The BRAND New You Show - A Personal Branding podcast

Once you’ve started blogging people are going to ask, "Who’s your audience?”

You will hear this a lot, “Who is your audience?’ or “You need to write for your audience.”

Everywhere you look online someone has a tutorial, blog post or video promising to help you define your audience, develop your customer personas, speak your customer’s language, etc.

And I agree, you do need to understand who your audience is but I promise you taking a course to help you find your audience as you get started blogging, isn’t going to help you.

In fact, it might hurt.

You need to reach a certain level of competence with yourself and your craft before courses or memberships like these will be of any use to you.

Until then, these courses will only serve to confuse and frustrate you, which will cause you to delay or worse case, stop before you even get started.

Don’t let this be you.

Yes, you do need to have some idea of who you believe your ideal reader to be when you get started.

However, what is more, important and fundamental to your success initially, is the topic or subject matter you want to become known for.

As I’ve said before You need to be “excited” about your topic or area of expertise. You need to have a good baseline understanding of your topic.

This will make it easier for your ideas to flow from your head to your fingertips to the keyboard to the screen just to the left of the blinking cursor.

Being excited about your area of expertise will keep you going as you move along the path to building your own brand because the simple truth is, in the beginning, you will have no audience.

There will be no one paying attention for to ask what to write about or what problem you can help them solve.

Instead of having someone to lean on for topics or ask about their pain points, there will only be you, your ideas and your computer.

That’s why I believe it’s so important when starting out, not to write for an audience but to write for yourself instead.

Today's show is hosted by my son Seth Rhoten. I am his guest.

Seth expressed interest in the podcast so I decided to encourage his interest by letting him host the show.

The day this show releases he and I will actually be on a cruise ship in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

There is some branding advice in this show but it's mostly just fun and a growth opportunity for my son.

I'll be back next week talking to Rachel Sobel from http://whineandcheezits.com

If you’ve listened to this podcast for any length of time, you know I’m a huge proponent of having your own website.

In fact, I think it’s a must have today for any business professional. If you want to be taken seriously that is.

At the very least I recommend you own your domain meaning you go purchase your first name last name dot com.

Why? Because it’s important. You can listen to the BYOB episode on how to build your personal brand, for my specific reasons.

In the age of the Internet, a website is a critical tool for both businesses and individuals.

As an individual, a website allows you to control what people find about you online. In addition, it can serve as a one-stop-shop for all things YOU.

If used properly, it can also give you a leg up on your competition.

what’s interesting is The problem that most people have with starting a website is not so much the technical stuff,

which I can help with by the way,

but it’s really the “what” that they struggle with the most.

Chances are if you’re like the majority of people I speak with about starting a blog you are probably thinking to yourself right now,

“Ok. But what should I put on it?”

I get asked this question a lot. People want to know what they should blog about on their own website.

This might be the single biggest obstacle to getting started.

And like everything else in the DICE process, the answer to the WHAT is simple but it’s not easy.

If this is you rest assured I have some suggestions to get you started. So here are three high-level categories you can choose but ultimately what you decide to write about on your blog, should be aligned with Discover step and what you want to be known for.

Ryan Ahlwardt is a singer, songwriter, arranger and alumnus of the world-renowned ten-man A capella singing group Straight No Chaser.

So far over his musical career Ryan has collaborated with artists such as The Beach Boys, Barry Manilow, Shania Twain, The Temptations and many, many more.

He has appeared on the Macys Thanksgiving day parade, The Today Show and Late Night with Jimmy Falon.

Ryan got started in music in the 7th grade when he began playing his mom's guitar. He learned how to play from an early mentor, in his church youth group.

Turns out relying on mentors for advice and guidance would become a common theme for Ryan throughout his music career.

Ryan's singing career however really got started as an innocent joke, when he and some friends decided to try out for the choir.

Turns out the joke was on him because the choir teacher needed all the male voices she could find. They all made the choir.

This turned out to be a pivotal decision for Ryan because it was in choir where he was able to find his niche.

He ended up staying in choir and on stage throughout high school but it was the guitar that really kept him going and peeked his artistic talents.

While Ryan enjoyed playing and performing in the choir he never really considered it as a possible profession.

But there was one moment in his choir days Ryan and I talk about when he started to think maybe, just maybe there might be something to this music thing.

