can’t be Jed then. But I’m like, I’m sure that’s Jed’s song. So he totally threw me off. So I learned a very important lesson about listening to intuition. uh That was my lesson for the day. I won’t forgive him for messing up my process. All right, so back on the topic. About what people bring to the table.
11:37
What I was going to build here is, you know, in the book, we talk a lot about the value evaluators and the people that are receiving the experience of you. And so you spoke to that, but I just want to make sure to reiterate that point about the fact that their experience of us may be more important than what we actually did. And I was with a coaching client yesterday morning and I bring this up because
12:05
Part of this, if you are stuck in trying to figure out your competitive advantage, conversation with others can be really helpful here. So unsolicited feedback from one of our coaching clients, she said to me, well, she took three pages of notes yesterday. She’s a very good student, but she was like, I don’t know how you do it, but you have this crazy ability to be able to put words to things.
12:35
that then stick in my brain. And then when I’m in situations, I can recall that and I don’t have anybody else that I’ve had that experience with before. And I just find that interesting because it’s been something that I’ve been kind of like mauling over in my brain because I’ve never heard anyone say something that specific to me about the way that I communicate. I mean, I’ve been told like I’m good at like
13:04
telling stories and especially about myself and funny things. I’ve heard people say to me, you were in my head when I did X, but I never fully understood like, what does that mean? Until she said that to me yesterday. And so I bring that up because of one emphasizing the part about it’s not what you did, it’s the experience of being with you.
13:29
but also the value of utilizing others to help you identify your competitive advantage if you’re having a hard time with that. Those inputs can help reframe and even help you like see around blind spots or just experience yourself in a new way that you didn’t know that’s what’s happening when you’re having those interactions. So. Yeah, I think that’s great. mean, well, first I applaud the fact that you’ve, you know, message tracking and you know, you’re using like little like
13:58
people come a bunch of different things, but like little like catchy, sticky phrases and stuff like that, that people then kind of like gets into their brains and they hold onto it. Those are all PR based skills. I know you rubbed off. I guess I’m rubbing off. So I’ll take some credit for your characteristic. You were embracing people’s brand character experience and I’m embracing PR. I mean, look at that. Yeah, right. Like, look at us go.
14:25
I think that it’s really important because when people’s feedback does really help, and I’m going to get to this in a second about how to define what’s the differentiating factor. And then the first thing, and we’ve said this a million times that people are going to say is like, yeah, well, it’s nothing special. ah But it is special, especially when you combine it with other things, because we don’t just have like one characteristic that we’re operating. We have this recipe, we have multiple different characteristics, again, which is the sum
14:52
of our points of view, our values, our beliefs, our traits. So that what the coaching client is resonating with is a point of view from April. And that starts to get attributed to her. And then when she starts to kind of collectively pull these things together and she starts to show up consistently like that with people, even though she modulates based on who she’s talking to, she starts to develop that image, that reputation becomes the experience of her, right?
15:19
that’s really important to be intentional to take those little nuggets and be like, oh, well, that’s interesting. I wonder if that’s how other people think. And then that becomes a bit of a superpower or characteristic that you can start leveraging. And so then when people are like, hmm, who do I need to go talk to in order to kind of work through this? like, know what? April gives really good intentional thoughts that really helped me to kind of figure out how to go forward next. I’m going to go talk to April.
15:46
That’s the competitive advantage. That’s what allows April to actually make money coaching. So, and when people talk about it to others, that’s what they’re going to say. And so it becomes your word of mouth marketing in addition to attributes that you can leverage in order to add value. this, hopefully you guys are kind of seeing how this all knits together into a competitive advantage. Now, because April, I mean,
16:10
The foot in the door was the fact that April’s been coaching for so many years and she has that experience and those are that’s the foot in the door. That is not what is selling people on whether or not they should use April as a coach. Right? Definitely not. Right. I only get paid if they succeed. That’s what I tell them. Oh, well, I don’t know if I agree with that. Well, I. uh
16:38
I’m uniquely in a position that my sole goal is to be in their corner. I make money being a coach because of that unique positioning. Not that they don’t have to pay their bills. That’s true. That’s probably not exactly the right way. Yeah, because we’re going have everybody that says, I wasn’t successful April, so therefore I don’t have to pay you.
