Why Your Personal Brand is a Non-Negotiable in the AI Era with Melanie Borden

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People are always saying to me, well, I don't want to be an influencer and I don't need to have 100,000 followers. And I was like, well, guess what? I don't really think of myself as an influencer and I don't need to have 100,000 followers, but just happened because people were interested in the things that I was talking about. And this is how you grow trust. It's a non-negotiable in 2026 that you have a personal brand or digital footprint online. You need to have it because people are using technology differently than they ever have. It's not just, I'm gonna go onto LinkedIn and look this person up, or I'm gonna go do a Google search on this person. Now people are going into ChatGPT and Perplexity and Claude and they're saying, what can you tell me about this person? And if you don't have what you believe out there, what you've built out there, what outcomes you've driven, and who you serve, you're going to get skipped over. Someone is going to pass you over.

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Fasten your seatbelts. I'm ready for my close-up.

Hi and welcome back. I'm so glad you're back here with me this week. Okay, this week we've got Melanie Borden. She's the founder of The Borden Group. An exclusive visibility advisory firm helping leaders translate expertise into measurable growth across modern search. She's a trusted personal brand strategist and GTM advisor, helping leaders align their expertise with their digital presence and future-proof their careers. Who doesn't need that? She's also the author of her new book, Theater of the Mind, her personal brand book exploring fear, visibility, and reinvention for modern leaders. Melanie, thank you for being back on the show.

Thanks for having me, Heather. This is so exciting.

Okay, so for people who haven't heard you on the show before, because I'm certain there are some and, you know, maybe they've been living under a rock, but now can you give them— a lot of people know you from LinkedIn, a lot of people know you as a social media personality. Can you give everybody who doesn't really know you a little background into how you ended up where you are today? Yeah, absolutely.

That's such a great question. I love that one. So I started in marketing in my career in sales and marketing, and back in 2020 I was examining what my— the company I was working for at the time, which spanned across automotive and real estate, and I was looking at different ways that we would be able to leverage the marketing dollars that we were spending. And so I had come up with this training for all of the forward-facing sales team for doing a training on how to go to market and how to leverage their personal brands. This was very early 2020, and at the time I wasn't exactly leading by example. I had just started posting on LinkedIn. The pandemic happened and I realized that I had zero digital footprint. I wasn't really active in any way, shape, or form on anything social. I was not prepared for a catastrophic event like the pandemic. And I just started going on to LinkedIn where a lot of people were going on instead of, you know, going into their water cooler, going to the break room, people were now just living on LinkedIn. So I started posting every single day, multiple times a day, becoming obsessed with my personal brand, going on podcasts, creating a website, creating a digital presence for myself. And one thing led to another, and that's exactly what I did, is I created a presence for myself. Since then, I've won a few different awards, including 40 Under 40 in my industry, Women in Retail, because at the time I was working in the auto industry. I've done a couple of like magazine covers as well as just a lot of different editorials. And 99% of everything that I've done has been inbound. Meaning I hadn't had to really go out and find it. It found me based on everything that I was doing, whether it was posting on LinkedIn or it was writing a blog or having a newsletter. People were finding me mainly through LinkedIn, and it led me to my position changing from one role to another in 2021, which then led to me taking the step to start my own business. In 2021 as well. And so it just goes to show that if you really want something and you go after it and you take those steps, the universe will kind of align everything in place to make it happen. And so it really was something that I just became very disciplined with and just kept showing up with, um, over and over and over again. And I've really been obsessed with it for years. And that's how you and I met was through LinkedIn.

