Episode #17: Developing Your Personal Brand

In this episode, we talk about why you should and how you can develop your own personal brand. Become the “CEO of ME” and define your why, choose your platform(s), and start sharing your expertise alongside demonstrating your personality. Join us for a lively discussion on personal branding and the value it will bring to your career. We also pull out a long list of our favorite marketing professionals, including well-known and growing personal brands.

Developing Your Personal Brand Episode Recap

In this podcast episode, Kelly and Julia discuss their favorite influencers and thought leaders in the realms of marketing, personal branding, and home design. Kelly admires the renowned Seth Godin for his daily blog and impactful books like “Linchpin,” as well as Simon Sinek, known for inspiring people to find their “why” through his book “Start with Why” and TED Talk. She also appreciates Marie Kondo’s philosophy of keeping only things that spark joy, as well as the modernized approach to organization by Clea and Joanna from The Home Edit and Joanna Gaines from Magnolia.

Additionally, Kelly expresses her admiration for Brene Brown, who delves into vulnerability, shame, and empathy in her work, encouraging people to embrace courage over comfort. Julia, on the other hand, shares her favorite lesser-known influencers in the advertising and marketing industry, such as Jessica Zweig from Simply Be agency, Alex Cartoni of the Copy Posse, and Julia, a career coach who infuses her advice with personality.

Julia also mentions Caitlin Bond, a mom and marketer who emphasizes work-life balance in her posts, and The Copywriting Mom from India, who offers brilliant insights on Instagram. The podcast delves into Goldie Chan’s presentation on personal branding for introverts, highlighting the five C’s: confidence, curiosity, credibility, catalysts, and commitment/culture, which are essential traits for building a personal brand.

Throughout the episode, Kelly and Julia emphasize the significance of authenticity and consistency in developing a personal brand, especially for introverts who may find it energy-draining to put themselves out there. The podcast concludes with quotes from Gary Vaynerchuk and Seth Godin, stressing the importance of building a good reputation and doing meaningful work that resonates with one’s audience. Overall, the episode provides valuable insights and inspiration for anyone looking to refine and nurture their personal brand.

Episode transcript:

Julia

This episode is all about personal brand, and what you can do and why you should focus on creating your own personal brand. So why are we talking about personal branding today?

I feel like in our industry, especially as a marketer, you have to treat yourself as a brand, as your own client, like when you’re thinking about your professional life, right? As I read this recently, in a Fast Company, article, you have to be the CEO of me. A personal brand, as we know, from all of our clients, is valuable. And that’s why you should be focusing on branding yourself. Kelly, why is it important to build a personal brand, I don’t think we have to convince people, but I think these are really good points to make?

Kelly 

Well, the main thing is, you want to differentiate yourself from what everyone else is doing. Especially if you’re a new job candidate, and you’re looking for a job, for us as employers to be able to look at a resume, and if one particular person has a stake in the ground about a particular subject, or an area or an expertise, and they’re very clear about it, it really makes that person stand out. So differentiating is really important, it builds credibility, it builds trust, it builds confidence, with your prospective employers, and prospective clients. It provides thought leadership, which we’re all about here on the show, and helps you gain name recognition, and puts a face behind your business or a face behind, the social channel. Do you have a couple of more to add?

Julia  

Building on that, it makes you relatable, right? Like, if we talk about like a LinkedIn profile, it’s just your photo and a whole bunch of words, right. Building a brand out and adding some of these other layers that we’re going to be talking about, just helps people connect with you, faster. I would also say that building a brand, once you have a brand, you can use it to strengthen your network, you can start connecting with people, I think you just touched on it, like confidence, once you feel like you’ve solidified who you are, and how you’re going to communicate that, it will give you the confidence to go out and start meeting people or making new connections. Or maybe it’s asking for informational interviews or looking for a new job. It could be all of those things. Anything else?

Kelly 

For me, for example, now, which I find amusing, anytime I see someone who I’m connected with on social media, they’re all like, oh, I’m always hearing about Two Marketing Moms. They remember our brand right there. Remember what it is that we do, I loved XYZ, and people tell me that they listened to our podcast, they might not like it on social media, but they listen and they know what it’s about. So, I am associated with Two Marketing Moms now. And that’s a part of my personal brand and yours as well. So that’s something that is, hopefully is a positive association that everyone wants to realize, okay, what is that person all about?

