Your Personal Brand Drives Opportunity – How to Get it Right with Krista Neher

Welcome to another episode of Mastering Tech Growth. I'm Mike Sirius, and today we're diving deep into the topic of— that's becoming increasingly critical in the tech industry, which is personal branding. Whether you are a tech lead or a startup founder or digital innovator, how you present yourself online can make all the difference in affecting and attracting opportunities, building credibility, and driving growth in general. Our guest today is someone who knows this space inside and out. It's Krista Neher. She's an internationally recognized speaker, bestselling author, and the CEO of Bootcamp Digital. With over 15 years of experience in digital marketing and personal branding, Krista has helped thousands professionals define, design, and deliver powerful personal brands that stand out in today's competitive landscape. Krista, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

Before we jump in, um, to all the great content Krista has prepared for us, a quick reminder to all our listeners. If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere you get your podcast from. It helps to reach us more listeners just like you. All right, let's get started. Krista, in the digital marketing world that is continuously changing, why is personal branding especially crucial for any industry professionals?

So the way to think of your brand is like, what's that reputation you're building for yourself that's unique? What sets you apart from others? If you're internal and I said, man, I need to put a team together. Why would I say like, oh, I specifically need this person, right? What is it about you that would make someone say they need you? And in, you know, if you're an entrepreneur or are looking to get clients or grow your reputation externally, it's really about how people perceive you and being deliberate and consistent. These are probably the two most important words of branding, deliberateness, which is focus and strategy, essentially, and then consistency. And that's what forms impressions in people's brains. So I started my career at Procter Gamble, which makes the biggest brands in the world. I worked on Tide laundry detergent, and, you know, they also make Pampers, Crest, Olay, all these big brands. And when I started my own business, I had to then start building my own reputation. And this was like 20 years ago. And what I realized is that all these same branding principles that I learned when I worked for the world's biggest marketing company, all of those apply to people as well. We just need to put that effort in to think of ourselves in this context and then to be deliberate to actually build upon it in a meaningful way.

Do, do people have innate personal branding? So I think where majority struggles, and me being one of these majorities, I don't really understand who I am as, as a brand? How do I— what's the step one for me to sort of go like, what am I, you know? How do I even position myself, you know, in the market? How do I define my brand, right?

So it's like, who am I in this world, right? It's a big question. So a lot of people struggle with this, and the thing here— the thing I'll say about branding in general, including personal branding, is get as good as you can and move forward, because you're going to always be refining. Like For me, I was just at a professional speakers conference and these are people who speak professionally for a living. There's a lot of people who do a lot of smart things on branding. I took ideas away from that, even though I've been thinking about my brand for 20 years. There's things that I'm going to do differently now. So you also have to view it as not static because I think when we think, well, we're making a decision, it can be paralyzing. But to think about how to get started, right? The first step is defining your brand, which is what do you want to be known for? And I'm going to tell you a couple of stories that helped me to think about this. So the first one is when I graduated from college, I was looking for a job and I was like a Type A student. I went to a very good business school. I had excellent grades. I did a ton of extracurricular. I had good opportunities. Right. And so I'm in this job interview and they were like, so look, everyone we're interviewing went to one of the top schools, has great grades and a ton of extracurricular. What makes you different? I was like, you just said everything I was going to say, right? But I think the mistake we make is we focus too much on the things that actually make us the same and not the things that make us different, right? So if you think of your own personal brand, you know, think of— I sometimes will think of realtors, right? Or lawyers, these industries that everyone knows. And there's a million of these people everywhere. If I'm looking to hire a realtor right now, off the top of my head, I could tell you 10 friends I know that are realtors. And the question isn't, well, are they all licensed? Do they all know something or other about houses? Are they all smart? All of that is true. The question is, why would I hire one over the other? Right? So the key is to actually have some deep thought around if you look at other people with similar qualifications, who have done a lot. What is it that's going to set you apart from them? And it doesn't have to be accomplishments or knowledge, right? It can be the way you go about things. It can be the energy you bring. It can be leadership. But the key is to really think about what is that sort of differentiating factor, right? In my space, I work in digital marketing education, so I teach people about digital marketing. There's a million people who do that right now, literally. And so what makes me different And it took me many, many years to articulate it well. And I don't think it's perfect, but I think it's pretty good to me. When you come to my trainings and you work with my company, you're going to get real, practical, actionable things that you can use right away, right? We're not rocking you through PowerPoint slides that are full of theory, which is frankly what a lot of our competitors do. But it took a long time to look at other really good training companies, right? It's easy if you look at people who aren't good or brands that aren't good. But when I look at other really good trainers and I say, well, why would someone pick me over someone else who's also pretty good? That made me get really deep and say, well, what am I bringing to the table that's different? And so that helped me to get a lot sharper. The other story I'll share with you about kind of defining your brand is, so when I started my career, I worked at Procter Gamble and I actually started working in finance. And they hired this guy named Michael. And I had been there for 2 or 3 years at this point, and all of a sudden Michael joins and everyone's like obsessed with him, right? They're like, oh, we need Michael on this team. Michael, Michael, Michael, right? I'm not bitter, obviously. But, uh, anyway, so like everyone's obsessed with this guy, right? And I'm like, man, had I been smarter in hindsight, I'd have paid attention to what he did and copied it instead of being annoyed by him, which is what I did at the time because I was immature, right? But anyways, so why is everyone obsessed with Michael? So Michael joins and actually he's, you know, a lot of people when they think about branding, they feel uncomfortable because they think you have to be extroverted. They think you have to brag. No, he is the geekiest, most introverted guy you're ever going to meet in your life. He had just graduated from MIT and got hired. And what he did that was so smart, and I don't know that he did it on purpose for branding, but what When he joined, he was like, hey, like, you can probably guess that I'm a bit of a nerd. And actually, I'm an Excel nerd. I'm obsessed with Excel. So if I'm on a team, I'm going to create all these different models. And what that's going to do is actually help us to make better decisions faster. So I'm not intimidated by data. I love macros and programming these Excel sheets, and that's going to give us better results. And he also could deliver on that. He was good at Excel. But you know what the truth was? His, like, Excel mastery was no better than anyone else's, right? Like, I knew Excel really well also. Like, I could— there was nothing he was doing that I couldn't do. I didn't position myself that way, right? And what it was is he rocked in. He said, this is what I'm great at and this is the benefit to you. And he said it over and over again. And he was the most humble, mild person you're ever going to come across. But within a month, like, I'm in a meeting with our director about something, and the director is like, well, we really need Michael on this because, you know, he's just going to make sure that all the data is set and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, anyone can do this. But it's not about the, you know, I hate to say it, it's not about the reality. I mean, you do have to deliver on what you say, but it's the perception, right? And he did those two things that I said at the beginning. He had focus. And he had consistency. If you're in a new team and everyone says, oh, tell me a bit about yourself, he's always like, so you can guess I'm a nerd. You know, he kind of had a thing and he was incredibly effective. So I think the key to success really is figuring out what are those things that really set you apart from somebody else. And you may, you know, I've taught hundreds of thousands of people personal branding by now. There's people who are like, I got this, here's my thing, you know, and they write it down immediately. And other people are like crickets. And the key is even the people that think they got it, they may or may not. And if you don't have it right, the first few things that come to your mind, right, the things that you would default to. But the real key is it has to be things that are different than other people who are similar to you, right? If I was— if I'm a senior leader and I'm like, well, I have good leadership skills, well, Every leader probably has good leadership skills, or at least the perception is that they do. So I need to dig deeper then to be effective, right? If I'm posting, if I don't, if I work in finance, I could say, well, I have great communication skills. And one of the things is I'm going to present stuff and I'm really good at getting people on board. Right. And that could work in that context. But if you're competing with other presenters, that's base expectation. It doesn't work. Right. So there's not a single answer. The key is to look at other great people in your space and really figure out what is it that someone would pick you over them for.