During high school, Ryan was a football player or, at least, he was on the team. While he enjoyed the Friday night lights, he started to realize that he was having much more fun in the choir.

So he decided to tell his parent and coaches he was going to hang up the cleats. What happened next would have a profound impact on Ryan's mindset.

In his first performance after giving up his jersey, there in the front two rows sat his former football teammates. His coaches had arranged for them to attend as a show of support.

From that point, Ryan started to come into his own and over the next few years he really pushed himself more and more into singing and performing.

With every performance, Ryan's confidence and skill continued to grow but he still hadn't completely turned the corner on music as a profession, in fact, he went to college to study marketing.

Ryan's introduction to the group Straight No Chaser (SNC) came after his mom brought home a CD of the group after watching them perform at Indiana University.

Ryan was immediately hooked.

A few months later while planning to sing with the choir at the Valentines day dance, he reached out to SNC to ask for permission to sing some of their songs for the dance.

Included with the songs was a note telling Ryan when and where auditions for the group would be held. And so it was that in the 2nd semester of his senior year Ryan auditioned for SNC and made the group.

Ryan sang for SNC throughout college and he graduated with a marketing degree. Still not looking at singing as a profession, his path at that time was to find a job in marketing.

As fate would have it, networking played a part in the next season of Ryan's career. While still in college, one of Ryan's former bandmates had been working as a singer on a cruise ship.  On a whim, he deiced to talk to the director of entertainment on the ship and offered a suggestion about potential entertainment.

As it happens the director was looking to book some bands that had been playing together for awhile and told Ryan's former bandmate to put together a group.

So he contacted Ryan and a few other alumni of SNC and asked them if they would like to sing on cruise ships for the first 6 months out of college.

Of course, they said y

What do you want to be known for?

Have you ever thought about it? The truth is most of us don’t.
When I ask this question to clients most of them look at me like I’m crazy.

Or they start their answer off with “ Well, I went to school to be a…” whatever.

When the answer starts this way, I know, the question they are really answering is “what are you known for today”.

Today I’m an accountant, an engineer, a program manager, a lion tamer etc.

Maybe your current position is what you want to be known for. If this is you great! fantastic you probably love your job and enjoy getting up to go to work in the morning.

If this doesn’t describe you and I'd venture to say the majority of you listening fall into this category, then what it is you want to be known for?

Like everything else in the Discover step, finding the answer to this question takes a lot of self-reflection and self-awareness.

You will not arrive at an answer overnight but if you’ve doing the action items from the previous BYOB worksheets you might be starting to get an idea as to what your answer could be.

As we close in on wrapping up the Discover step let’s quickly review where we’ve been.

So far we’ve discussed your brand at a high level. You’ve maybe taken a couple of assessments to determine your strengths.

You’ve identified your skills and traits and hopefully, you’ve even sent emails to your trusted advisors.

You took the time to list out all of your past positions and captured what you did at each position and you really enjoyed.

As I pointed out previously you should now start seeing yourself differently. You might even recognize the times when you exhibit your strengths and the times when you aren’t.

So what now?

Now it’s time to tie everything together and take a good hard look at the future you.

Matt Inglot is the owner of Tilted Pixel and producer of the Freelance Transformation.

Tilted Pixel is a 9-year-old web agency Matt started while in college.

Freelance Transformation, is a podcast devoted to helping people in creative services TRANSFORM their business.

On Freelance Transformation, Matt helps fellow consultants and creative service providers earn more and build a business around their lifestyle, rather than the other way around.

Matt started out his career like so many of us do. He went to college and was on track to get that coveted “real world” job when he decided to take a part-time job doing marketing for a virtual reality company.

It was in this position where Matt’s outlook on work and life would change. This change started after he discovered one morning that his key card no longer worked to get him in the building.

Turns out, he, along with a third of the company, had been let go.

Fortunately for Matt, he was able to fall back on his website development skills and, as a result, Tilted Pixel was born.

Matt and I spent time talking to the listeners who may be interested in starting a consulting business or becoming a freelancer.

Matt has “been there, done that” so he understands the fear of the unknown, the problem with taking bad clients, and the feelings of not being to provide for your family.