It's ironic now to think back, but we didn't know each other in real life. We do now, and we've been together many times in real life now, but we did not know one another, but we started messaging on LinkedIn cuz I saw your content, you saw my content, we like each other's content. And that was the foundation and the start of our friendship, which is so wild. And I know you just like me, we've met so many people now on LinkedIn and it's been a vehicle not only for tremendous business growth, but also for personal relationships. And I just wanna add, it's so funny, I'm older than you and I started doing this before you. I was a chief revenue officer in media and I couldn't find salespeople. I'll never forget. And so I remember, 'cause I was in the radio business and people didn't wanna get into radio. It was, you know, an older person's business. And I remember I was probably 40 years old at the time and I started posting because I wanted to I, I, I kept saying to everyone at work, it's too hard. I'm having to go everywhere to find people so they can get to know, like, and trust me. I'm flying all around the country to meet people to get them to come work for me. I need to find a way to bring them to me and reverse the current. And so that was the whole concept for me years ago. That's now 11 years ago where I said, I'm gonna start showing up online and posting. And I started posting on LinkedIn just so people could get to know, like, and trust me so I could find salespeople. And it worked and it worked right away. And immediately I kind of shift that current within a year, even though I probably had like 10,000 followers at the time, but I was teaching about what I'm, what it's like to work with me as a leader, teaching what I teach my team so that other people could learn it. And really quickly it started working. And just like you, I, it started attracting opportunities and candidates. So it can be used in many different ways. You don't have to use your personal brand necessarily to go become an entrepreneur. You instead can use it as a way to magnify yourself, to attract talent, to attract vendors, partnerships, clients, employees, anything to you. It's really a vehicle to allow people to get to know, like, and trust you before they ever actually meet you. And I think that's one of the big confusions for people, cuz people will say to me, well, I don't need a personal brand, Heather. I'm not like you. I, I'm not trying to build a podcast or a speaking career. Well, that's irrelevant. The bottom line is if you want to be known, and I, I mean, everybody's got a reputation out there already to begin with. Why wouldn't you wanna be holding the pen, amplifying it, growing it, and finding that the right people? Have you had a similar experience where people say that they don't think they need a personal brand?

Yeah, it's something that comes up all the time. People are always saying to me, well, I don't wanna be an influencer and I don't need to have 100,000 followers. And I was like, well, guess what? I don't really think of myself as an influencer and I don't need to have have 100,000 followers, but it just happened because people were interested in the things that I was talking about. And this is how you grow trust. And this is how I ultimately said to myself, I could take a risk and I could jump and I could leave my company if I wanted to, that I was at, at the time, because I had this blind faith that having a network of people that were across many different industries, not just the industry that I was in, that I would be able to do that. It's a non-negotiable in 2026. Basics that you have a personal brand or digital footprint online. You need to have it because people are using technology differently than they ever have. And it's not just, I'm gonna go on to LinkedIn and look this person up, or I'm gonna go do a Google search on this person. Now people are going into ChatGPT and Perplexity and Claude, and they're saying, what can you tell me about this person? And if you don't have what you believe out there what you've built out there, what outcomes you've driven and who you serve, you're going to get skipped over. Someone is going to pass you over and it's very intentional. And it doesn't matter if you have 100,000 followers or 1,000. That information needs to be out there so someone can find you.

Such a great point and such a great point that you just made that ChatGPT, Claude, all these other new AI utilities that we have available to us. They show up and populate information differently than Google used to, and you need to be able to show up on both of 'em. That, that's the reality. People don't take business cards anymore. They get your name, they follow you on Instagram, they follow you on LinkedIn, and then they Google search you or ChatGPT you. And that's a totally different ballgame. What have you found has been a differentiator in regards to that world of Googling someone versus using, um, AI?

So what's interesting about it is, you know, there is this big shift. I mean, it's been happening and it's happening so fast that I feel like every single week there's something advancing, there's something changing, there's something news related with regards to search. And so you have Google who's populating answers through their AI platform, and then you also have all these other AIs like Claude and Perplexity that are out there pulling that information and also giving people answers. So one of the things that is important, and by the way, as of, I believe it was of January, it might have changed, but as of January, Reddit was number one in searches that would come up for anything, any searches in Google. And then number two is LinkedIn. So that's massive for someone, especially for someone who has a company initiative, but just having very clear positioning and then having those repeated themes, you have to have more than just a LinkedIn. You also have to have your website, right? So how many company websites do we look at where it has about us and it has just generic information? It doesn't have all the leaders in the company with all of their information broken out. It's not linking to their LinkedIn profiles. It's not showing any press that they've been in or any media that they've done. None of that is there. And all of that is really important. All those documented insights have to be there now. And people that are scratching their heads and saying, well, I thought I, we were doing everything for SEO. Well, it's so much more than that now because of this added layer of the machines and also personal brand, but it's all connected together.