17:00
Wait just a second. This is where my directness that leans into scariness sometimes comes into play. And then I will say, really, do we want to go down that road? And then it’s like, no, I don’t want to. to. Don’t need that side of your experience. Scary April. All right. So then, you know, we obviously then get the question. So what do I do then when I’m struggling? Right. So the answer to that is you rely on your personal brand.
17:30
When you’re struggling, generally means that there is an element of your characteristics that you’re misfiring or you’re over indexing. Again, this is not something bad. It’s just not getting you to your goals. It’s not getting you towards your big thing and it could work really well in other situations, but in the situation you’re in with the people you’re with, it’s just not working. And it’s really as simple as that. Okay. So the first thing you do, cause we’re going to give you like the little formula here.
18:00
is you need to read the room. You really need to workshop yourself and you need to think about how you are showing up. This is not the easy part. This is the part where it’s like, have to admit some things about myself that may or may not, it may or not like, or may or not appreciate, or may make me very uncomfortable, or may make me feel very vulnerable. But you have to do it if you want to be able to be effective in exercising your competitive advantage. So you think about
18:30
Okay, how am I showing up? What reaction are people having to me in this situation? What are they saying behind my back? That is always a good one. When you start hearing the scuttlebutt of what’s happening and people start talking about you behind their back, ah that is a really good indicator of what might be going on that you may not be totally in tune to. So define it. Make sure you’re very clear and define it. And then think about then how people are reacting to it.
18:59
Are people getting defensive? Are they shutting down? Are they behind your back, are they saying that you’re very abrasive? Or maybe on the other hand, they’re saying you’re too passive. Do you feel like you’re not being listened to? mean, be really honest here. It’s really important to really kind of understand what’s going on. And then you’re going to do some self-diagnosing about how you’re showing up. So you’re to think about what appearance factors and behaviors and actions may be eliciting this response.
19:30
Right? Because remember we say your characteristics are manifested through your appearance and behaviors and actions. That’s how people are experiencing you, are experiencing your characteristics. So are you always late? Do you stand or sit in a defensive posture? Are you being respectful of input? Are you being too wishy washy? So you have to kind of think about, you kind of already know it. The hardest part is just acknowledging it, but most of the time you already know it.
19:59
And then if it’s not something that is inherently like obvious, then you should be asking people, hey, how did you receive me in that meeting? How did I show up in that meeting? What do you think is getting in my way? And sometimes when things actually go well too, not even like in the struggle, but you know, think about on the other side, how, why did this go better?
20:22
How did I show up in a way that then did forward my agenda and my mission here or had people react to me in the way that I intended them to react to me? So think about it on the other way too and be very specifically oriented around the fact of whether or not you’re being triggered. Okay, cause this throws everything off. So are you in a situation that’s causing you stress? Are you required to interact with people you don’t care for? Are you feeling intimidated?
20:49
Sometimes there’s consistent responses to certain situations, certain people, certain circumstances that kind of elicit an automatic response that starts to be seen as consistent. And when people start seeing that consistent behavior show up, they think it’s you. They think that that is one of your characteristics, whether you intended to it or not, or intended for it or not. So you have to be really aware. And then you need to think about then
21:18
and I’m going to get to this in a second, but I’m going to take a break here and let April respond about how are you going to address it? Yeah. So I think the big thing here is I said it before, identifying and then leading through your personal brand is not easy work to do, but it is extremely powerful work when you have it. And one of the places that I think it’s
21:44
hardest for people to come back to it is when they are in this struggle, like you said. And so, you know, as human beings, right, like we don’t like critical feedback. We don’t want to have to turn that mirror on ourselves and look at it and say, you to blame everybody else. Yeah, I want to say that’s that’s an M problem, right? That has nothing to do with me. I didn’t do anything. But I think the really. Healthy.