Julia   

Yeah. Agreed.

Kelly 

The thing that I struggled with the most is really kind of understanding the difference between personal branding and professional branding, and how do you balance your personal and your professional profiles? Julia?

Julia  

Yeah, so for me, my personal and professional brand are one in the same and Kelly and I were chatting before we hit record, it’s easy for me that I have two profiles. Even though my personal profile, I honestly never really use that much. If I didn’t have my own business I might personally choose to convert my personal feed to my professional feed, to focus on one thing, but for most people that are listening to this, they might want to meld their personal and professional brand together and I think that’s totally okay. I think all the advice we’re going to give still applies. If you have personal posts, and you’re going to share things, you can also mix that in with the things that you’re going to share business wise as well, it gives a whole 365 degree view. With that said, I do think from a personal professional branding point of view, places like Twitter, and LinkedIn, it’s a little bit easier to be less personal. If you are going the professional route, you do need to be careful. You don’t want to be like, f-bombing on a Saturday, and then putting on the suit and tie on Monday kind of thing. Again, you have to be careful for that balance but, I really think the most important thing is don’t forget your personal stuff, right? Because I think once you figure out your personal brand, you can then bring that back into it and find a place for it to fit. I know you’re going to talk about this to Kelly, I call it the solid and singular brand idea, but you also call it your why. Who are you, for me, I am Five Ones, Five Ones is Julia. So, the kind of the words that I settled on is that we’re a creative collaborative that drives momentum. And so, most of the words that I use in my brand are centered off the word momentum, I have a newsletter called marketing motivation. I talk about being a catalyst, I talk about kinetic energy, it’s like kind of my way of talking about how I help my clients. If you know me, that brand really fits and it feels very natural. So that’s the first thing that I think anyone would need to really think about when creating their personal brand. And maybe for our listeners, it’s literally the melding of their personal kind of ethos philosophy with their work as well.

Kelly 

As kind of like an elevator pitch, if you will or a mission. And what I like to do, which is the biggest challenge is to simplify it and see if you can say it, ideally, in 10 words or less, that’s always a challenge. Have you been able to come up with that one liner for yourself?

Julia  

I literally use for Five Ones, “we’re in a creative collaborative, that drives marketing momentum.” And then when I talk about it from a personal level, “I offer strategic marketing leadership to nonprofits and associations that need marketing momentum.” So, I’ve really worked on getting that kind of singular focus. And for some of our viewers, their singular focus, like it could be based on your discipline,  are you creative person, or are you a copywriter? It could be like your ambitions like, do you want to work with this specific client? So you and I both work with nonprofits, so, a lot of the things that we’re talking about on a daily basis are about causes, but maybe someone wants to really be a retail person, or they really want to be consumer products, or B2B. Maybe it’s someone who you want to use tech, you know, tech but the basic thing is you have to focus on one thing. I also feel like I have to say this, I know you’ll have an opinion on this, Kelly, because I know you like Tim Williams, but some people in our audience still may want to be a generalist. Maybe you’ve only been in the working world for a couple years and so it feels uncomfortable to say I only want to focus on one thing, right? And I’m going to say that’s okay, you can still be a generalist with a specific point of view. So, for instance, be a data person, be a quote person, be a mom advice person, be an ad fanatic, but you can always evolve that over time, right? So, like, if you decide to be the ad fanatic, you can morph that as you get more experience under your belt, or if you pick a specific client you want to work on, or if you change from being a copywriter to a media buyer, you can always morph. I like this quote from this woman, she said, decide who you are and bleed it.

Kelly 

That’s one way of saying it. 

Julia  

Yeah, and know that you can change it. So, go back to the what did you want to say when I said, you can still be a generalist?