So is that actually a good strategy to try to, you know, copycat if you lost? I'm just thinking about myself, Krista. So I want to say I'm a jack of all trades, master of none. And I remember I was going through a very similar exercise and I got hooked somewhere online about the fact that you can, you know, build the courses and you can sell what you know and, you know, make money. So I went into that rabbit hole. And I went into one of the seminars and they kicked off. They were like, look, you know, here's a sheet, fill what you are good at. And I'm like, I'm good at everything. You know, that's how I feel. And that can't be it. What's your thing? And I'm cricket. Just as you said, it's just absolutely wild, wild west when you, you know, wind is blowing and you see the leaves going. I got nothing. And this is actually where I stopped with that endeavor. So for me, it was difficult. And then I raised this question, is there a way where scientifically someone can help you. Then I went, looked at it like behavior science, you know, or how you put it, your defaults, like in the given situations, how you're going to default and how you're going to act, just to sort of recognize myself, which helped a bit. So is there any tactical way or tactical, you know, notes or suggestions, recommendations we can give to listeners if they have crickets right now? Is there things they can do, maybe ask friends, you know, do a survey of the coworkers, like something tactical which they could potentially, you know, get that woo factor understood better?

Yeah, I was looking around 'cause, so with the Launch Yourself program, which is my book on personal branding, we actually have an action planner. And one of the things is it's like a list of character traits. So you can just look at like, okay, where would I say my strengths are? You can look at character traits, you can look at functional skills, you can look at, you know, you can do these DISC assessments, you can do all of that kind of stuff. But I think the key is that, you know, think of it like this, right? If I need a photographer and I am hiring a photographer to take corporate headshots of me, I need new headshots, I'm going to hire a photographer. Would I rather hire someone who's like, look, I specialize in headshots, I'm gonna make you look great. I'm gonna give you things that are a little more approachable, but also some professional things and blah, blah, blah. Would I hire that person or would I hire somebody who's like, oh yeah, I love pictures. I do weddings. I do families. I do dogs. I do everything. Who am I gonna hire and who would I happily pay more for? The expert. Most people who don't specialize, it's 'cause they feel like they're leaving something on the table and they feel like they don't want to pigeonhole themselves. And to be honest, so this is where I started off, right? So I worked at a corporate job in branding and this was in 2006, 2007, like early, early days of social media. Most people didn't even know what it was. So I had worked for a corporate job. I left to work for an internet startup and I started doing social and digital there. And we were like one of the first companies. We were the first business account on Twitter. So that's how long ago this was. So we were the first business on Twitter and people were like, why is a business here? Which sounds so funny, right?

No.