22:13
side of this is to be able to be so in tuned with your personal brand that when you are hitting a struggle, it becomes a natural sort of more objective view about what is going on, which is why we offer up so many different questions to ask yourself, the idea of asking other people, workshopping yourself when you come out of a situation that doesn’t go so well. Because at the end of the day, we are human beings.
22:41
and we don’t get everything right. That’s the definition of being a human being, right? So I think if you can put yourself into more of an objective place where you’re gonna be curious and operating more as a problem solver with the idea of ultimately getting better or getting through on the other side, that’s the right mindset to take in order to tap in in a way that is helpful and useful.
23:09
Yeah, I think that’s really, really well said because what people will tend to do, as you said, April, is hunker down and get very indignant and very defensive. And they don’t want to hear what other people have to say and they blame everybody else. they, you know, it’s a them problem. And if that’s going to be your response, you will not grow. um You will not get your big things because frankly, other people hold the keys to your big things. That’s just the way it is.
23:37
And if you’re not willing to engage with people in a way that they can hear you, then your competitive advantage, matter how good you are, and from an experience standpoint or a talent standpoint, it’s just not going to persevere. So you have to be very mindful of that. And people who are flexible there and are gonna be like, I mean, it doesn’t feel good, you guys. I’m not gonna say, can avoid yourself of emotion. I mean, you come out of some of these meetings and I mean, it’s…
24:05
really gut wrenching and heart wrenching and soul wrenching all at the same time. But once you give yourself a chance to process the emotion, your next question should be, okay, what did I learn from this and going through that process we just outlined? Because the solution is to pull from your other characteristics. Yes. Pull in another trade, value, belief or point of view to counteract it. You don’t have to go act like somebody else. You don’t have to smother whatever it is you’re doing.
24:34
You just modulate what that one is and you pull in something else that can be beneficial in this situation that’s still aligned with your personal brand. And a lot of people are like, well, you know, I’m just, you know, very direct person. don’t know how else to be. It’s like, yes, you do. You always have one. It’s just whether or not you choose to acknowledge and exercise it. So,
24:58
me and April thought we’d bring some stories to the table in order to articulate this because we find it helpful when we tell on ourselves in order for it to be relevant for you. And so I’ll start and then I’ll ask April to step in. So situationally, I mean, I’ve done quite a bit of work now with nonprofits, both from a client standpoint and from a volunteering standpoint. And I don’t want to like stereotype nonprofits, but they tend to be a little bit
25:28
softer when it comes to the people in the business side and that is just by nature the way that those nonprofits operate. So I’m not judging it, I’m not saying anything about it and I’m not saying it’s bad or good or anything. I’m just saying a statement and you can disagree with me if you feel like it but this is just Anne’s POV here because what it does is it triggers an innate desire to want to fix and make better.
25:56
So I’ll come in sometimes a little hot to like fix and build, fix and build. I want to infuse my point of view, my ideas, my suggestions. And everybody on the other side just like, we just wanted you to come in and volunteer and help, you know, do this act, you know, the service oriented event and, you know, make these people feel good. And I’m like, oh And so automatically then, you know, as a result, people start getting an impression about me. Oh, she comes in, she’s.
26:25
just really hot, she’s telling us all these things, she thinks we’re doing everything wrong, she’s not really taking any of our direction. I that’s not the impression I want people to have of me. And it’s not really representative of my personal brand. So that fixing and building works really well when I’m going into a client to do strategic action planning, not so well when I’m going into a nonprofit or a philanthropic venture. what I wanted…
26:54
have to pull upon is like, what other characteristics do I have within my recipe that is going to help in this situation? Because my intentions are good, but when I read the room, it’s like, well, they really, like I said, they just want somebody who’s going to come in, kind of service the people in a way that’s going to help these people. And they already have their own systems and their processes. They just want me to work within the systems and processes.