Kelly 

When you’re going to talk on social media, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to talk about 500 things, you still have to pick those three to five things that are important to you. So, you might have a general key message of what it is that you are and then there’s sub points underneath that larger umbrella. So, for me, my one liner is for work professionally, is that “I’m a champion of ideas that generate change for purpose driven brands.” What does that mean? That’s driving awareness, that’s engagement, that is driving donations, anything underneath that nonprofit umbrella. But beyond that, I also talk about two of my side hustle projects that are kind of under that umbrella, and one is this podcast, which for me, has been a really great way to connect to the younger generation of women to help them give them a step up, because we’re trying to give advice on things that we’ve done to help others learn from our mistakes. And then my second side hustle is the Williams Whittle media club #WWMediaClub, where I try to read a book a week, and its usually business related book and pull out kind of like the cliff notes of all the interesting factoids that I find there. So, for me, that’s the part of me, that always wants to be learning. And, I have all those books that I’ve read, all 50 to 55 books on the website at Williamswhittle.com, and so anyone can go check them out. And I have, I can send people there to say, oh, I would recommend this for college students, you pick these five books, for example. So that gives me some narrowed down things to talk about. But I have a personality too, and so, there’s things that I talk about beyond that in social but I’m very careful, like you said, with Twitter and LinkedIn, I definitely don’t show personal, I need to be more human. I think that’s some sort of a challenge that I need to acknowledge. I’m probably way more professional than I need to be on those two channels. Instagram is where I feel like I have an opportunity to do both. I use Instagram as a channel for both personal and professional, so, I might talk about my kids, my dog, Edgar Allan Poe, my yoga practice, some of those things are going to come out in addition to the professional things that I talked about, and I think that’s good, it makes you human. You just have to decide what are the channels that you want to do that on. The one person that just reminded me of, on a social media perspective is Amy Cuddy. Amy Cuddy is an author and has a Ted Talk, and she did the research study on power posing, remember?

Julia  

Oh, yes.

Kelly 

So, I follow her, well, she’s an avid rollerblader. So, she posts these really funny videos of herself, rollerblading, you know, like dressed up in a 80’s garb, and just really riding and having a great time. And that’s like a great way of taking your professional and melding with your personal because that really gives her a unique identity and she has multiple rollerblading videos. 

Julia  

Yeah. So, see, that’s how she’s focusing on her one thing, like her one passion, she’s folding in there. I love that. Oh, I’m going to have to check her out.

Kelly 

So, I want to learn a little bit more, Julia, about you and your journey. What are the steps that someone can take to build a personal brand?

Julia  

I think and we just talked about it like getting that one sentence, who you are, and really crafting that it has to be like the best thing you’ve ever written, right? You can call that your bio, that could be your LinkedIn about section, right? That’s the first thing, and then I think you need to start building out what I call like your profile, it could be a resume, it could be a website, it could be your LinkedIn profile, it can be your Twitter feed. I’m going to go ahead and say, I never thought I would say this, but LinkedIn is a great place to start. I think LinkedIn matters professionally. I hated LinkedIn, until I really had to think about my personal brand and what that was. The reason why is, it’s the easiest place for people to learn about you, like everyone will go to your LinkedIn, and all of the sections in LinkedIn, it’s a fairly good user experience. I think it’s a great prompt, like your portfolio, your experience, your interests, endorsement, testimonials, it goes through all of the most important things. It all builds you up to your personal brand, right. So obviously, things like, your experience are maybe a little straightforward, but it’s the first place to start to establishing yourself. If you decide no LinkedIn, and you do a website, which I know lots of college kids are doing, I mean, I think every graduating college student, at least from a B school is going to have a website, I would say, keep it simple. The look and the feel, are the first things that people are going to absorb about who you are, I’m going to be the first major interpretation of your personal brand, so, keep it simple but obviously be creative. Within how it would fit you, and then people are going to know the highlights, people are going to want to see a portfolio. But I’ve also had a lot of conversations, and when I meet people and talk to them about like their experience, I just want to know what they did. Like, it’s great, you worked on the Coca Cola account, great, but what did you do? Were you the brainstorm person, were you the account coordinator, were you a QA person, did you write strategy?

Kelly 

What was your contribution?