So right place, right time, right? I'm not like a, you know, I didn't see the future. I use these tools to market because I needed to hit a goal and social media was the way to it. So that startup sells, it's 2007. And I decided I had gotten a couple clients by myself. So I got a big consulting project with Procter Gamble, and I had an agency hire me to do training. So I was like, okay, I'm going to go out on my own. I can do this. People are paying me money. Why not? Right? So I would go to networking events, and when people were like, so what do you do? I'm like, well, I don't want to say social media because actually, like, I worked at the best branding company in the world. Like, I know how branding and marketing works, which Most people don't, right? So I was like, well, I don't want to say social media. So when people would say, well, what do you do? I would say, well, I do, you know, I have a strategic branding background and, you know, and it would be this hot mess. And the reason it's so important is because I would leave a conversation and if somebody like, let's say I had met you at a networking event and we talked for 5 minutes and somebody went up to you after and said, so Mike, what does Krista do? You'd be like, I, something about marketing, right? They can't refer me. They don't know what I would be good for, anything else. And as much as I did not, like, I really did not want to be a social media person, which seems so stupid because like now there's 100 social media people. But this was like no one was doing social media back then. But like, I just fought it because I felt like I could. I had so much more to offer. But here's the thing, you just need that hook. Right? And once someone is hooked, you can do other things. Look at Amazon. What's Amazon known for? Selling you cheap crap fast on the internet, right? What were they known for initially? Discount books. So when they launched, it was one thing— discount books. Now it's cheap products online. But guess what? Do you know in America Amazon also has healthcare? Crazy, crazy, right? They have like 10 other businesses But you figure it out once you're there and working with them. That's not what their brand is built on, right? Their brand is built on efficiency and reliability. So the key to success for a person, I think, is to really say, if I don't stand for something, I'm going to stand for nothing, right? I remember this girl I had met once. She gave me her business card and it was like, what does she do? And I swear it was like actress, voiceover talent, social media, brand management, virtual assistant. Like, I would never hire this girl for anything. She seems insane, right? And it seems obvious when I say it like that, but we all do that to a lesser scale. Oh yeah. So part of it is we're afraid to specialize because we think it limits us, but it's the only way people know you. You know, one of the, one of the other examples I think of the idea here is, um, there's a networking group called Business Networking International, and they form these little groups. They're like everywhere. So they form a group and it's a referral group. So the idea is that you'll all refer business to each other. So a typical group would have like, um, an accountant, an insurance person, a realtor, maybe like a florist. I don't know, these businesses that like kind of everyone needs. And there's 30 people in a group, and the, the whole point is that you refer business to each other, you help each other grow. So at the beginning, they have everyone introduce themselves and it's on a timer. You have 60— I think you only have 30 seconds or 60 seconds. And this guy went and he was an accountant and he was like, so he's like, hi, I'm so-and-so, I'm an accountant. And I've found that I'm actually having huge success with helping insurance clients right now. Or no, construction clients was what he said. Construction clients right now. Construction is a little bit complex, but there's actually a lot of incentives that I I can help them to get, and I know how to simplify some of their processes so that they have to invest less money in accounting. So he, he said what he's good at, he gave you a couple benefits, and I left and I was like, man, that was so powerful. Because if he just said, I'm an accountant, everyone I know needs an accountant, I would have referred him to no one, right? When he said, I get good results in construction, I was like, I have two friends with construction companies Why don't I connect you, see if you could help them, right? Because then it became benefit-centric as well. He's like, these are the specific reasons I work best with them. So I think it's really— you have to let go of a lot of things in your own head and emotionally to specialize, but that's the only way you'll ever make any progress. Not just with something like selling an online course, but with building a reputation and really standing out people.

Can you make that choice wrongly? Say, you know, because we talked a little bit about compounding and, you know, you're going to make a choice. It might be wrong. Maybe you'll need to pivot a little bit later, but just get going, right? Don't wait for the perfect picture. So what happens if you go like, okay, you know, I did some assessment. I think I'm good at these couple of things. I really like doing, for the sake of argument, let's say I really like doing AI right now, you know, generative AI. I think I can help companies to utilize generative AI for process optimization. So I'm going to go specialize. I'm going to niche down. That's how I'm going to put myself on the market. And then you do this for a year and you go like, you know what, there's a new thing now. It's a new shiny thing. I want to do that one. Is that a mistake or can you sort of like pivot and no one really cares?

So there's different layers to your brand, right? Like there's maybe functional or topical expertise. Right? But then on top of that, there's more like your, your actual core personal brand, right? Which is you, how you come across, and what you're actually good at. If you— like, in my space, I work in digital marketing, right? Everyone went from being social media experts to metaverse experts to NFT experts. Like, they just like to hop on the latest thing. The people who actually do that successfully, though, are the ones who maybe their personal brand, like if I think of myself, I teach a ton about AI right now. And, but my brand isn't, oh, it's Krista the AI expert. It's that I know how to teach digital marketing in an understandable and practical way. And AI is just the next part of digital marketing, right? So because my brand is more founded on the way I go about doing things, adding new topics to what I cover that are under the umbrella is a non-issue for most people. And it doesn't feel like, wait, you're doing AI, right? It seems like a natural next step. So I think you can, you can look at it as topical or you can look at it as sort of the benefit, the way you do things. And then maybe there's multiple topics that fit under it, of which AI is one, but either one can work. You know, one of my friends, Kathy Hackl, She, before Meta changed their name, she was all in on the metaverse and she was building reputation as metaverse. Meta changed their name, suddenly everyone's obsessed with the metaverse. Her career skyrockets. And I think like people started calling her like the queen of the metaverse or something, but super niche. But here's the deal, had Meta not changed their name, she would have probably like ceilinged out somewhere, right? She chose something that was on an upward trajectory and it totally blew up for her and You know, she really has had an amazing trajectory. So with topics, you know, but if you think, if she's into the metaverse, she could just as easily take whatever skills and knowledge and apply those to a different technology, right? If she had wanted to. So, you know, it's a yes and a no kind of, you can go all in on a topic and that can be a way to rise, but you're also not locked in forever. Like, I don't think in, you know, honestly, the last 2 years, no one gives a crap about the metaverse anymore.