Well, that's so true. Okay. So one of the things that just popped into my mind relative to where we are right now in, in 2026, there's a ton of layoffs happening, as you know, as we all see these headlines, right? Um, certain jobs are being phased out because of AI and, um, certain, you know, industries are being impacted differently because of the economy. And there just happened to be a number of different layoffs in the press. And I've been seeing a lot on social media. I was just fired.

I was just fired.

And PS, if you don't know, which I'm sure I would hope you know if you listen to my show, I was fired when I was 43. So I feel your pain if you've been fired and I know it can be super scary. However, in today's day and age, there's so much you can do to get ahead of it. What is the message, Melanie, for people who are watching all these headlines and starting to get scared saying, oh my gosh, my job's gonna be replaced by AI, what can I do?

So be proactive. I mean, the one thing that I will say, I don't have regrets, but when I'm talking to a client and they're telling me, well, I don't know if I really need to do this right now because I don't necessarily have this urgency, but I just, I'm trying to get more information to understand. Don't wait. You wanna make a list of every single thing that you could possibly do to set yourself up for success. Success for the future for when you do know it. One of the most basic things that someone could do is to buy a domain with their name in it, so that way when they are in need of having to go off on their own, or maybe they want to have like a separate digital CV, they could have heathermonahan.com with all Heather Monahan's career accomplishments listed right on that website. Another thing is look at your, look at your LinkedIn profile, because every time you make a change to anything anything that you're doing, you're sending a signal to LinkedIn's algorithm as being relevant. And then LinkedIn's algorithm is looking at that, and then you have all the other algorithms from all the different AI platforms and also Google that is looking at your LinkedIn as well. And something as simple as downloading a PDF of your profile, which everyone has the ability to do it, and then uploading it into one of the AI systems, like into ChatGPT, and asking What should I change on my profile to make me aligned for X, Y, and Z role? And it will just give you a full strategy of what you have to do. But being proactive, don't wait for the moment. And I think that you and I both have that in common. We got to a point where we said, okay, we need to do these things because something was happening versus preparing in advance. And, and there's just like basic little things. You do one thing every single month. By the end of the year, you're going to be fully set and ready for success so that if something does happen, you don't have to freak out.

You're ready. Meet a different guest each week. Hey, confidence creator.

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Confidence clearly.

I ask you to try to find your passion. Rewind that and listen to everything she just said and go do it. OK, here's the thing. And for everyone, it's true though. For everyone listening is that knowing what I know now, and I want to hear what you would have done differently, but knowing what I know now, I was always putting company first, the company I worked for first, right? That was like if you went to my profile, it was Beasley Broadcasting, Beasley Media Group. And I would put them almost as like the star of my profile. Again, I was looking to recruit people and whatnot, but I didn't know what I know now. What I know now is the company you work for is probably temporary. The industry you work for, maybe temporary. The boss you work for, temporary. And here's what I mean. I don't mean that maliciously, and I mean it like this. Your boss can get hit by a bus tomorrow. Your industry can be irrelevant literally overnight due to technology, and they can dismantle companies and sell them off piece by piece, and you will go along with it. Your, the actual company that you work for might not be paying down their debt and they could be wiped out or bought by somebody else. A new CEO walks in tomorrow and their team takes your place. So in all 3 of those instances, it, it's nothing bad. It, it's just, it just fits, right? And it happens. And so you have to understand, in my situation, the CEO I worked for for 14 years became ill, replaced himself with his daughter. That woman hated me from day 1. So there's things that are gonna happen in business outside of your control. Here's what you can control. If I could go back and do it over, I wouldn't have been highlighting the company I worked for nor the industry. I would've been highlighting myself, my accomplishments, my achievements, and my teachings and how I lead people and what I can teach them, how I can elevate them, how I can mentor them. I would see it through the lens of the people that I ultimately wanna connect with in the future. Meaning if you're someone who's saying, okay, let's be smart here. Right now I'm just posting about company stuff, sharing company stuff online. That's not helping me build a brand. That's not helping me build personal value, and that's not helping me build a bridge to opportunity. Why not showcase and put your best foot forward? Teach what you can teach. Do it in a positive fashion, in a positive way, so that other people can start to get to know, like, and trust you and reach out to you with opportunities. That way you're not panicking you're gonna get fired or your industry is gonna be, you know, useless or irrelevant. You're instead in a position of power where people are seeking you. How would you do it differently if you could go back to when you were back in the automotive business, which was a while ago?