Julia  

That is the thing that matters the most. And, when you’re starting off in your career, people are not expecting you to say that, you came up with the creative concept, right? Like, they expect that, but I think the most important thing is to be upfront, and about your contribution. I think then you take it deeper, this is where it gets a little bit more involved in creating your personal brand, I think the next place is what can you produce to position yourself and Kelly, you just explained what you did, you have been doing the media club, I know because I see all your book reviews, and you had the idea to start this podcast. And so, you went through that step of figuring out what you can produce. For some people listening, you may not want to produce things, you may not be in the position to produce things. And again, that’s okay, you’re producing things might just simply be sharing relevant information from people and publications that are, in your point of view, if you’re the data person, then you’re sharing cool data stuff, cool research stuff. From a personal point of view, like in in my career, and early on in my career, I had gotten paired with a client and really went down the nonprofit niche, so, I kind of fell into that, it was great and I dug in hard. And as a young person, I didn’t know how to create a personal brand, but I kind of just took the first step when I started doing this research report about awareness campaigns. It was like the first major thing that I did that was producing something and I got my feet wet, I owned it, and that was the first step for me. So, maybe our listeners can’t own something at work, but what’s one thing that you could talk about outside of work, right? Like say you’re a media buyer and you can’t really reveal what you’re looking at for your clients how can you take that and look at it from an outside perspective?

Kelly

I mean, there’s different approaches this and we can go into the section now about advice to give people to help them discover what their personal brand is. There are two that resonated the most with me. One who has been around for 25 plus 30 years is Gary Vaynerchuk. And he, regardless of what you think of him, his potty mouth, his personal brand has been consistent for 25 plus years. And he’s spent the last five years really focusing on helping to bring the next generation of kids up and providing inspiration. And what he talks about continually over and over again, is document your experience, document it, what is your process? I think that’s a different way of thinking about it, Seth Godin says the same thing, just ship it, it doesn’t have to be perfect. He writes a blog a day so he’s written over 9,000 blogs, since the 90s, just ship it not every blog post he’s going to write, not every post that you have, every video that you do is going to be perfect. But you’re putting yourself out there, you’re learning every single time that you do it and I think that’s super important. 

You could say documenting feels less stressful than producing, producing feels like, oh, I got to have a finished product, and I got to edit it. You know what I mean? If you take it back, I’m just documenting what I’m doing. I’m reading this book, I’m highlighting, the things that I find are interesting. That’s what I am doing with the book club, I’m documenting what I think is the most interesting quotes.

The second person that I’ve learned a lot from is David C. Baker, and he’s an advertising agency guide, and he wrote a book called The Business of Expertise. He has a concept called drop and give me 20 — what are the 20 things that based on your experience that no one else knows? And are you able to rip those out, and everyone has that based on whatever your experiences 20 things that you learn from college, 20 thing that you learned from high school, 20 things that you learned about living in XYZ community or, going overseas for that for the summer, those things really matter, and they really help kind of narrow down because people are going to ask you, your experience is different than anybody else, so, you have to have those 20 things.

Julia  

Yeah, that’s a great idea.

Kelly 

It’s not an easy thing to do, let me tell you, but you should do it. So, what are the things do you have in terms of advice to help people discover what their personal brand is? 

Julia  

I think we and we already touched on this, find your platform, right? Like, I think the go to a lot of the times is social, there’s nothing wrong with that, right? But people might want to just be on a website and do their blog, as you say, and document it, or maybe they want to start an email newsletter. I would just say, find the platform that works, that that you’re going to be able to dig into. That’s a huge step to make.

Kelly 

And I think, similar to a lot of the things that we talk about is, with Simon Sinek find your why. What is the reason that you exist? What is your purpose, what’s important to you? What do you want to be known for, and that really is kind of part of the drop and give you 20 exercise, to me, that’s the most important is an exercise that everyone needs to do. Right?