Yeah.

So NFTs as well.

That's cool. Exactly.

NFTs, right? Bitcoin, like all this nonsense, blockchain that businesses were obsessed with. You know, you can pivot and I think that works out fine, but you'll get more business if, you know, right as something is rising, you build your reputation as the expert on it. Problem is you just gotta hitch yourself to the right horse, right?

Okay.

If you're gonna take that kind of strategy. I remember in the early days of social media, Chris Brogan, who's like a well-known, well, he was a well-known social media person, you know, 20, 10 years ago. And when Google+ came in, he went all in on Google+. He was like, I'm deleting Facebook. And he wrote a book on Google+. Yeah, in hindsight, horrible idea.

Wrong strategy. But who knew? But I remember their name and I remember that story. It's almost like, um, you know, like a Dego example of how you can do that poorly, going all in. Okay, so I think I get you. So if we go back to this like speed dating of referrals where you mentioned you have like 30 seconds, so yeah, so you would come in and you go like, I'm very good at teaching, you know, I have infrastructure, and currently what I'm doing, you know, functionally I'm teaching people on generative AI. And that last bit is just effectively changing within the trends, uh, you upskilling and researching and creating courses for. But you know, the brand of you is actually that it's not that, right? It's, it's, I think I get that. Okay. Um, that's very personal, right? So, so we, let's say we have some success, you know, let's say we define our brand. So how does the designing phase look like? I feel like we touched a little bit by just, you know, going much deeper with the, you know, with, with examples. But if we want to be more tactical, um, you know, the design element of it, are we talking about you know, get the website in? Are we talking about, you know, branding, you know, headshots? You know, are we talking how we're going to be dressing, how we're going to be speaking, you know, color? So it's more about actually value to the, you know, whoever is going to be in our niche we're chasing for.

So it's actually strategy first, right? So the thing is, a lot of what you're talking about, I would say, is delivering your brand. It's now just like, how do you bring this to life and show it to people? But before you can do that, so like, let's say I said, Okay, I wanna be known as, like back when I started doing this, I was like, I'm gonna be seen as the social media expert, which now seems ridiculous, there's 100, but there weren't then, right? Now my brand is all based on helping businesses get the results they deserve from their digital marketing, right? Most people, half the stuff or more they do doesn't work and there's absolutely no reason for that. So I kind of know what I wanna be about, right? In order for that to land, there's some principles you need to understand about how brands are built that need to kind of permeate everything that you do. And so when we talk about the elements that lead to a strong brand, we have a framework that's called the MADE framework, M-A-D-E. So the first thing is you have to be memorable. And people think that memorability is like somehow inherently in them as a person, right? Like I'll talk to people and they're like, I don't know, I go to networking events and I just feel like no one remembers me. Like, I'm like, do you have like weird DNA? Like, what the heck is that, right? It's so weird. People think memorability just like exists or doesn't exist, but there's actual like specific things that make something or someone, um, memorable. And so, so being memorable is important because if people— if you're not building that memory structure, then nobody is gonna remember you, you're not going to achieve your goals. So the first part of the, of the memory structure for MADE, which is memorable, is consistency. So if I showed up differently every time people saw me, it would be really difficult for me to build any kind of like a consistent brand with people. But I put a lot of time and effort into how I build my brand because I specifically want to make sure that they are remembering me. So consistency is the first element of that. My hair— I mean, men can't relate to this because their hair is less important, but like, my hair is the exact same every time you're going to see me professionally. Like, I don't look like this in the real world because I don't care, but from a professional standpoint, I always want to look the exact same way. And so that consistency is important, but it's not just consistency in how you look, it's consistency in how you talk, consistency in what you say about yourself, et cetera. So some people think that they can, you know, alter their brand for their audience and you can a little bit, but the problem you'll run into is that if you try to alter it too much, then you're not really building that consistent image because think about me, right? If one time I'm like, oh, I'm a personal branding expert, and the next time I say, oh, I'm actually an expert at, you know, digital marketing, people would be like, wait a minute, what is it that you actually are good at? And it would be difficult for people to understand what you're actually good at if you're not building that memory structure with that, with that, um, memorability. So consistency is the first part of memorability. The second part of memorability that we already talked about is specificity. So if you're like, well, like some people get too jargony, like they'll say something like, well, like I'm a strategic thought leader in this. Like literally no one knows what that means. My mom was like, what's a thought leader anyways? I hear it so much. I think it's like a real thing. It's not. No one like, what is that? It's not even a thing.

I'm saying it all the time. I was like, I want to be a thought leader.

