Imagine If Your Leadership Brand Spoke for You - Here's How!

Hello everyone! Welcome to our live this week. I'm Claire Hayek, your host. I'm the founder and CEO of MSP Team Building. And I'm a neuroscience-certified coach. And I'm really, really happy to talk about today leadership and its brand. So, our conference today is called, is titled, Imagine If Your Leadership Brand Spoke for you, and here's how to make it happen. How amazing is that? And of course, I cannot make it happen alone. I need to make this happen with Tavit Neiser. Welcome, Tavit. Tavit is a brand and communications strategist who's helped executives and many organizations communicate their unique business story both internally and externally.

So.

Welcome again, Tovita.

Nice to see you again. Yeah, great energies with you.

Yeah, I'm actually— I find this topic really important because we don't usually talk about brand when it comes to leadership, execs, you know, even organizations in general. You know, we don't look at that. We talk about culture. We talk about a lot of things, but we talk about the brand. Yeah, I think it's very relevant. So we're really excited to have you with us. Thank you for joining. Now, back to you guys joining us here today. Please do tell us where you're tuning in from. Put it in the chat. This will be an interactive live. So do put us— put in the chat where you're joining us from, which part of the world. I'm here from Montreal, actually more like Lower Laurentians. And I don't know If any of you are in the area. But we're not going to talk about how much snow we got last weekend. I think we hit a record. If I read this, I think I read this in an article yesterday, literally a record since the 1800s. Crazy, crazy. I don't know if you know this, Tavit, but amazing. But hey, it got me a good workout and you'll see some of my posts on LinkedIn on that. Telling you about my workout for hours and hours shoveling, like many of you, I'm sure. And Tovit, where, which, which area you're joining us from?

Toronto. And it's piling up as well.

It's piling up, right?

It's a lot of exercise shoveling.

Well, that's the only way to do it, you know, or look at it, right?

So we actually built a slide at the backyard and a friend of mine asked, oh, it's for the kids. And I'm like, No, they didn't wanna step out. Me and my husband were sledding on that slide that we built.

Look at that.

We're kids, right?

Someone— Yes. Who said we're grownups? Who ever said we're grownups? But let's get back to our subject. We only have 30 minutes. And if you guys are joining us for the first time, this is again interactive. We're gonna take your questions throughout the whole time. We're gonna have a Q&A at the end, but sometimes we don't get to do a Q&A because time runs out. But let's start with this one. Why don't you drop a comment the chat. What's— if you were to think of one word, like one word people would use to describe your leadership style, what would that word be? So, let's start right away thinking about this and applying it. So again, what's the one word people would use to describe your leadership style? So, put in the chat. I'll be highlighting your answers in a second here. And quickly, Conor is here with us from our team to support us and to share some links in the comment and some stats. So, do say hi to Connor and hey Connor. So, to it. So, the way I see it, like many leaders think that personal branding, and I do this with quotes, right, is for influencers or marketers. We usually talk about branding, personal branding when it comes to, yeah, what's your brand? And I'm an influencer and I'm this and I'm that and I'm a marketing expert, etc. But in true fact, in reality, it's what separates leaders who command respect from those who get overlooked, right? It's all about that communication. So why is storytelling such a powerful tool, Tovia, in shaping our leadership brand?

That's a great question. Storytelling is, as I see it, an antidote to the excess of information that we have. We go outside, we're bombarded with messages, right? There are billboards everywhere. It's like you're in Times Square, but wherever you go, if you're on your screen, you already have so many screens and information is flashing. So you don't have time. We have that goldfish who has a lot more attention span than what we have, or the kids and younger generations. And people are just tired and overwhelmed. A story is the way that our mind and brain is wired to digest information. We can't really contain listicles. Like if you have signs and you have just short messages or long lists of words, it says nothing. It doesn't stick, but stories do.

Right.

They wire these connections and they release all these hormones. and emotions that you want to get in your viewers. You want the audience to connect. As for business leaders, business is done between people. The brand is a name, it's a title, it's a flat 2-dimensional thing. But a human, all these feelings and connection is what sticks and make that glue between people. And that's what we want. We want to leave a mark. We wanna be memorable. We wanna be meaningful. We wanna connect on a real genuine level with our audience. For that, we have to leave a mark and we have to be heard and we have to be memorable. But we have to be also to connect and be meaningful with them.

Yeah. And this is so interesting. It seems as if every subject we tackle on here on the lives that we do brings us back to the connection, brings us back to the importance of the human connection. And also I'm often mentioning the mirror neurons, We talk about neuroscience and how we can connect. And it's really just brain chemistry. It's happening without us being conscious of it. And this is like when you feel like you're really connecting with that person. Well, it's firing and wiring those mirror neurons that are basically connecting with the other person's mirror neurons. Like we say mirror because we're really just seeing the person. Feeling the person. We're being with the person. And basically having a brand, having a story, that's a way to also open up, right? And make that connection. But here's a stat. And I really want to know what you think about that, Tove. So, a stat from Nielsen. 92% of people trust recommendations from individuals, even if they don't know them, over brands. What's your take on this?

I totally agree. I read somewhere that it's 14 times more effective when a post is done on LinkedIn by a person, an individual within the organization, versus that organization, uh, title or that account. We don't connect to Nike per se, we connect to that behind-the-scenes person who creates that shoe, who, uh, creates that ad, who sells in front of us in the store. These are humans because we see ourselves. Like you said, we mirror that. We find that challenges, those hardships, those, I don't know, tasks and uphill and downwards. And when we see the struggle, we see this.

Yeah.

We want to see ourselves. We want to learn something. We want to feel connected. We want to feel, oh, and surprise and all these things, those hormones that just like watching Netflix, We're on a cliffhanger. We're part of that plot. We have a scene and behind the scene, and that's what we want to give them by sharing and opening, you know, a little bit of that curtain to see inside the business and the company. It's not just the signature or the logo on that building. It's what goes on.

It's the story behind it.

Yeah. A lot of micro stories.

Yeah, exactly. So I put up a poll question here so we can hear from, from our audience. Do you actively work on your personal brand as a leader? Yes or no? Please do put it in the chat. I'm just gonna go over and see here what's happening in the chat and see who's joining us. We got Nikki. Nikki Mattson from Wisconsin. Hey Nikki! And we got Sarah. Sarah as well, Liebhardt. Relatable, she says. Sarah, really, really nice to see you and thank you for joining us. So yeah, do put it in the chat. If we just, just to ask here, and Sarah's by the way joining us from Pittsburgh. And just put in the chat, do you both here, like just talking to Nikki and Sarah here, do you actively work on your personal brand as a leader? Have you thought of that? Do you do it? Yes or no? Sarah says, I'm starting to work on it. That's good. That's very good. And Nikki, I mean, there's no Right or wrong answer here. We're here to add value to you and and have a conversation about you know whether what you know what we see is important to talk about and add value to you. But if you feel this is not really relevant and you don't agree, all good. It's all about discussion. But what we're doing here is we're talking about what we've seen and with experience, and especially with COVID and how that could really help. You communicate your story and who you are with your team, with your organization, with people around you, with your network. And we're going to dive a bit more on that. And Connor here says, I should definitely work on my brand more than I do. Definitely, I agree with that, Connor. I know you focus a lot on our brand, our company's brand, my brand as well. And you've been a great help.

Thank you.

He's great at that. But it's true. You need to— I've always pushed my teams like, how's your LinkedIn? You gotta shine on LinkedIn. Work on your brand. Anyway, so let's keep going here. So, here we go. So, I think the common thread here and we've seen it a lot like people don't think of branding. Leaders don't think of branding. Even employees don't think of branding.

And you know what?

Many of us struggle.

You know when they do think about brand, about their own personal brand? When it's a tiny tad bit late.

I know, right? Yes, yes.

But you know, this is their job, or not getting that promotion, annoyed with the industry, something is, you know, cutbacks.

Oh, I gotta make a change. Let me work on my brand.

Right, it's consistent. That's why I love what Sarah wrote. I'm starting to work on it. Not saying I need to. I am doing it. Maybe it's not perfect. Maybe on the way in process.

Yeah.

But already going. Amazing.

But, but, you know, let's be honest, Ovid. You know, it's easy. I gotta say, I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty good. I've been working on mine for the past 2 years and mine was just like, so chaotic because I do a lot of stuff. I did a lot of stuff. I still do a lot of stuff. And I didn't know how to position myself because I'm like, how do I not talk about this and this and this and that?

Yeah.

So, I've had a bit of practice, I gotta say. And but many people struggle with positioning themselves. It's not easy. I actually went and seeked help. I mean, too bad I didn't know you then. But I would have totally hired you. But anyway, I had great help from great, great branding company. But it was just like, oh my God, I need to invest in this. This is important. So, if you can share with us, Toveet, what are some of the most common mistakes you see people making or leaders when it comes to their personal brand? Let's dive right in. I can't believe time is flying by. We only have 15 minutes and I have like 2 more questions for you. And I really want to add a lot of value to our audience. So, share with us. What are the common mistakes and how to avoid, right?

Like I, um, commented on Sarah's comment, one is not participating. That's the biggest. A semi-similar thing would be waiting to have everything worked out, like knowing, right?

Yeah, wait for everything to be perfect. I'm not ready. I don't have the perfect photo. I don't have the— right?

I'm not sure where I want to position myself, so I'm keeping it quiet. Quiet. I have people, I have connections, but I'm not sharing anything. I'm doing amazing things, but I'm not really sure, not voicing. Okay, so, so not participating or waiting for that perfect time. Another thing is doing it very basic. I see some people, I think they get, um, someone whispers on their, on their ear saying you should participate, so they're participating, but it's so basic. Or trendy, like, I should do that. People are writing that. I'll copy paste.

Oh, you mean modeling, modeling other brands because, you know, they kind of like what they're doing, but it's not, it might not resonate with their own brand. Right.

Okay. Another one which gives you the cringe is putting yourself in the center, at the center all the time. I see managers writing, I had this employee, this is quoting, I had this employee coming over and saying, my wife is really sick and I have to take time off. And I said, sure, because this is how we do that at work. What's this post about? Is it about being, you know, having these values of work-life balance? Is it about being a great manager? Okay.

So you're talking about it wasn't clear. Like, what are you trying to say?

Not just not clear.

The message wasn't clear.

but putting the spotlight on yourself, owning the story instead of on your employees. What that manager wanted to say is that we value work-life balance, but instead he brought in a personal story of someone else and put himself over it, took over the conversation. Me, me, me, I, I, I, instead of we or someone else. Put the spotlight on someone else. That would reflect on your values even better, right? Leave that cringe feeling. And that backfires at managers when they say, in our factory, we value blah, blah, blah, and we give people a raise. Or talking about very basic things that they should have. The backfire is just awful to the brand, to the company, to that person. And the other thing is when there is a gap when they're not very honest and sincere and they don't come off what they are.

Genuine, authentic. No authentication, right, right, right.

No authenticity. And then when you meet them, because finally you, you have a Zoom or face-to-face meeting with that person, you want to sign a deal, they're completely different. They were so nice and then they're not, or they're the opposite. So we have to be aligned and be very true to who we are. We don't have to fake an identity and create this make-believe or not real brand. Be yourself, be honest, share good stories. Now there are like 5 buckets of things that people can write about because people say, I don't have anything to share. I'm not interesting. That's not true at all.

Yes.

You have things on your diary, on your schedule. What are you doing preparing for this big conference? You came back from this big trip. Write about that. Write about the industry. Write about your profession, you know, what you're specializing in. Write about a global thing, a trend, something that goes on, the tariff, the, I don't know, wars, peace, climate to do with your story. And then the 5th bucket would be a personal thing, parenthood, uh, your spouse, hobbies, something that gives another peek of that person, of that personality, because we want to connect. I want to know that that person does something else besides work, and then I learn so much about him, her, their choices, their avenues, their pursuits, their hardships. That gives a lot of information.

Right, right. And, and I— there's so much in there. And I'm like, oh wait, wait, I need to summarize this. There were so many gold nuggets, you know. So, if you talk about— just to rewind here quickly, the mistakes to avoid is maybe just copy-pasting somebody else's and not being genuine towards your own brand. Writing about something that is not relevant to the audience or doesn't connect with the audience. So, you're more focusing on you and not highlighting the message that is, let's say, if it's talking about your employee, well then you need to put the employee in the front and center of the story. Other mistakes, my God, you said so much there. I'm like, oh my God, I gotta write this down.

Not being honest.

There was 2 other ones, right? Authenticity.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, not participating at all or waiting.

Or not starting, not taking that first step or thinking about like it has to be perfect before you take the first step, right? And then, of course, you shared a whole bunch of ways that we can do it better. But I want to unpack this a bit further in my next question. But before we do that, I want to share a stat. 75%, this is from LinkedIn. 75% of hiring managers say that they are more likely to engage with candidates who have a strong personal brand. So, I mean, we don't want to make this live about recruitment. This is not the point. But we're just trying to make a point about the importance of personal brand and connection. So, if that influences hiring tremendously, that 75% that are actually voted towards candidates that have a good personal brand, a personal brand period, as opposed to not having a personal brand. Imagine the opportunities that you could be missing And forget about only hiring. Again, I don't want to make this about recruitment. Imagine opportunities for your business or for your expertise. Maybe a journalist would reach out to you and ask you a thing or two about your expertise if you are communicating what your expertise is. You talk about it. You're adding value to your audience consistently on social media or LinkedIn, even if you're blogging about it every now and again. And again, this is Tuvit. And correct me if I'm wrong here. But I see a lot of people saying, I don't know how you— if I can take myself as an example, I don't know how you have time. You take the time to do this. Oh my God! How do you run your business? Well, it is part of running my business. If I'm not adding value to my audience, if I'm not adding value to my clients, future clients, then what am I doing? If I'm not sharing my expertise, if I'm not putting my brand out there, then what am I doing? What is my purpose, right?

Yeah.

So, I find brand really links with purpose. And for me, it was a no-brainer the minute I got that with the help of experts like you, Tavit. Then, it was clear to me. It's like, oh my God! It's my duty and my responsibility to communicate who I am because that's going to help a lot of people. And that's how I'm going to connect with a lot of people, whether it's partnership, business opportunities, or just adding value in their life. Or maybe putting a post on something And that completely will have a ripple effect on their life in a positive way, of course.

Yes.

Please, let's stay positive here. All right. So, or even if you're struggling with something, I want to clarify something. I put up a lot of— again, I can only speak about me. I can't comment on anybody else. But I put up a couple of vulnerable posts of it. And I hesitated for a long time to be vulnerable in front of the camera and open up. And I found those resonated the most with a lot of people. That I was struggling with a couple of things, a couple of issues as a business owner entrepreneur. It's tough. And I opened up about it. A lot of people reached out. And what you're talking about, that connection, it's not about feeling sorry for yourself or feeling like a victim or like, oh my God, people will judge me. No, but you're human and you cannot just show you're perfect all the time. You are not. We are not. Nobody is.

Yeah.

And this is where genuine, I think, What you were saying to it, right? Genuine. And it's okay to be vulnerable. It actually makes you more relatable and human and likable. But that, you know, that's, that's what I think. You know, you're the expert, but I believe, I strongly stand by that personally.

Let's quote Brené Brown. She coined that vulnerability is the way to magnet people. I mean, we are humans. This is the way to connect. We need good stories, we need genuine voices, and we need to show up with value, with stories, with, you know, snippets of what we're doing. Yeah.

And, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, um, I'm gonna be a bit controversial here. I want to ask you something. So especially, this is especially on LinkedIn, okay? We see a lot of people, uh, I, I, I think it's good to celebrate our wins. And I'm one of those. I talk about my wins and our wins, my team wins and everything. How do you feel about that? Because I personally think that sometimes, because people are not well guided or they're not maybe have good advisor when it comes to their brand, all we see is, I went to this conference and it was great. I got a promotion. I changed jobs. I just got certified of this. That's all it is. That's all they're sharing and nothing else. And I personally feel that I disconnect when all I see a person sharing is their wins. I'm always the first one to thumb up and applaud and congratulations. But I feel that I know some of the people. I usually speak up because that's who I am. I don't stay quiet. I get myself in trouble sometimes. But I usually say like, But you're so much more than what, you know, your promotion, and tell us about this and tell us about that, you know? And sometimes like, please come on my live. I wanted you to talk about what you do. You know, how do you feel about that? Like people just focusing on the wins, but not talking about everything else about them that is way bigger than a promotion or a little conference they went to.

I think that's part of the first mistake that I said is the copy paste. or working with the algorithm. I shared a few months ago about me joining an advisory board of a tech company, but I really thought over that. I didn't just want to say, congratulate Tuvit for being, you know, getting her license, driver license. Oh wow.

Okay.

300 likes. Um, and people really connected because I did not make it at all about myself. I wrote why I chose to join And I heard about that founder who's older, who's second-timer, and he sold one company, and what he did right in building that startup and business. And that was about how do you find it, how do you decide if a company is going to succeed. I mean, it got— it had some tangible advice and things that people can relate. Does the algorithm work as well just by saying congratulate Claire of Probably, probably. But does it really stick with people for longer?

No.

No. I think they— people at the end of the day think of you not as just that placard, uh, poster girl of saying, right, that— but yes, she went through a journey like in a story. She had, uh, you know, there was a challenge and she climbed that mountain and she met someone and they helped her and then they went on to the sunset or whatever. But it's not only that finale. It's, you know, the downs and the ups, but the downs and the things that we can take from that, or just the journey. Talk about the journey and the people we meet on the way and the lessons we take from that. All these snippets of life experiences, that's what really sticks with people.

And I think this is so relevant. And some of the comments I've got, people that I talked to them about that and the importance of their brand and personal brand. As a business owner, period, or a leader is that they said, I don't want to talk about myself. I don't want to be the center of attention. I'm not comfortable talking about my life. I'm not comfortable. This is private stuff. I don't want to put myself out there, etc. What do you say to that? Because I think there's— this is not what we're saying to— I mean, I don't talk about my personal life 24/7. I might talk about how I shoveled on the weekend, and so what? Like everybody else did, you know? But what do you— how do you— what kind of words of encouragement you can give to people to see this differently, um, as opposed to, you know, this is a social media thing, me, myself, and I, and this is my house, this is my husband, this is my kids, right? Everything is perfect.

Yeah. So first of all, to make things less scary, it's a mixture. It's never just you. We're not that personal promoter on Instagram or TikTok selling other people's brands by being a brand by ourselves, right? So you have a mixture. It's your life and what you did and the hardships and the talent and the knowledge. It's never just that. That's one thing, not a lot of focus on yourself, but every now and then these stories are the best. And what I can say to make it easier on people to share that there's value and on the other side. People see that and they wait to learn from you. You could be the one who teaches them and who guides. I'm working with this founder and his posts are okay, and we're doing other things, not just personal branding, but whenever he speaks about his family related to that business, how they support him, right, it just breaks— the internet collapses, and it's amazing.

Look at that.

So for him, knowing that he helped other people, knowing that it's not only himself by, by himself through these years, but it's that clan of people who helps him, it's a community that makes him understand that he should share every now and then. It's not all the time, 24/7, you know, reality show, but it helps. And I think it's good to know that you can bring value to others. And you can change their lives in a way.

I think you said it right there. Bring value to others. And I wanted to highlight that. Write this down, people. Your brand, this is what it's about. At the end of the day, it speaks your purpose. It speaks on what you're adding into this world. And this is, if that's the focus, then it shouldn't be, it's a no-brainer. You just want to talk about more how you can add value and help people, etc., by sharing your story. So, it's not about making it about you but using your life and what you're going through, what you've learned, how much value you can add to others to help shine the light on a certain thing, a certain subject, or an experience you've had. Maybe it could again have that ripple effect and help somebody out there. So, it's a looking at it from a different angle, right? Looking at it completely from a different angle than what we usually think about when we talk about these things, when we talk about social media.

Right.

I put up a couple of questions there. The last one I put, do you use storytelling when positioning yourself as a leader? And I'm curious just to jump into the chat. I mean, we're running out of time as usual. And just to read a couple of the comments. David. Hi David, thanks for joining. They also think of their brand when something negative happens. So sometimes, right. Yeah. That's when we wake up and like, oh my God, let's look at the brand. How do we control the situation? How does it look? Right. It's a bit late at that point. He also said, great advice, Tove Knizer. Add real value for others. Exactly. Sarah just added another comment here. Working with a transformational coach recently has helped me define my values and purpose. This led me to start focusing more on building my brand. Great, great shares here from our audience. Thank you guys for participating in this. So, Tovit, let's wrap up here. But before we do, I do want to share a little challenge With our audience, whether you're listening to this as a replay or you're just here with us. I would like you to post one insight from today's session on any of our social media because we stream on YouTube as well as Facebook and other platforms. So, if you're on LinkedIn, it's LinkedIn. It doesn't matter. Just post one insight from today's session and tag us and practice Storytelling in a post and tag us. We'd love to come and comment on yours, and then maybe please also tag me and Tovid, and we'd love to come and comment on it. And of course, Tovid's comment will probably be more relevant, and she's the expert here. So again, post one insight from today's sessions, a gold nugget that you got that really helped you, and make sure to tag us. And as I guess last note here, I know we're going to go a bit over time. So how do we make sure to communicate our brand across our organization, our network, our teams? How can leaders do that quickly? Sorry, we're running out of time. Tovett, if you want to just wrap up on that end of things.

Yeah, I think very basic is to draw this triangle and think of the audience. Who are you speaking to? So we'll know how to to speak. What is the goal? What do you want them to learn? Kind of reverse engineer. I want them to know that I bring value. I want them to know about my product. Then we'll know what we're talking about. And then connect with yourself. What are the values? What would be the tone? What would be the, the way that you will speak? Would you talk about others always? Sometimes give a snippet to your life. So it's the audience, the purpose, the goal, and yourself. Connect these 3 and then start, start doing that. Don't wait for it to be perfect. Don't wait to understand everything. You don't have all the answers, but you have to be consistent, clear, concise, compelling. Anything with a C, any word that starts with C.

I love the C. And, you know, Claire, clarity, communication, creativity. I had to make a joke about that. Okay, I had to make a joke about that. So, thank you so much, David, for all the insights. Very, very interesting. Lovely to have you. I just want to share with everyone here that next week, we're going to be talking about basically why your team struggles with uncertainty or why leadership, period, why we all are struggling with uncertainty and the fix that no one Talks about. I'll be joined with Courtney Bickert. It's the same time next Wednesday. It's going to be on February 26th at 11:30 a.m. We'll go live on this, and this is very relevant. We're going to talk about a lot of resilience in there, of course, with everything going on right now. Everybody's talking about it's like the subject of the hour. And a quick reminder that you'll see here on top of my screen on on the left-hand side or right-hand side depending on. Which side it is that you're looking at. I'm sorry, I get confused with these things. You'll see a QR code that I'm also going to put up here about our AI Sprints. We have launched our membership for AI education for basic knowledge or advanced premium knowledge. Please scan the code, reach out to us. If you want to have a trial period, do reach out to me in a DM and I'll be happy to share a code with you so you can try it for a month for free because we do want to add value. We want to help you leverage AI for the one and only reason, for you to be more productive and more creative and not for AI to replace your job because that's not what we're talking about here. And finally, I just wanted to go here, jump to the chat and see if we have any more comments coming our way. A lot of thank yous, a lot of links being shared. Again, thanks everyone for joining us. And we're really looking forward to catching up with you next week. And in case if you're interested to know more about brand, building a brand, anything when it comes to brand, please do put brand in the comment and we'll get you all connected and with some more information on that. Toveet, thanks again.

Thanks, Claire. It was great.

Talk soon, talk soon. And yeah, we'll see you next week, everyone. Have a good day. Bye.