Julia  

Yeah, but you know, I would also add on that, like being consistent, I’m not just in your messaging, but in sharing, right. So, if you write two blogs a year, that’s not really going to be enough to build your personal brand. You have to figure out, it’s got to be often, but it doesn’t have to be all the time. It can’t be rarely though, you got to be always out there. I mean, unfortunately, our worlds are now like, so much of it is like based on an algorithm, we don’t see everyone’s stuff, or, on the flip side, we’re inundated with stuff so we may ignore some stuff. So, like frequency, a typical advertising word is important when building your personal brand. I mean, honestly, everything we’re talking about, that we would recommend to a client, we should be telling ourselves as the CEO of me.

Kelly

Yes, I love that.

Julia

And then also something that you mentioned earlier was, be human, and tell real stories. I mean, there are some brands that don’t get real personal that I love. But most of them are where it’s a person, well, I feel connected. Like if I saw them at a conference, I could go up to them and just feel like we already have something, it’s not cold.

Kelly 

Yeah, I have an example of that. When we launched the podcast, I really struggled with how to introduce it, how to tell people why I did this, why it began, and I gave an example of my mother, who is in her late 70s, was diagnosed with macular degeneration in the last couple of years. And she literally can’t see hardly at all, and so she’s not allowed to drive anymore, but she’s a triathlete and she still wants to ride her bike. And so, her friends would ride their bikes with her, and they would go in front of her, and they would spray paint orange around any of the potholes so that she wouldn’t ride her bike into the potholes. I mean, what kind of friendship is that of someone who doesn’t let you fall in the potholes, and that’s what I like to call this podcast. We don’t want you to fall in the potholes, and so by telling that story, I have to say that got the most interest in terms of explaining why we do what we do. And storytelling is a huge part of tha, and I’m sharing a personal example from my own family. And so, there’s a humanity in that, and it’s a hard thing to do. And I admit I don’t do it very frequently. But when you do it, it resonates really well, because that requires vulnerability in order to share at that level.

Julia  

Yeah, I love that, I love that story. So, you talked about Gary, and I agree. I mean, I guess I love to hate Gary, honestly. 

Kelly 

Let me admit something about Gary Vee. I will say, I didn’t like him for many years, because I felt like everything he was saying was connected really well with men, but not with women, in terms of the bro culture, right. He swears and the way he talks to people, but he’s such a hustler.

Julia  

He’s definitely rough around the edges. 

Kelly

But then the last couple years, he’s really made an effort to bring people on the show to answer questions, and people are loving it. And I admit, I don’t think I’ve ever actually liked one of his videos, but I probably watch one a day. 

Julia  

I liked one video; I could admit it. But you know, here’s an interesting thing about him, his personal brand, right is so clear. And then when I got this email that like he was doing this, wine business, I felt like, how is this your personal brand? 

Kelly 

Yes, his parents – you need to know his backstory, owned a wine store. And so, he started the Wine Library video series where he just talked about wine. And that’s how he kind of built himself up to be who he is. And it’s fascinating to me. Anyway, I have a different opinion about him now than I did. He’s not for everybody. But you know, I think there needs to be a female version of that, not as rough around the edges, and maybe we can be that.

Julia  

Well, it’s also brings up a good point, because I personally thought the wine thing was such a left hand turn. And you’re saying it’s really like it’s really the center of his story.

You can morph as I said, but it’s got to be intentional and you’ve got to you’ve got to string everything together. Otherwise, it does come across disjointed. But yeah, I mean, shout out to Gary. Recently I reposted something because I was like, oh, thank you for saying that. Okay, who else Kelly?

Kelly 

So, the ones that I love are… Well, I’m in the marketing realm. Seth Godin, of course, because of the fact he’s written a blog every single day of his life, and he’s written 21 books, I believe my favorite is Linchpin. And he practices what he preaches every single day. So, he is someone that I really look up to in terms of his profile, and he always has a video with the background of all his books. And the second one that’s under that same umbrella is Simon Sinek, who wrote the book Start with Why and had the TED Talk that’s gotten so popular. And he’s really all about inspiration and make making people focus on why they do what they do.

