76. How To Grow A Brand In 2021

Foreign.

Hey, hey. It is Friday. It is time for Friday Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary. Each week I deconstruct my journey, my struggles through professional baseball to help unpack yours so you can live a life on purpose. I take the lessons I learned in baseball and help you apply them in business and in life. So if you're ready to join me, grab your glove, grab a ball, get ready to take the mound. And get ready. Bear down to strike out the limiting beliefs in your life. All right, here we go.

Hey, hey. Welcome back to Friday Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary and this is episode 76. Today we are going to talk about why it is imperative that you understand your personal brand and you grow a personal brand today and how that's going to help you make 2021 an amazing year. And what the heck does self awareness have to do with it and how does it all tie into these holidays? We are in all that in today's episode. But before we dive in, I want to make a quick announcement. If you are an insurance broker, I want to make an invite to you. Listen, 2020 has been a very interesting year, but guess what? 2021, at least for the first half of it, is going to look no different. Have you changed up your strategy or are you still trying to do the same old stuff you've always done? Listen, you have to have a better game plan going into next year. You have to have a better strategy to know who you're going after, what you're going to say to them, and how you're going to share that message far and wide. The game has changed and if you haven't, you're going to get left behind. So I'm going to make an invite for you. In February, we are relaunching the Complete Game Mastermind. In fact, I'm excited. We're rebranding at the 2021 Broker Branding Academy. If you want in, think of it this way. Four months of diving into your personal brand, diving into your sales message, diving into how the heck you are going to share that more than anybody else in your market so you can grab more attention than anybody else in your market. You have to have an online presence today and it's about grabbing attention. So if you want in, if you know you need to make next year better than this year, all you got to do is text the word 2021 to 414-622-1462. That gets you on the exclusive list. To learn more about the Broker Branding Academy to Get early access to signing up for it at a significantly reduced rate. Why not pay less than everybody else? But here's the deal. We're only taking 20 people. Seating is limited. So you got to get on this list now. It's going to fill up. All you got to do again to join the exclusive list for the broker branding Academy, text 2021 to 414-622-1462 and you will be so happy you did get on it today. All right, let's dive into today's episode.

So here we are. It is Black Friday. Are you out racing around to all the shopping malls, shoving elbows, pushing people around to get to the best deals? Oh, wait, we can't do that. Black Friday is gone completely online.

What are we gonna do? We're gonna miss all those riots that broke out in Target, all those crazy fights over the newest Nintendo game in Walmart. How are we going to deal with Black Friday being online? Wait, that actually teaches us a really important lesson for today's episode. Well, happy Thanksgiving, everybody. How was your Thanksgiving? Did you choose to spend it in person with your family, in the same room, rubbing shoulders? Or did you choose to go the safer route and spend Thanksgiving with your loved ones virtually? Hey, what I'm here to tell you is no matter what you chose, it's your choice. Doesn't matter. There's no judgment. And this is one thing I want to dive into with this episode is the amount of snap judgment I see out there today blows me away. And this comes back to what I want to talk about. It comes back to having self awareness. Listen, if you're somebody watching friends who have chosen to spend Thanksgiving in person with their family, they've made that decision. What right do you have to judge that? What impact does it have on your life? And if you are the one who chose to spend Thanksgiving live in person with your family, with your loved ones, don't let the judgment of others persuade you. It's your choice. Life is about choices. It is your choice. By the way, life is also short. If you took the time over the holidays to spend that time with those loved ones and you know the risk because you don't know what tomorrow brings. I love you. That's your choice. Don't let anybody else's judgment impact you. So what the heck does that have to do with today's episode? Well, today I want to talk about the importance of having a personal brand.

And I'm here to start by saying everybody has a personal brand. When you open your mouth, you're sharing your personal brand. And man, there's a lot of interesting things coming out of that mouth today, isn't there? A lot of quick judgments, a lot of comments that you kind of let slip out before you actually thought about it. And that all plays back into your personal brand. You see, whether you're a young athlete out there who is trying to establish yourself at in your sport, at your school.

You'Re trying to gain the attention of scouts of those opportunities to play college or professional sports, or heck, you're a business professional, right? You're in sales, and you're trying to grab the attention of your prospects. Brand is ultra important. In fact, personal brand is everything. And I'm here to tell you, everybody has it. I don't care if you are a sales producer and you don't own the company you work for, you're a W2 employee. You still have to have a personal brand. Because at the end of the day, humans buy from humans. They don't buy from logos on business cards. So again, if you're an athlete who's trying to gain the attention of those scouts, those recruiters, or you're a business professional trying to gain the attention of your target audience.

They'Re buying from you, they're buying into you. So do you actually know what your personal brand is? One of the most important exercises you could do as we head into 2021, take time over the holidays here as things maybe slow down a little bit and figure out what your brand is. And there's an easy question you can ask yourself that I learned from one of my mentors and coaches, Jerry Sandusky. That's Jerry with a G. For those Penn State fans out there.

Is the quickest way to figure out what your personal brand is is to ask yourself this question.