27:21
And so the characteristics I pulled it to the forefront is wanting to be of service. I do. That is the whole reason why I’m there. That’s actually why I want to fix the bill. I feel like I’m being of service, but that’s not the of service that they need. The of service they want me to do is just to come here and ask, how can I help? And if it’s like a menial task, do the menial task. If I feel like it’s super efficient and efficient, and I’m like, there’s 20 million different ways of doing this better, or it could be like this and it’d be like,
27:49
Nope, that’s not what they’re looking for right now. They’re looking for service, right? And so my struggle there, and this is where I have to be really honest with myself is the impact that they need for me looks different sometimes than the impact that I want to generate. And that’s just the nature and the rules of engaging here. And that’s the important part of reading the room. I think that’s a good one. Thank you.
28:15
So we have talked and everyone that listens knows this about me that I really love coaching. And the reason that that fulfills me is because part of my personal brand is around being empathetic. Another part of my personal brand, which Ann and I both share, she calls herself a fixer. I look at mine more as like a problem solving thing, right? Now.
28:40
there’s been a few instances, more on the personal side of my life, but in recent weeks where I really wanted to be empathetic and fix things for people and they were not mine to fix. And so what I realized about myself is that I feel very powerless.
29:07
in situations where I know something is wrong. I think the mama bear comes out in me and the oldest child and all those things to want to jump in and fix it on behalf of others. But when I don’t have any control or the ability to do so, it kind of puts me in a bit of a spiral. And I realized that that’s where it causes my anxiety to spike because I know the answer.
29:36
I know how to fix it. I want to do it on behalf of my people. And yet none of those characteristics are any help to me in that situation. And so for me, I realized that I have to take a step back and take a step out and reground myself and have the conversation with myself that my energy and my time
30:04
are the two things that I have that I can control. And I have to almost hit a reset button in order to get myself back to the more objective side of my personality, which is what I think my directness is born out of, right? Which is the other work that I love to do around things like organizational development. In this instance, it’s not that, but it’s more of turning on that different characteristic, pulling myself emotionally out.
30:32
and getting really clear and objective about my role in situations without any emotion tied to it in order to hit the reset in a way that can be effective versus going into a swirl where those other characteristics are not, while they’re great in other instances, in those instances, they do not work on my behalf. That’s a good one too, because it’s pairing me, like the traits with a belief.
30:59
So it kind of gives a multiple, like a multiple different facets for how these characteristics can work. mean, April, I mean, if I’m speaking for you, your belief is like to protect your time and your energy. Like it’s important belief that we, you you need to protect your time and energy. So that’s what you’re pulling forward. It’s like, it is protecting my time and energy because I’m spiraling right now and I’m in, you know, in anxiety mess. And so what characteristic is going to help to
31:29
and nullify these feelings that I’m feeling, right? So this is why I think it’s so important that you look at characteristics in that full totality, because a lot of times people are just like, oh, my characteristics are just adjectives of how I describe myself, right? So I think that really like, really emphasizes that your characteristics are these beliefs, to your point of view about how you see the world or what is important to you.
31:57
April about the fact that, you know, she goes in and her point of view is about honoring the people that she’s with and making sure that she’s there for them. But then the other, the counter to that is making sure she’s protecting her energy in the process. So hopefully you guys are getting like the whole kind of mix. And if you need more, again, more detail about all these different characteristics, the podcast episode, the book are really good references for that.
32:22
Okay, so we alluded to this, but we thought it might be beneficial to talk through some FAQs when it comes to personal brand that we get. So, all right, without further ado, how do you do this on a resume? And this is a really important question because we said like your experience is kind of your first foot into the door. And so you want to put your best foot forward, right? If I can use a couple, smush together a couple of metaphors.
32:50
And so I’ve done a lot of research, I’ve do a lot of resumes and the thing that I’m really encouraging people to do and some of it’s controversial, but I encourage people to make your resume multidimensional. Now, what do I mean by this? Okay, first of all, your opening statement, you should always have an opening statement and your opening statement isn’t just a summary of all your experiences. Your opening statement says something about who you are at your core. It says something about who you are, your characteristics, your points of views, your beliefs, your traits.
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all of those sorts of things, your values that defines your core, that defines the experience that people have of you. It encapsulates your competitive advantage. So people are gonna work with you. This is who they can expect to get. It can be very hard to write this about yourself. I get it. But you have to at least try. You can use AI to kind of refine it and finesse it, but don’t let it override your voice, okay?