A couple other people that that I adore are Marie Kondo. I’m all about cleanliness and getting rid of things and only keeping things that I give you joy. If you look around my house, everything that’s in there is there for purpose and a reason. And if it’s not utilitarian, then I love it. And you may question some of this, but it’s same thing with my wardrobe. So, I love her philosophy, and I live her philosophy and I want to live a life that sparks joy and similar to her, there is Clea and Joanna from the Home Edit. So, they’ve kind of modernized the same concept, but they’re all about rainbows and fun and color, coordinating things by color. Joanna Gaines from Magnolia, has her whole farmhouse look and a very particular way of things. So those are the three that on the home design part of things that I really love, because I’m a big home design fanatic. And the last one that I would mention, is Brene Brown. You know, Brene Brown, I’ve read all our books. I’ve seen her TED Talks. I love her ideology. She’s a researcher. She’s a storyteller, she studies vulnerability, she studies shame, and she studies empathy. And her main concept is that you have to walk through vulnerability, to get to courage, you need to choose courage over comfort, and she calls it embrace the suck. I love her ideas. I love her concepts. And she lives all of those in, the podcasts that she puts out and the posts that she puts out.

Julia  

She had a lot of really great stuff over the past year about confronting white fragility and things like that. And it had to be said. I appreciated it. Okay, so I have five that probably not anyone knows, but they are all women. And they’re all in the advertising marketing worlds. The first one is Jessica Zweig. She is the owner of the Simply Be agency. It’s all about personal branding. I love her style, like if you go to her Instagram, she is so consistent in her messaging, her look and style, she uses bright colors. She’s very focused on energy. She has a crystal room in her agency and she always has yellow, she always has bright, she always has pineapples, so everything is very consistent. And she’s always offering good stuff. And so, she took her brand from literally nothing and now she has like, I think her book is like in the top five for Amazon business books right now. You should add that to your list. Another one that I’m a super fan girl of is Alex Cartoni of the Copy Posse and she has her brand, her personal and professional brand are the same. So, everything is about the Copy Posse and she’s so consistent again, in her messaging but she also infuses such cool stuff in it. So, a lot of the time most of the time she’s talking about copy and how you can be a better copywriter. She’s always giving those types of advice, and then like last week, she emailed out about the top 10 business books that you might not know about. And so, of course, I listened to her. I mean, obviously, books are copy, but she’s able to throw out things that are still consistent with her brand. And next is a girl that’s named Julia, so of course, I love her name is Julia, and she’s a badass career coach. And she’s always giving great advice. She has these like little things like in the morning, you need to hear this today. She like helps you start off your day with something positive and she also infuses it with so much personality. She had a post where she was getting dressed for work, in a suit and I just really enjoy following her. Another just really quick are someone I recently met, she doesn’t have much of a following, but she’s a mom, who had decided to go out and start working for herself because she wanted to be able to have a better work life balance. And so, she’s out there looking for work and in the marketing world. Her name is Caitlin Bond, and her posts are all about work life balance, that’s where she’s decided to lean into. So, she is consistent in her messaging, and she also has great frequency of her posts. So, I  along with other people who follow her are always seeing them. So that’s another great example of someone who is has found their voice. And then the last one is the Copywriting Mom, she’s a woman in India that I follow. And just all of her posts are like genius. Like on Instagram, I walk away every single time with something that I can really chew on and apply to my work. Maybe we’ll include those links in the show notes or something, all the things that we mentioned, because they’re all really great examples of helping you to figure out where your personal brand.

Kelly 

I love that you included, some that are unknown, so that we can check them out to see how other people kind of evolve versus the bigger celebrity versions of them.

Julia  

I like it all. I always am rooting for the small ones, the up and comers.

Kelly 

Love it. And this week, I intended the Ad World Online Conference and there was a woman named Goldie Chan, and she did a presentation on Personal Branding for Introverts and you and I are introverts which may be surprising to people. 

Julia  

INTJ right?

Kelly 

Yes. But we skate the line between introvert and extrovert professionally, we force ourselves to be extroverts. But personally, we may sit in the corner at a party, so, feel free to engage us. We might have something to say but we’re all tapped out for the day. Anyway, so she said that a personal brand must show the five C’s and the five Cs are number one confidence. Confidence inspires trust, curiosity, listen and learn more ask questions, credibility, which is being trusted and being believed in the fourth one she calls catalyst, and that is be a person or a thing that precipitates change, or helps others to be open to change with it, which I think is important.