He offers us 3 distinct ways you can overcome these fears including,

- Worse Case scenario
- Minimize the downside
- Do your homework

Freelance Transformation is Matt’s podcast. It releases every Monday on iTunes and Stitcher and all the other pod catchers out there.

It’s a Monday staple for me. You can check out it HERE.

The Best ways to get in touch with you are

Bonus Link: freelancetransformation.com/brandnewyou

Twitter: MattInglot

Building your Personal Brand is as easy as rolling the DICE. Today's show is the audio file from my presentation at WordCamp Dayton this past weekend. If you've never been to a WordCamp I highly recommend you go.

WordCamps are a great place for you to network, hone your public speaking skills and, of course, learn about WordPress.

Today's podcast is a great example of how you can repurpose the content you create. I talk about this during the presentation. Other topics covered include:

- Personal brand vs. Personal branding
- How to integrate your offline self online
- The 3 types of content
- Why you need to create and curate content
- Why you need a website
- How your online profile can work against you
- Why you need to own your domain
- The importance of engagement

Chris Russell is the founder of Career Cloud.com

Chris, a digital recruiting consultant, recruiting blogger and HR Tech Advisor has been connecting job seekers to employers since 1999.

His experiments in the online recruiting space which has earned him the moniker of the mad scientist of online recruiting.

Chris has founded several recruiting tech startups, and various job boards, including a very successful local job board network, called AllCountyJobs.com which he sold in 2012.

When he’s not running Career Cloud you can find him on his kayak or biking on the local trails in Connecticut.

CHRIS RUSSELL CAREER CLOUD RADIO

Chris has been podcasting since 2007. From them till now, he has accumulated over five million downloads which is pretty incredible.

In the podcast, Chris speaks with recruiters, career coaches and resumes writers about how to job hunt. The podcast is Chris’ way of giving back to job seekers.

CHRIS RUSSELL CAREER CLOUD WRAP

The Best ways to get in touch with Chris are below.

Website: CareerCloud.com
Podcast: CareerCloud Radio

At this point in the Discover step, you should start seeing yourself differently. You might even recognize when you exhibit your strengths and when you don’t.

It’s possible you’ve started to recognize the activities that get you jazzed up and the ones that suck the life the out of you.

If so, this is awesome. If not, don’t worry, you will soon enough.

In addition to everything else we’ve reviewed and assessed so far there is one more aspect of our personal brands we need to explore before we can start to relate the Discover step to our career and what we want to be known for.

We need to know our skills and our traits.

Kylie Chown and Jane Anderson are the authors of the book Connect - Leverage your LinkedIn Profile for business growth and lead generation in less than 7 minutes per day.

You may remember Kylie Chown from show 39. Kylie is a Certified Master Resume Writer (CMRW), LinkedIn profile writer, a Reach Certified Social Branding Analyst and now an author.

She works with executive job seekers, solopreners, professionals and thought leaders to ignite their career and elevate their online and offline presence.

Jane Anderson is a Keynote Speaker, a podcaster, as well as a LinkedIn Business to Business Marketing and Lead Generation expert.

Jane has helped over 12,000 people globally, have a greater IMPACT through their marketing and brand positioning, by helping them develop their Personal Brands, LinkedIn profiles, and even their Presentation & Interview Skills.

She is the host of the #1 ranked Podcast, “Jane Anderson - Brand You Show” and author of the book “IMPACT: How To Build Your Personal Brand for The Connection Economy”

The first thing I thought about when I picked up my copy of Connect was the quality of the book. It was clearly designed to be used as a desk reference for you to update your LinkedIn profile.

The second thing I noticed after opening the book was all of the step-by-step instructions and photographs.

Whether you are a seasoned LinkedIn pro or a complete beginner, there is something in this book that will help you elevate your LinkedIn profile.

This is the third book I have read on LinkedIn and I can say it is by far the best. If you’re looking for a book to help you understand LinkedIn and build your profile, Connect is the book for you.

The Best ways to get in touch with KYLIE AND JANE are listed below.

Web: kyliechown.com

LinkedIn: Kylie Chown

Web: jane-anderson.com

LinkedIn: Jane Anderson

Podcast: Jane Anderson Brand You Show 

BOOK: Connect, Leverage your LinkedIn Profile for business growth and lead generation in less than 7 minutes per day