The Erik Cabral Show

E143: Building Your Brand and Credibility with Lori Sussle Bonanni


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This episode was recorded at an exclusive event called PodMAX where founders had an opportunity to share their stories and knowledge.

Special guest host Todd Giannattasio of Tresnic Media leads the conversation down a path of insights, solutions, and collaboration.

Join us for our next event at www.podmax.co

Lori Sussle Bonanni is the principal and communications consultant at elssus, LLC , a multi-disciplined communications consulting firm. Lori helps companies build and grow their companies to increase awareness, business results, and credibility. In other words, she's a very non-traditional publicist. Today, we're exploring the topic of communications and the journey of being an entrepreneur and starting companies.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

  • Lori’s entrepreneurial journey coming from a corporate job
  • Having a business owner mindset vs. a freelancer mindset
  • The traditional publicist vs. the nontraditional publicist
  • When to do a press release
  • Building a personal brand
  • The first steps to building credibility
  • Her new business: an online job search concierge service
  • Episode Highlights:

    When you implement something and you realize how powerful it is, you sometimes wish you should have done it sooner. And for Lori, the pandemic was a great opportunity for her to focus on herself.

    The Traditional Publicist vs. The Nontraditional Publicist

    Publicity can be doing appearances or sending a press release or whatever it encompasses. Lori calls herself nontraditional, because of her background, which covers PR and business development and she integrated marketing and communications.

    Her pitch is about increasing awareness, business results, and credibility – and there are so many ways to be able to do that so she helps her clients figure out what the right fit is.

    When to Do a Press Release

    A lot of people don't really understand how press release works. No reporter is going to write about a company just because you exist. So you can write a press release about 50 different things. But if there's not a hook, or a story, or news tied to it, you may as well not write it. So you really have to understand what the goal is because it may not be the best avenue and it may not be a story to tell.

    Building a Personal Brand

    Everybody needs a brand. Everybody needs, you know, a platform, I'm not saying go and get, you know, 50 social media handles, but pick a platform, and do it well. Sometimes, executives don't want to write or they may not have time, but you have to put it out there whether that's an article on LinkedIn or as a guest or contributor. So when people google your name, there should be more than just your name that pops up but also your LinkedIn profile and website.

    The First Steps to Building Credibility

    Share your goals in your industry, or about thought leaders you admire and put your own input to it. So if you found an article in Fast Company, you could share that with some commentary and be able to have some thought leadership established in that way. Think about how it all ties back to your business. 

    Resources Mentioned:

    elssus, LLC

    Tresnic Media

    www.virtualinterviewplatinum.com

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    The Erik Cabral ShowBy Erik Cabral

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