Right? What does that mean? It's not a thing. It's not like, it's not specific. It's what people say when they just want to be seen as important, but it's not an actual tangible thing, you know, of, right? So specificity is important to memorability. 15 years later, I remember this accountant who said he could help construction clients. Why do I still remember that? Because it was so specific. I had never heard of an accountant for construction before. That made it memorable, right? Specificity stands out and it's easier to remember. If I meet 10 people who all claim to do the same thing and one of them is ultra specific, it works better. This is also true in copywriting. Ultra specificity sells. A headline that's like, 52 ways to get more leads from LinkedIn does better than how you can get better on LinkedIn, right? Ultra specificity sells anything. So be Specific specificity leads to memorability. And the third principle under memorability is simplicity. If you're using jargon or I don't know what you do, I can't, I can't remember you and I can't help you. So I had a friend years ago who was in job search and I was like, oh, what kind of job are you looking for? And this is someone I had known professionally for over 5 years at the time. I thought I kind of knew what he did. And when I was like, what is it that you do? He had even practiced this. He had this statement that I literally— it was like, I use business intelligence to provide insights.

I'm like, you lost me.

I was like, so what would like a job title be that would be a fit for you? And like, I literally couldn't get any answers from him. It was too complicated. Our brains are simple. So when I worked on Tide laundry detergent, Tide is known for the best cleaning. That's it. It's one idea. It's an understandable idea, and it gets implanted in your brain. Simplicity means it needs to be an idea that's understandable to normal people. Social media expert. When I started doing this 15 years ago, everyone knew what that was. Someone who can help you with your marketing. Well, like, in what way? Maybe, uh, I don't know. No one knew what that was, right? So the key is making sure that it's something that people can easily understand and easily repeat. So the first is memorability, right? Which is specificity, simplicity, and consistency. The next step is authenticity. So if people don't feel like they are getting to know you, they will not connect with you. And this is, I think, difficult for a lot of people because, you know, even for me, I have to be really deliberate to make sure that I'm appropriately integrating my personality, and stuff like that into the way I come across. Because if I just seem like a robot and you don't feel like you're getting to know me, you're not going to want to work with me and you're not going to feel like you could have a relationship with me. One of the things as professional speakers that they tell you to do in your introduction is tell some kind of like a super relatable, self-deprecating story. Sounds weird, right? But the idea is that when people can relate to something, they like you more and they feel this connection point to you. So Authenticity is really important. So when it comes to authenticity, you need to make sure that you are showing your true self and that it's aligned with your true self. Because, you know, I made my brand originally really professional because I started doing this in my late 20s, right? And specifically as a woman, I needed to work harder to be taken seriously. People may think that's not true. It's 100% true. It's true today. It was true then. So I was like very over-formal. I didn't want to really, you know, I have a bit of an inappropriate sense of humor, truth be told. And so I didn't want to, you know, I was just like very rigid, but I was not really connecting with people and that wasn't helping me to build relationships and build connections on the level that could actually help me to grow. So you need to make sure you are kind of being real with people and you're building a brand that's based on who you actually are. If your brand is also not aligned with who you really are, it'll be very difficult to maintain and it just won't feel good. You know, like years ago I had met with this style coach who did like a makeover for me and I looked really good at the end. I probably— her look for me was better than my look now, but I don't feel comfortable looking like that. Like, I don't know how else to put it, right? She had like, like the color scheme she gave me was like soft blues and stuff, which is like, no, it just doesn't match me. It doesn't match my energy. I felt bad in it. And, but I looked— I would agree with her point. I looked better that way objectively, but it didn't feel authentic, so it never stuck. Right. And it was a lot of work to try and get to look like that because I just had to think, okay, I'm supposed to wear this color. Oh, my hair is supposed to be down and I hated it and it wasn't me. So you need to have that authenticity. It should be based on your strengths. When you know what you're really good at, you can be more strengths-based. And then you want your personality to come through where you can. People connect with people, right?

Let me jump in, Krista, because you just talked about that authenticity, and I love that. And you look great, by the way. You know, whatever was the different style, that this works perfect. Um, I see all the time people trying to fake a lavish lifestyle to sell some type of investment advice. So for me, like, you know, I see those videos on yachts and cars and, you know, buying houses. Like, I always ask the same question. Is that actually you? Like, is this how you live your life? Or is it just some, you know, some lavish exposure? So you're trying to sell that vision, which, you know, doesn't exist. And then if you look at the courses, you look at what they're actually doing, eventually you get these reviews popping up going like, yeah, fake, you know, charges millions, doesn't deliver and things like that. Can we say that not being authentic or effectively presenting yourself in different way in the beginning actually works but have just no maintainability?