If you weren't in the room and your ideal audience. So that could be a prospect. If you're in sales, your ideal clients, it might be a recruiter, it might be a professional scout. If they were all in the room right now having a conversation about you and you were not in that room, what would you want them saying about you? Not what you think they would say about you. What do you want them saying about you? Heck, if you want your family to perceive you, what is your personal brand at home?

Take time to figure this out, because you need to figure out what words, what phrases you want people using when they're talking about you. What are those words and phrases that have always represented the person you are, and what are those aspirational words and phrases. Maybe you're not that individual today, but you're striving to become that. What are those comments you want people saying about you?

That's where you start with knowing what your brand is. Because those words, those phrases that mean the most to you, they are the judge and jury by which everything you do and everything you say. And this is where self awareness comes into play.

Especially in a year like 2020 with as heated as every single debate has seemed to have been, whether it's the presidential election, Black Lives Matter, any topic you have with family and friends, there are so many judgments. And if it's you don't believe in what I believe in, screw you.

And you have to be careful what you let come out of your mouth.

Are the words that you're let slipping out of those two lips match the brand you want others to perceive you by. Do you know what your brand is? Are you 100% confident and comfortable in what your brand is? Are you willing to show up every single day as the same person, no matter what audience you're in front of, no matter if it's a family member, a friend, a colleague, a prospect? And are you willing to just show up in that same skin every single day? Or do you feel like you have to be somebody else depending on who it is you're hanging out with?

You see, this is why self awareness is so important when it comes to growing your personal brand. Because if you're showing up a different version of yourself on different days, no one's going to know what your personal brand is. You won't have a personal brand because you're constantly twisting and bending it, thinking that's appeasing the audience you're trying to speak to, the audience you're trying to fit into. You know, I go back to playing professional baseball. I mean, one of the things I got so frustrated with is when others would make snap judgments about me or opinions about me. They don't know who I am. I knew what my brand was. Maybe not as much back then as I do now, but when what others were saying about me, that and it didn't match what I thought I represented. Man, that stung. That was like the fingernails on the chalkboard, the thorn in the side, the lemon juice in the wound.

And I realized why others were making those judgments about my character, about the individual, who I was. It's because I didn't know what the hell my brand was. I just was trying to fit in. I was just trying to meld myself into whatever environment I found myself I talk about this all the time. One of the biggest mistakes I made when I was playing professional baseball in the Milwaukee brewers organization was I did not try to stand out. I did not try to have a brand. I just wanted to fit in.

And all that happened was I went unnoticed.

And I would get mad that the judgment scouts would place on me, the evaluations they would place about my character, didn't match who I knew who I was. But I wasn't letting the world know who I was because I wasn't comfortable.

Sitting in my own skin every single day. And that is happening every day right now in society. Whether you're a 22 year old just entering the business world for the first time, you're that college athlete going off to school for the first time, trying to prove yourself, or you're that insurance agent trying to win a piece of business, you are letting yourself.

Show up different every single day, thinking that somehow going to get you the attention, it's gonna help you fit in with the audience, it's gonna get the audience to like you even more. But I'm here to tell you, if you don't take the time to really establish a solid personal brand for yourself.

2021 isn't gonna be any better than it is today. So this isn't a long episode, it's a holiday weekend. I didn't wanna take too much of your time today, but if there's one piece of advice I could give you, especially right now, where you find yourself spending more time with family, with friends. And when you get back to the business at hand, take time to understand your personal brand and be 100% self aware of who the hell you are. And remember, if you're struggling to know what that brand is, take time to ask this simple question. If you weren't in the room, your friends, your family, your target audience, we're all talking about you. What do you want them saying about you? And then once you know what you want them saying about you, make sure every day you show up and the actions that follow, the words that come out of your mouth, let them all match that brand you want the world to see you by. Because when your brand, your actions and your words are all in alignment.

Magic happens. Your business will grow faster than it's ever had. That recruiter, that scout, you want to gain the attention of that school, you want to get the attention of, they're going to come calling.

And when your personal brand is known, it's solid, it's concrete, and you do not let yourself slip away from it.

You will always attract the right people into your life. So if there's one lasting piece of advice I can give you today as we break for this holiday season is just know who you are. Be 100% self aware of what your brand is and just show up every single day as that one version of you. Who gives a shit what anybody else has to say. Don't worry about any judgments people make about you, because you know who you are and that's all that matters. And when you know who you are and you're able to attract the right people into your life at the right time, you know what happens? That's when clarity and confidence collide and that's when massive action happens in your life. So go make it happen today again. Have a happy Thanksgiving. Spend that time with your family this weekend, whether you choose to do it in person or virtually. I love you. And again, go out and share your personal brand with the world.

Hey, thank you for taking the time to listen to this Friday Bullpen session. If you are enjoying these episodes, please do me a favor, go over to Apple, subscribe, give it a five star rating. And if you know of anybody in your life, whether it's in your family, personal life, your friends, business colleagues that you think would find benefit in listening to these episodes as well, do me a favor, please share the Bullpen sessions with them. I'd be extremely grateful if you did. And again, go out and make it happen today. Thank you.