33:49
Be honest with yourself about what the experience is like being with you, working with you. Okay, that’s your opening statement. I also highly encourage, again, it’s very controversial and it makes everybody cringe to put a picture. A picture humanizes the resume and everybody’s like, oh, I don’t know, people see me and they think I look old and I’m like, they’re gonna know that anyway. I mean, as soon as they meet you in person, if you get through the first stage,
34:16
They’re going to see you and they’re going to know how old you are. They’re going to know what race you are. They’re going to know all this stuff about you, right? I think the benefit outweighs the risk because I feel like it humanizes the resume and people can look at somebody and kind of get a feeling for them. And I think it helps to differentiate when there’s nobody else having a picture on a resume. I also think it’s important to include what you like to do outside of work or the side gigs you have because I think it’s
34:46
It helps people kind of see how again, how multi-dimensional you are. It helps people see, well, if they’re a runner and they’ve competed in two marathons, they have pretty good work ethic. mean, they know how to train, they’re diligent about that. know how to do hard things. It helps people get a context about you outside of what you just do or what you’ve just accomplished.
35:10
Something else is controversial, but I’m starting to really debate it. And I think I’m going to start to really encourage people to do it is putting testimonials on your resume. So we do it everywhere else. We do it on websites. We do it on social media. Why not put a couple of testimonials about what it’s like to work with you or what people have to say about what it’s like to work with you on your resume? And I think that just helps to add again, another dimension, another third party that again, looks differentiated on the page.
35:37
but then also speaks to somebody else’s words that they have used to describe you, right? So, and those should not just be about the work you’ve done, but how it was like, or the experience it was like working with you. Resumes are such a tricky thing, right? And in a lot of ways, I think they can come across really antiquated. Yeah. And it is really hard to stand out on a page.
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And so I think where people go in their heads is that there is a specific quote unquote way to write a resume that’s ingrained from the first time they wrote a resume at whatever point in their career, right?
36:14
I guess my perspective on it when we suggest these things to people is what can it hurt? In my mind, it can only help because you’re doing something different. You’re breaking a mold that exists. You talked at the beginning about you put 10 high achieving resumes next to each other. How do you even pick? There’s nothing human about that experience. So in this instance, I’m like,
36:42
why wouldn’t you try to break the mold of something that again, I think in a lot of ways is very antiquated and make yourself jump off the page to use it as reference to where people are like, huh, that was interesting. I wonder why they did that, right? And then it helps you stand out. It piques their curiosity. And if it’s the right company, I believe, and they’re hiring for aptitude and all of those, and the experience of you and all those things,
37:11
It can only help. I totally agree. one other additional bills, I would include statements um that articulate what people think of you as a coworker, leader or manager of others. A lot of people lead these things up. say that, you know, in their experiences, they’ll say they lead, you know, they manage and all those sorts of things is really important. Or my favorite one.
37:35
I lead a team of 15 individuals like, whatever. I don’t care if it’s 10 or 20 or a hundred. That doesn’t say you lead them well. Exactly. if whatever data you have there, it’s like consistently ranked as, the most, the manager, the people want to work for. on the latest employee survey, um, I got, you know, a nine out of 10 from my, my team, my team that said, um, I was a great manager to work for. I I,
38:03
part of the culture team that helped to evolve the culture from something that was not so great to something that was better. So start to definitely include those. Those are really important factors where people can see how you are as a people person, like the people manager, leader, teammate, all those sorts of things. Those are really, really important pieces to add as well. But don’t leave them arbitrary. I’m going to get off my high horse on this. Because people don’t really care how many people you’ve managed or how many people you led.
38:33
They want to know what kind of leader you are. Agree. Again, humanize it. Humanize it. Okay. The next one, isn’t it better just to fake it until you make it? This one just lights me on fire. I know. I’m going to let you do this one because I knew it would. You get to start and I’ll give my commentary.
38:53
Yes. So I always say that when we wrote the book, we analyzed 23 other books and they fell into two camps. Either you’re supposed to build your personal brand like you would a product, which makes no sense because you already exist. Or you should build it based on a persona of what you want to look like, whether or not that’s inherently anything to do with who you are or what makes you uniquely you or any of those things.
39:20
you know, and you’re just supposed to fake it till you make it and somehow miraculously one day you’re going to turn into that person of the persona that you have created. And it makes me completely crazy because there is absolutely no authenticity or consistency or vulnerability or any of the things that make up the experience of each of us. And it just makes you a moving target for people because they have zero idea what to expect from you while you try out
39:49
being like, you know, Bob, your next door neighbor, or Tom on the team at work, whoever you’re trying to mirror or mimic, or whatever celebrity you decided this morning you want to wake up to be like. I mean, it’s just, it’s a futile effort. It’s terrible advice and I hate it. So there you go. Woo. No one can see my face, but my cheeks got red, which tells you how mad it makes me. Just such bad advice.
40:18
I know, I know. And it’s usually then like, you you have to remember where those feelings are coming from when you feel like you need to fake it to your make. And it’s usually again, imposter syndrome, insecurity, of confidence. Yeah. Right. And again, this is opportunity to go back into your personal brand and think about how do I want to show up to create the value that my competitive advantage really exemplifies because
40:45
There is a reason why you’re there. There is a differentiating factor that people see. And when you diminish that or minimize it because of your insecurity, you’re basically telling people they were wrong. And basically, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? So don’t feed into that. And don’t try to pretend that or try to fool people.
41:11
They know what they’re probably getting. be that person that is the reason why they put you in that seat, which is probably aligned with your personal brand. If it’s not, if you faked it till you made it and put yourself in a position that you can’t do, that’s another factor for another day. But generally that’s not the case. Generally it is our own feelings of insecurity that are making us feel like we don’t belong or
41:42
some other context of that that’s making us vulnerable. So go back to your personal brand, think about the strengths, think about the, we can read the room, think about the value it can bring, know that everybody, everybody has some element of doubt and insecurity. And so that is consistent across the board. Just exercise your ability to be able to bring something powerful to that room, that competitive advantage that is you, the experience of you.
42:09
Yes. So one of the ones we get is how do I get started on my personal brand if I’ve never done this work before? I’ve already given you the disclaimer that this is not necessarily easy work, right? Plug here for the book. And we have a whole playbook on our website that can help guide you through the work as you read the book so that you can practically apply what you’re reading to your own personal brand. But there are some additional things that help you
42:37
dip your toe into the water of getting started. And Anne said, right, your characteristics are inherently who you are and they’re very ingrained in you. But the way you appear through your behaviors and actions, those behaviors and actions are the things that are often much easier for people to identify. So one of the exercises right off the bat that I always assign people is for a couple of weeks, a few times a week, take 10 minutes.
43:05
Identify three to four times you showed up the way you wanted to and three to four times you didn’t and don’t overthink it. Or three to four times that you got what you wanted and three to four times you didn’t, right? There’s different ways to think about that lens. And then after a couple of weeks, two to three weeks, go back and look for themes in those. And those usually start to pop and rise to the top, right? And Anne gave you some questions earlier on in the episode of Things to Ask Yourself.
43:32
once you get to that point of like how and why did this happen, right? Another thing that I say to do immediately is to ask people that you would take their advice for feedback on how you are showing up. And this can be because it’s personal brand, right? It can be people in your personal life. It can be people in your professional life. It can be people that you worked with before in other roles. can be, you know, anyone that you would take their advice are people that you want to hear feedback.
44:02
from. And we’ve said, and this is part of the reason of that struggle that we talk about, it can be hard for people to be candid and transparent and honest with feedback, especially if it’s tough feedback. But make sure you make the ask through that lens and then give them the allowance to give you that feedback, right? Like you’re not looking for always like the greatest thing I ever did, right? It can be areas of improvement. can also be
44:31
areas you show up really well, of course, but ask for that feedback. And then the other thing is to do kind of a on my best day. want to show up as now. This is not the persona and I’m not going to revisit what I just said about all of that. But this is more of when was the day that I felt the most confident or what is something that I’m most proud of? Or, you know, when I do this on repeat, I feel really good about how I’m showing up.