Right. I think like if I wanted to be like, oh, look at my fancy lifestyle, right? It would be a strategy and I could do it for a limited period. But think of it as more like that would be a tactic, right? So what they're doing is they're using a tactic to try and hook you on a product. I, I think it depends what you're trying to do. If you want to create long-term value and long-term connections, I don't think that kind of approach is very effective, really. But it can be like I look at certain people I know who've built huge brands for longer than I have, 20+ years, who are very showy and it's not who they are at all. And they're able to make it work. I think the question when you go that route though, and what I've seen for the people I know who go that route, is like, what's the toll on your mental health? And I think it also prevents you from having real relationships with people. If those are things you're not so worried about, sure, you can. And like, the truth is it can be effective, right? Like, it's not how I would go about something, and I think it's I do think in the long run for most people it's less effective. But like, I have someone— I've known this guy forever, and him and his wife have a business together, and like, they just look like everyone's dream life. And it's not, because I know him and I know how messy his life actually is. I know he's had addiction problems on and off. I know, like, I know his life is actually a disaster. But you see them, they're living in a gorgeous apartment in New York, all this stuff going on, and it does work. I mean, they are literally making millions of dollars. So it's not, I think I would be remiss to say that can't work. It can. Mm-hmm. But at what cost, right? Yeah. And I think it only works in certain environments. They're like, they're the ones selling courses that are like how to write a month of AI content in 10 minutes. How to write a month of social content in 10 minutes with AI. Mm-hmm. Like it's not a real promise. Right. And So it, part of it is like, who do you want to be and what's the value you want to bring to the world? But I see people do it and I see them make a lot of money at it. So I wouldn't pretend it can't make you money or it can't work. But I think for most people, it's not really the reason they've started a business or the reason they want to grow their brand. Most people are, I think at some point, depending on your age and where you're at in your career, most people at some point want to actually make a difference, right? They want meaning from their work and they want their work to drive impact with other people. I think if you get into this, let's look so rich, so people, blah, blah, blah, let's sell them on this. I think most people are going to be dissatisfied with where they end up at some point, even if they can pull it off. Right. And for everyone who pulls it off, there's a million people trying the same nonsense that can't. So I wouldn't say it doesn't work. I've seen it work. You've seen it work, I'm sure. Which is why you're asking. Um, I just think it doesn't really lead to happiness for most people.

You're effectively living a split life. You having some masks, you know, one public, one private, you know, maybe you have a third, just personality divisions or whatnot. Or maybe you're being authentic to yourself because, you know, you, you love showing yourself like that. So maybe that's who you are. But as you mentioned, I think there's There's more than one example where people have, you know, profiles on social media which looks one, and then when you look deeper in their life, it's just not, not even close. But from customer perspective, why do people buy into it? It's like, what's innately so appealing to us that we go like, yeah, I feel like that's a good course, I'm going to buy this and I'm going to be him or her.

What I've learned, uh, so I've done consulting with the biggest businesses in the world, right, where they hire these like super pricey consultants. Like, I've worked with tons of different businesses of different sizes, super smart people, big jobs, big companies. What everybody wants is a simple answer and a shortcut. And the truth is, in almost anything that's worth doing, there isn't one, right? If I could give you a playbook for social media that would guarantee you 100 million followers, I would just have done that 100 times and be lying on a beach all day. Right? First of all, it's important to know that people who actually know how to do something that makes a lot of money are not out there creating courses and selling you on it. They're just not. They— if I, if I had a simple repeatable formula, I would just do that a thousand million times to make that money myself. Why would I teach everyone else how to do it? It doesn't make any sense, right? Warren Buffett is not out there running classes on like how to make money on the stock market, it's some guy who probably never made any money himself.

Yeah.

Right.

So, and doesn't have any financial education, never worked for banks or any investment firms.

Maybe they did well themselves, but it's not repeatable. Right. Like that's what we find. I've interviewed all sorts of marketers over the year and even a lot of the most successful marketers, they couldn't repeat that success they had again. It's not a proven formula. It's something they did one time. You know, my training methods, for example, all train, you know, this model we have for personal branding. That wasn't something where I built my own brand and said, I can show everyone else how to do it. It was research, it was training hundreds of people over time and refinement that helped me to figure that out. But it was years and years to work out what is it that worked. So I think most people selling you stuff haven't even had the results they tell you about. But the reason they're able to be successful is because everyone wants a quick, easy solution. Big company, I can go in and talk about education in digital and they'll say, well, does that mean after your class no one will make any mistakes, right? Or like whatever it is. And the truth is it's nuanced and it's complicated, but nobody likes that. You can look at politics, look at anything in life. People like simplicity and they like to feel like, oh, I can just do these 3 things and I'll be effective. In social media, for example. Excuse me. People always ask, what time of day should I post at? It makes no difference, really. I mean, that's the true answer. It makes like this much of a difference. Do you know what no one ever asks me? How do I make really freaking good stuff that people care about? That makes this much difference, right? So what it is, is people like simple answers. They don't want to hear something as complicated or nuanced. And I think the key to success, depending on what you want to do, I mean, people selling these quick wins, they do well. But, you know, the way I think about it with my clients is I don't make them feel real heavy about the complexity and like we're not getting anywhere. But I do. I think also when you work with more mature clients and more mature businesses, they know that this stuff is a little complicated and you can have good partnerships. But I do think the reason these kind of people can be successful with their brands is they're selling what everyone wants, which is a simple answer. Why does everyone care about what time of day to post on social media? It's easy. You just do it like this. I'm posting at 2 o'clock. Done. Check. Yeah. Yay. But it doesn't create the results, right? What creates the result is actually really tricky to nail down. It's, there's not a formula for what's going to perform well. So I think that's kind of why people like those, like easy answers.

Okay, I love that. We just buying a quick fix and hoping big results. We all just lazy animals, effectively, just sitting on our couch posting, when do I post your PM? Yep, done, just clicked myself when I had get 100,000 followers. Not going to happen though. So we digressed a little bit, Krista, come back to the maid. We, we went to memorable, authentic, and we on I now.

Yeah. So, so next is D, which is differentiated. And I already talked about this, but you really have to stand out. So here you're going to think about like what makes you unique, what are your specializations, and what are like— in marketing we call this points of difference. So what are some like meaningful differences that I would get with working with you than working with someone else? Um, I was working with IT company business owners recently. These are people who own you know, small to medium-sized IT consulting firms. And one of the things I said is like, you know, it's interesting to me that everyone's like, be a thought leader, post all this content, because if I were looking for an IT implementation firm, anyone that I consider would be expert level. It's not like I'm comparing you versus like my idiot neighbor who doesn't know IT, right? If I'm looking at you to implement something for me, I'm comparing you versus other good companies. So when you think about differentiation for your personal brand or your organization or business, it's really important to think about what differentiates you versus other good options. So even with my business, my team, anytime we do branding, people say, no, but our expertise sets us aside. I'm like, no, like it sets us aside from someone who has no business doing teaching. It doesn't set us aside from other digital marketing training companies. They all have experts. So what is it about how we package and deliver our expertise that's different? That's where the, that's where the magic is. So I think it's about figuring that out specifically. And then the last, the last step, the last step is E, which is educated. Here we're really thinking about credibility, right? What are your experiences, your credibility, your accomplishments? What makes it believable to people? And when I told you the story about Michael, who I worked with at Procter Gamble, Everyone was like, well, Michael went to MIT. I'm like, I'm pretty sure they don't have Excel classes at MIT, by the way. Right? Like, what does that have to do with anything? It was a credibility point, right? Because he went to MIT and he didn't go around bragging about it. That was just how his narrative became. Right. And what it is, is that having gone to MIT, oh yes, therefore he's a numbers nerd, therefore he's going to add value to my team. Right. That credibility point. Made the narrative believable. And so I think it's important to think about what are your credibility points. And, you know, for both myself and my business, we've really prioritized what these are. And that's based on reactions I've seen over time. So I still remember I was speaking at an event and there was a guy who spoke, um, after me. And you write your own little intro, they just read it. But when they read his, they were like, and he's worked with all these companies and he's been featured on this thing. And people were like, whoa. Like, I always look at the audience to see what are they like, wow. And people were like totally impressed by him. I had wrote my own bio. I didn't get the same reaction. I had bigger clients and I had better media appearances. But guess what? Stupid me didn't put them in my bio. Right. So now I know what are the things that people that have that wow factor where people are like, ooh, I got to have— like, I need to work with you. You're fancy and impressive. And I look for authentic opportunities to build them into a conversation so I could be working. You know, if I have a proposal out or I'm meeting with a prospective client and we're talking about something, I might say something like, you know, when I remember still when I wrote my Dummies book, one of the businesses I interviewed had said this and that, and that really sounds like your challenge, right? So I'm not trying to like name drop or something. You got to— it's a fine line. You don't want to appear to be like, you know, bragging, but I know what makes people impressed and I try to build those into as many conversations as possible.

That makes perfect sense. How else would they know unless you tell them? So it's like, or put it in your bio or somehow showcase it, right? So, um, if I wanna, um, effectively, how do I know How I'm different from, from competition is that, that I go ahead and I do like competition analysis and I look at the niche I'm competing, you know, who's competing with me, you know, what they're doing, and I try to find that differentiator factor. Or do I talk with the, you know, clients and, you know, whoever actually buying my services, and I go like, why did you board us? Like, how do you— if I have an idea, I can go with it, but how do you effectively keep that, you know, competitive edge of actually making sure that I leverage my differentiator quite well.

Yeah, all of the— I mean, all of the things you mentioned are good ideas, right? You can look at competitors and say, oh, there's white space here. Like, I actually, when I started my business 20 years ago, I was the only company doing training, right? I was the white space. But the marketplace is dynamic. So back then I was like, well, all we do is training. We're not an agency. We're not going to run it for you. We give you unbiased best ways to do these things. We have no vested interest. And then training became something that you can get from a lot of places now, right? So now we have to be dynamic. So you don't need to like— it doesn't need to be something that's like stuck on you forever because it changes and the marketplace changes, the competition changes, and what people care about changes. So to me, it's looking at your competitors, looking at other people who do a great job and figuring out what have they done well. And there again, there's not one way to do it. Like Kathy Hackl went all in on the metaverse and the metaverse took off. And man, she has just shone, right? Like she's done so, so, so well from that. That's just one way to do it though, right? There's other people who have done it differently. To me, the key is looking at people in your space that you think are doing a really good job and ask yourself, what have they done to differentiate themselves? Sometimes it's topics, sometimes it's approach, etc. But what is it that they're doing? What is the credibility they bring to the table? And I think by analyzing other people, you'll see what resonates with you. The third step. So like, you know, do research, do a landscape assessment, but where you'll get the best feedback is by going out and trying it on, right? So what I used to do when I started, after I would be like, oh, I do social media and I do this and I do that. And I was like, okay, I like, I realized real quick, I was like, I suck. No one knows what I do. So I was like, I have to go all in on social media and just be okay with that. So then what I would do is I would go to a networking event, I would meet someone new, and I actually had planned where I would have a friend go over after and say, oh, I saw you talking to Krista. What does she do? And I would have them tell me what that person said because then I know, is it like the impact I want? We talked about memorable, authentic. But the impact I want is that they can tell someone what I do, right? These elements I gave you are to make your brand clear and travelable, really, and desirable. That's what you want at the end of the day. So then you're going to start looking for ways to test. Am I doing that well? Am I getting the feedback? If I work at a company, am I hearing other people say, oh, you need Krista on your team because she's the Excel wizard. She's going to just like totally rock that out. So you got to look for signals that it's working for me. When I get introduced, I look at the audience, I look at where are they like, Oh, and people will come up to you and give you feedback. Like with my own business, when we started probably 15 years ago, I always had A-list clients. I was lucky in that way, but they weren't always on my website because I just didn't think about it. And when I added them to my website, people who came to the class would say stuff like, well, I saw you worked with all these big companies, so I knew you could help me. I'm like, okay, so guess what? My client logos are on every freaking asset I ever make.

That makes perfect sense. Okay, so, so we understood ourselves, we defined our own brand, we design it, which we just talked about, the MADE. So now we want to push it out. Effectively, we just want to deliver that to the market. Is there any go-tos, or is it just as simple as website, social profiles, start posting content? Make sure the content is relevant to the brand you're building. And, you know, that's the 101 package.

The first thing I would do, even before you do that, is get your elevator speech down. Your elevator speech is what you say when you meet someone. Your elevator speech written down would be, you know, on most social networks you get this little tagline or headline. What is that going to say? And I remember the first time I spoke at a conference, uh, I, I had never been to this conference. I knew one guy there. Who helped me to get the speaking engagement. And it was right after I decided to start my own business. So I remember walking around and I felt like, gosh, no one's very interested in me. You know what I mean? Like, I just was like, I would talk to people. I'm really like outgoing, but like no one was interested. I was like sucking. I could just, I felt off. I felt like no one cared. I didn't know how to make people care. I didn't know what to do. And so then my friend, the one guy I know comes over, he's like, oh, let me introduce you to my friends. And he's like, Oh, this is Krista. He's like, she's a foremost expert on social media. She used to work at Procter Gamble. She's written— she did a certification program that's globally accredited, wrote the first textbook. Anything about social media, ask her. And these people are like clamoring to talk to me. And I was like, huh? So like, I can't carry this guy with me everywhere. How do I do this myself? And it's hard. And I still, you know, it's funny because I do a lot of speaking, but I haven't gone to a conference. So when you speak, it's great because someone else introduces you. Where like people already think you're important. But I went to a conference as an attendee recently and I was like, oh geez, I gotta work this out again. Like, how do I get people to be interested and take me seriously? Which you can argue whether people should size you up or like you for who, like, I don't really care. I want the result I want, right? Like I know I want people to be interested and care about me, so I need to figure out what do I do to get that. So it's building that elevator pitch, right? Like I'll say, you know, if I'm— it depends a little what kind of event, but normally I'm like, well, I run a social media training company or a digital marketing training company, and I've done it for 20 years. Uh, so what I love is helping businesses get the results they deserve from what they're doing, because most people don't get the impact they could because they're making too many simple mistakes. Um, and you know, when I wrote the first textbook, we even talked about this kind of stuff. You know, I like— I'll just kind of throw in the few things that I know make people care. I try and make it casual because that matches my personality better and it makes me uncomfortable still. Like, I don't love doing it, but it makes a difference. So get that elevator pitch. Look at that made thing, right? Think about what do I need to bring to life? Where— get that elevator pitch down and then it's amplify. So all the things you said are great, you know, website, LinkedIn, whatever. But the truth of the matter is where I think everyone goes wrong with their digital presence This is true from the big businesses I consult with to people in their personal brand, is we feel this pressure to do everything and we do it all half well. If you look at people who are nailing it, truly nailing it, they do one thing extraordinarily well. Look at Instagram influencers. They build a whole business on one channel and they're very effective. Do you think they lie awake at night saying like, geez, I really should be on LinkedIn? No, they lie awake at night saying, how do I do even better on Instagram? And they build a successful business, a successful audience, and successful results. So to me, the biggest thing is, you know, sure, assets like a website can help you, but think about where's your target audience, what is your valuable message to them, and really amplify yourself on just one or two channels and really focus on breaking through there. Because there's enough audience on any channel that if you do it super well, you can get a lot of business from it. Um, and LinkedIn is the most obvious one for B2B, of course, but even LinkedIn— like, there's no LinkedIn influencers, there's LinkedIn creators. It's a big channel that not a lot of people do well. So it could be a big opportunity for you, but really just focus on one or two things and really killing it.

Yeah, I love that. Amen to that. You know, I do feel people as well, they just go like, okay, we've got LinkedIn, we've got Facebook, we've got Instagram, we've got, you know, X now, and Meta, not Facebook. And you know, there's, there's TikTok as well. So I'm gonna start doing the Shorts, you know, and this, and all these channels have different consumer basis, you know, age difference, demographics different, you know, content is different, medium is different. It's just understanding which one you want to compete in. It's probably the first one, choosing one and doing it well before you venture into others. It's a much better strategy to try to do all of them and just half-assing all of them. So, okay, so we got— we designed our brand, actually we defined it. We design it and then we deliver online and hopefully we do all these steps well. We're probably not because it's our first time trying it, but we do it as best as we can. You know, hopefully we're getting the success. So I just want to mention a couple of resources, you know, from Krista. She has a launchyourself.com, which is pretty much what we just talked about in the courses and workshops. There's a bootcampdigital.com as well. And I know a personal website from Krista. Near, which if you don't know how that spells out, look at the show notes, you'll find the link over there. So thanks, Krista, for coming and sharing your expertise. That was lovely. Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun.

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