Gosh, you know, it's so interesting because if I had a time machine and if I could go back in time, I probably would've cared a lot less knowing what I know now because I was so concerned about what other people think. And I was so concerned about upsetting the people who were around me in leadership as well. And I was constantly thinking about how it would make them feel versus is how it will benefit me in 5 or 10 years. And so if I could go back, what I would do is I would think about what my end goal was. And, you know, one of the things that I had experienced a lot of, and what I talk to people about now, is personal content. I was oversharing a lot of things that weren't really connected to my career, more so connected to me and what I was experiencing at the time. And if I could go back into that time machine, I would have shared my personal perspective when I was in those work situations versus maybe in the personal situations that I was in to share less because there's that fine line between personal and private. But I would definitely go back and I would say to myself, you could still be ringing the company bell and you can still do all of the things for the company. So on paper, It does appear that you are all for the company and you could pull up your profile and say, look, I've got the company banner, I have all the information about the company. I do reshare some of marketing's content. But what I would do is I would add in more content about the work that I was doing to kind of show that I am that subject matter expert and this is why I am the best at what I do and here's why. And these are the different perspectives and situations that I got in and I felt nervous to share that because I wasn't as confident in who I was. And that would be the biggest differentiator. And I hear it a lot from specifically women that I talk to. It's men too, but I would say it's more women that are nervous about upsetting the apple cart and offending someone just like me. I was the same way. I felt exactly the same way where I didn't want to share everything because I was afraid maybe I'm not knowledgeable enough. Maybe someone's going to correct me, but I didn't know what I knew at the time. And I know what I know that I know now, and I definitely should have done that. And so I would say to someone who's sitting there thinking, well, I don't know if I can do this because I'm going to have to deal with marketing, I'm going to have to deal with legal. My CFO doesn't like it when I post this. Do all the things that you have to do within the guidelines if you want to. Because then you can point to and say, see, I am doing it, I am doing the things. But what I'm also doing is I'm sharing the kind of content that I want people to find me for. And so there's ways to kind of move within that loophole, you know, figure out the 3 topics that you're strongest at and all of your personal content be about that content because that's what all the machines are looking for, that consistent conversation. And I would continue to do that if that was me now.

I'll give you the flip side of that. I was in the C-suite, as I mentioned, for a big media company. I'd been there for, you know, 100 years. And I also know the, what's happening behind the curtain in, you know, the boardroom and, and the conversations that are occurring. Here's, here's what I want people that are listening to know. When I started getting a really hard time for posting, it should have been a flag to me. Wow, they're threatened by me. And when someone threatened by you, it's 'cause you're about to accelerate and take off and do something they don't know how to do. And that's a really powerful knowing. I didn't know it at the time, right? I'm with anyone that's sitting there saying, oh gosh, I'd be scared. I don't wanna lose my job. I haven't pulled in handcuffs. I need my paycheck, blah, blah, blah. Like, I got you. I felt that same way. However, what I realize now, I see it so differently. When the company is threatened and starts panicking, it's 'cause they see something so great and big in you and they are so afraid. Cut to today. This is now I've been gone from that company. Gosh, what is it, 7 years? And my social media following's larger than theirs. Now I see why they were so afraid, right? So it's interesting to see, and I'm just giving everybody that. I want you to have that rear view look that you can't have right now, but I'm gonna, I'm giving you a preview. If they're freaking out on you, it's cuz you're about to do something really, really big and they're really, really afraid. So lean in and do it. Like, don't let someone dim your light and Instead say when they start being tough on you, oh, we don't want you posting. We want you off social media. Bad look for us. Say, wow, this is a green light. I'm onto something huge. I gotta lean into it. And by the way, Bank of America and the other largest companies in the United States, their, uh, C-suite executives all post too. So I think we've got an issue here, or you've got an issue with me. And that's probably really what it is. They're afraid of you. They, you're probably in the wrong place. You've probably outgrown where you are. I know that I had. And it's probably time for you to take a look at what other opportunities are out there. The best way to find an opportunity is make yourself known as an expert in your industry, in your, you know, thought leadership, and watch the opportunities start pouring in for you. Okay. So one of the things, Melanie, that you brought up that I love talking about is you were saying that some people get afraid of what if I'm not posting correctly? What if I am wrong in the information I share? What if I'm not as smart as I think I am? What if nobody wants to hear the content? That I have to share. What if everybody else is already talking about sales and me just talking about sales is gonna be one more person talking about it? How do you help people get over that? And I know that you got into that in your new book, Theater of the Mind.

It's such a great question, and I really do believe that everybody, especially if they have a 19 in their birth year and they weren't brought up with the internet, has this barrier in order to move forward with having a public presence. Unless you were born into a media family or in the entertainment business, it's not something that a lot of us inherently have, is being able to put ourselves out there without feeling like we're under a microscope. And one of the best ways, and it sounds ridiculous, and I'll give you a great example. So I noticed yesterday that there was a, about 15 years ago, a VP of sales that I worked with then looked at my LinkedIn profile. And I reached out to him this morning and I sent him a video of this binder that I have where he sent me for like 5 years a letter every single month that I was above plan. He sent me these letters and he would write something at the bottom of the letter and he would sign it. And I actually sent him the video of me flipping through this binder this morning because I wanted him to remember that he had an impact on me. And so when I was writing my book, I was going through all this imposter syndrome and I was experiencing all these things that were happening. And it was almost as if I forgot what my accomplishments were and my achievements were that I've had over the course of my career because I don't love talk— even though I'm out there, I don't love talking about myself in that way. But proof, looking at actual proof of your accomplishments, looking at your awards that you have in your office on your desk, Looking at the achievements that you've had, understanding and just looking through those things really help you with anchoring this fear of failure, fear of being judged, imposter syndrome that a lot of people experience, but they don't know how to label it because they don't wanna call it imposter syndrome, or they don't wanna call it fear of failure or fear of judgment, but that's ultimately what it is. But the number one thing that you could do is to just do it. Cause action is the only thing that's gonna move you through. If anyone wants to get to where they wanna be next, you have to move through the fear. If you're afraid of speaking on stage, you have to go speak on stage to get over it. So it's the same thing with putting yourself out there online. If you're afraid to do it, you have to just do it and just watch what happens. It's not gonna be as scary as you think.

Oh, I love that so much. And I just wanna add onto that. My first book I wrote in 2018, I had no idea what I was doing. I self-published. And it turns out that book has 3 mistakes in it. I'm so proud. I never wanna be that person that's on their deathbed that says, I lived an amazing life, but you know what? I had this book inside me and I just never had the courage to write it cuz I couldn't get it perfect. I always wanna be that person that says, I couldn't get this thing perfect, but you know what? I put out in the world and it impacted so many people. And so I started making things not only about, I'm perfectly flawed, right? So I am perfectly flawed and that is true. And everybody's perfectly flawed. There's no human out there. Jesus is the only person in the world that was ever perfect, right? So no one's holding any type of level to that. So we all are flawed. Why don't we all own it and why don't we keep moving forward and creating? You can either criticize or create. I'm always gonna be on team create and like make the world a better place. The other thing that I'd add to that is if you can help one person with your message, with your post, with your anything, right? Your teaching, your book, your site, anything, then wasn't it all worth it, right? Like, because I think that the people that came before me, you think of Melanie, like, the thousands, hundreds of thousands of people you impact every day on social media with your book. Like, the things that you teach and how you lead by example. Instead of sitting in fear, you move forward in faith, and you move forward and say, I'm going to do this because it might impact someone, because it might help someone. When we stop making things about ourselves, instead make it about the people we can help, it's a lot easier to create. And I know that for you, it's the amount of messages you get from people that you've changed their lives by your teaching. It's overwhelming at times, isn't it? Doesn't it make you so happy?