Julia  

Yeah, love them.

Kelly 

And the fifth one is a combination of commitment/culture and that’s really the attitudes and behavior characteristics of a particular social or workgroup and we’ve talked about culture in the past and how important that is. And making sure that your culture is really shows through and demonstrates who you are as an organization, and what are your basic values and morals and those sorts of things. So, I love that idea of the five C’s confidence, curiosity, credibility, catalysts and commitment from Goldie Chan.

Julia  

Love that. Did she talk about like the difference between introverts and extroverts? Like when it comes to the five C’s?

Kelly 

She’s the founder of Warm Robots and she said there’s four different kinds of introverts –social, thinking, anxious and reserved. And then she talks about those four different types of introverts. I think I’d be socially ;I’m not reserved, I’m not introverted with my thinking. I’m not sure who knows. And then it talks about, what must an introvert do to carefully grow their personal brand, a lot of the things that we’ve talked about play to your strengths, discover your why, you find your quiet focus, all these sorts of things. And then she goes into the five C’s. So really a lot of it is the things that we’ve talked about, but she has this great quote that she said is “if no one is listening to you, then you don’t have a brand, but if you’re exhausted by building your brand, you won’t have anything to say.”

Julia

Oh, that’s kind of an oxymoron.

Kelly 

Because introvert by nature, it takes energy. By putting themselves out there takes energy to do that. 

Julia  

Is that why I have been so depleted this year?

Kelly 

Yes, so after these podcasts, we go in our rooms and we curl up in a ball. Actually, I always feel energized by these podcasts.

Julia  

I totally do too. But because I am an introvert I have to go and like almost, plug my battery in to recharge. You know what I mean? I do think like, it’s interesting, the five C’s, like if you’re an extrovert, right? Confidence is a totally different thing to an extrovert and an introvert, right? So, like, I feel like as an introvert, I did not create or I hesitated in creating a personal brand, and really putting myself out there because I didn’t have that innate confidence. I really had to build myself up and maybe do a little fake it until you make it too, to create that confidence and get that momentum. Obviously, now that I’ve done that, I’m I feel more confident and I can exude more confidence. Curiosity is also a very different thing for an introvert than an extrovert. So, I think like, really thinking about those five C’s depending on like who you are, that can also like really, maybe just help you think through how to create that personal brand, or what that personal brand really is. And maybe give you the push, you need to you know, like, put your stake in the sand.

Kelly 

So, I have two options for quotes to end our podcast today. Would you like to choose Seth Godin, or Gary Vaynerchuk? Or both?

Julia  

I’m going to go with Gary Vee.

Kelly 

Oh, no. Okay. All right. So, Gary V’s quote is “It’s important to build a personal brand because it’s the only thing you’re going to have. Your reputation online and in the new business world is pretty much the game. So, you’ve got to be a good person. You can’t hide anything. And more importantly, you’ve got to be out there at some level.” 

Julia

Preach, Gary. 

Kelly

I’m going to do Seth, I’m sorry. I got to balance him out with some Seth if that’s okay, so the last quote is “There are more disconnected people than ever, yet we’re all looking to be seen. Be a person who creates meaning, and do work that matters for people who care.”

Julia  

Hmm. Thank you, Seth.

Kelly 

All right, we hope he gave you some ideas to get going and find that the 10 words or less words or less idea of what it is that you represent and what your why is and what it means.

Julia

Thanks, everyone.

Kelly

Take care.

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Kelly Callahan-Poe

Kelly is a true admom, an advertising and digital marketing executive with 30 years of both agency and client-side experience on the West and the East coast, and a mom for 16 years. Kelly is currently the president of Williams Whittle Advertising in Washington, D.C. Find Kelly on social:

Julia McDowell

A DC-agency girl, Julia’s career blossomed while working up the ladder at a top ad agency in the mid-Atlantic region, from account coordinator to President! Since 2017, Julia has been building Five Ones, working with many associations as well as continuing work for prestigious nonprofits.  Find Julia on social: