You're a "behind the scenes" person. Why building a personal brand is still important.
She said to me “'I’m more of a behind the scenes person.”
She was content to remain in that space, but at the same time, she IS seeking a new position.
She sees merit in thinking about building a personal brand in order to land that.
A personal brand is the “layer” that sits on top of everything she does.
Whether its at the last employer or the next one. It’s all hers. It’s all self-driven.
Nobody can take it away from her.
Why?
She has a unique way of solving problems, whether its ‘behind the scenes’ or ‘out in front.’
A personal brand simply begins to socialize that ‘way of thinking.’
The right decision maker will read that and say ‘oh, I like this person’s way of thinking. I’m going to hire her.’
Read on about Amanda.
During the pandemic, I interviewed this Vice President at Sparktoro.
Once upon a time, she lost her job.
She is an expert at marketing and audience development and decided she never wanted to do a “traditional job search” again. Sending in resumes. Applying for jobs online. None of it.
Instead, she would build her personal brand and do it on Twitter.
🎧 Our interview together here
On the platform, she talked about her zone of genius: Audience development. Her ONE THING.
And she did one more critical step. (This is the key that most people leave out) She spent time leaving comments on other people's content as well.
She caught the attention of Rand Fishkin, Founder & CEO of SparkToro, helping marketers understand who people listen to online and where they spend their attention.
Fishkin liked her ideas and began following her.
One day, he reached out and said, “I want to hire you.” Natividad became VP at Sparktoro.
I liken building a personal brand online to a big party.
When you arrive at someone's party, you don't just walk in and start shouting over everyone and say, here are the things I want to talk about.
You join smaller conversations. You introduce yourself, you contribute to those conversations.
Social media is the same kind of party.
Don't know your zone of genius? Your one thing you would say? That’s where my work with you comes in.
I do 3 things when building a personal brand with a client:
I figure out your zone of genius.
We figure out, together, a 1000 creative ways to talk about that zone of genius.
We create a content calendar and playbook on how to execute on it, within the bounds of your current schedule.
N officially got 2 promotions in two years.
When she first started working with me, she had asked for the promotion, but management thought the timeline proposed was too aggressive. But six months later, they promoted her. AND it was to a bigger role than she had originally asked for.
How did this happen?
Her story begins in 2018, she had started at a director level.
But she was doing the jobs of at least 4 people.
While there, she wasn’t even trying to get promoted.
"It felt like too much work. Having to ask."
For a while, she continued to:
-Coach C-level clients on their presentations.
-Advise her own C-suite on communication best practices in crisis situations.
-Coach celebrity clients on their messaging.
Until one day, everything changed.
She thought, wait a minute. If I'm doing all these jobs, I should get a title that matches it.
It was January 2022 and we started working together.
She stated that she not only wanted the promotion, but she wanted it by July.
Our gameplan:
She wanted to be Chief Marketing Officer.
I asked her to interview 6 people who currently hold that title
Figure out their top 6 traits. (I introduced her to a few CMO"s in my own network to make it easier.)
She shortlisted a list of 6 traits that would define her role.
I worked with her to map 6 stories from her career that demonstrated she had these 6 traits.
She set up a meeting with her CEO. Made the business case, using this strategy.
As you can probably guess: it worked.
By July, she got her promotion—And to boot. It was to a MUCH bigger role.
-She got a title and a pay bump commensurate with the work she was doing.
-She felt validated and showed up even more powerfully to all of her roles.
-She got another promotion in another year.
The rest is history.
I love this story because it lays out how important storytelling is in some of the most impossible scenarios. But it also shows how hiring the right coach whittles down 4 years of labor with no results -----to rapid success in 6 months.
Great reminder for anyone with big dreams.
Most women introduce themselves by listing everything they do. But after working with hundreds of leaders and execs for the past decade, I've found that the most powerful introductions come down to this one thing:
Your tagline.
Because when you say something specific, it doesn’t mean you’re excluding the rest of your brilliance.
It just means you’re opening the door to talk about it...
...and opening the door to make a much bigger impact.
Need help writing your own tagline so you can be seen, heard, and remembered? Come to this workshop.