45:01
These types of exercises help you to start to think about what your characteristics might be and why, but they can be more activity-based so it doesn’t feel so overwhelming to get started. And the last thing that I always say is please just start. Start somewhere. Do not buy the book and download the workbook and do what I’m doing currently with my sketch pad and pencils and just look at it every day. Do something.
45:29
to make yourself start because what I will promise is that while it does take some, a lot of reflection, some unraveling decisions, all of those things, it feels so good when you start to make traction against it and truly understand who you are at your core and why, and then how to put that to work so that you can accomplish those big things we talk about. Yeah, you’re testing and learning yourself, right? Yep, absolutely.
45:56
Well, and then when you brought up the feedback point, that was another good way to actually help if you having in that imposter syndrome loop and you’re trying to quote unquote, fake it till you make it. Um, you can be very strategic to you and how you do this. I’ve done this multiple times when I’ve been in rooms, I feel like are a little big for me. I’ll go up to somebody and you have to be strategic about who you’re picking, but it’d be like, Hey, um, I just want to know in this situation, this context for this, whatever this, is.
46:25
How can I be of most value here? Like, what are you looking for me to bring to the table here just so I know and I can be really intentionally focused on delivering that value? Let people tell you. um So then you’re not sitting here kind of wondering, well, what am I going to do? What am going to say? How am I going to be useful? People, again, people already have brought, if they invited you to the room, they know, they have a reason why they invited you to the room. And I use the room in a physical context, not a metaphorical context too.
46:55
So you shouldn’t assume that you’re just there by happenstance. You are there for a reason. And ask people, like I said, you be really strategic about it without being like, why did you invite me? Why am I here? Why do you like me? do you want to be my friend? Which is what we’re feeling inside. But you can be very strategic in the way that you position that. So I wanted just to bring up that point. It’s all about the expectations. Yep. We went through a lot.
47:24
Okay. So how to harness your personal brand into your competitive advantage. We define your competitive advantage. We define it as your ability to differentiate from others in a way that produces value and provides value. Remember, that’s all about the experience of you. That’s what you’re bringing to the table. Yes, your experiences are the foot into the door and we explain how you can even emphasize those through a much more multidimensional, much more human resume, but
47:54
Recall and remember when you’re unsure that it is those characteristics that recipe that those characteristics or recipe that’s really coming to the forefront through your parents and behaviors and actions. That’s really creating a reputation, really creating that image. And it’s what’s sticking in people’s mind about how you’re creating value. So really hone in on that. And when you get stuck, do that diagnostic against yourself, workshop yourself, read the room.
48:21
go through, you know, in figuring out why people are reacting the way they are, do all of that hard work because it’ll be helpful in order for you to start to build up other characteristics and bring others to the forefront so that you can be flexible in these situations. And then come back to that when you’re struggling and use that as your grounding factor. Cause remember, if you’re struggling, it’s not because there’s something wrong. It’s because
48:47
one of your characteristics is misfiring or over indexing. That’s simply what it is. It’s just not getting you to your goal. So don’t put on that persona. April will come get you. You saw how passionate she is. She’ll know. Hone in on that personal brand. All right. So again, the book, The Power of Your Personal Brand, a playbook for struggling middle managers who want to do big things. Again,
49:13
We hone in on middle managers. It is very beneficial. We’ve heard very beneficial to anybody in a corporate quote unquote structure that is going through a struggle, which happens at all levels. It’s available on Amazon or there’s a link on our website for threat-people.com. And that’s also where you can download the workbook, the company workbook and also a personal brand assessment that helps you kind of understand where you are right now. It’s a good tool.
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do it now and then you do it after you’re going through the book and kind of see how it changes. All right. Now with that, we encourage you to take at least one powerful insight you’ve heard and put into practice because remember strategic counsel is only effective if you put it into action. Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further? Reach out to us through our website, forthright-people.com. We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business and make sure to follow or subscribe to strategic counsel on your favorite podcast platform.