Yeah, it definitely does.

And it's—

I don't look at it anymore as, you know, personal brand strategist or visibility strategist. I look at the work that I do as being a guide for someone because I've already experienced the things. And I know you're the same way. We've already experienced the things, we've already done those things, and now our role is to help those people move through those same experiences to get to where they need to be. Because for a long time I kind of thought, well, what am I going to do with this? What is this going to look like in 5 years and 10 years? What am I going to be able to do with this if I'm being labeled as an influencer? What does that mean? What is it going to do? But that's ultimately what I always come back to is, yes, being told that you're so inspiring and that you helped. I mean, I think about some of these, you know, cringe posts that I did early on where maybe I now looking back say, you know, maybe I shouldn't have posted that. But you want to know something? When I get a message from someone who's like, I saw your post 5 years ago and then I was divorced and I was changing roles and I was coming in as a disruptor and you have no idea how much it meant to me, it was all worth it. It was all meant to be. I mean, that's what it comes down to because it is, you said it's to serve others and that's really what we're doing. It's so true.

And it just taking that first step, that small step, putting that first post up. And to Melanie's point, listen, I've overshared a million times too, and those have always been the posts that have gone viral. Sometimes the mistakes we make are what really lead us to that jump off so that we can build some base, build some community, build some opportunity. So there's, you know, there's no bad looks. It's just, you know, So it's, it's a moment in time and something you can learn from, but it's also something we can look back and say that, that at the same time was a big help. Okay. How is AI changing the way buyers and decision makers evaluate leaders before they ever get on a call? Because we all know this is impacting LinkedIn, social media, everything everywhere.

Yeah, that's such a great question. I mean, it really has compressed the time building timeline. So I'm sorry, the trust building timeline. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, if someone is going to do a search for me, I want them to see that I'm active online because it's just going to add credibility. So people are not just asking ChatGPT, they're also looking at LinkedIn, they're also looking at Google, they're going into Claude, they're seeing what the different answers are. They want to scan your overall digital footprint. They want to see how much authority you have, because especially if someone is going to invest with you, if you're launching a new product in Q3 and you know that that's coming, You want people who are going to be investing in that product to be looking and saying, okay, what do you believe? What have you built? What outcomes are you driving right now? And who are you serving? And do I fit within that category? And there's a lot of people that aren't looking at AI this way. They're looking at it as whether it's a nuisance or they're criticizing it. But what you could do is you could leverage it in a way where it's your strategy partner and it helps validate your leadership. I mean, that's really the benefit. And the people who look at it that way, they're going to see before you ever even have a conversation. It's interesting. Last year, like early last year, I'd probably say around April is when I first started seeing people reaching out to me and saying, I found you via ChatGPT. And I thought it was so bizarre when it started happening. But I knew that it was from the years of going on podcasts, writing articles, being active on LinkedIn. And then how do you compound that over time? You just do more of it and just keep it consistent because it's looking for that consistency. So you don't just, you build it and then stop. You continue, you create a cadence that works for you, and then that's the way that people are going to be able to evaluate you. And when it comes to a team of people, which you and I have seen before, you now have multiple people that it's affecting. So if you want to do a thought leadership play for your C-suite team, it's magnified. And that's how you create a wave of visibility across an entire industry.

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Hey, I'm MJ, confidence creator.

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Confidence creator. I ask you to try to find your passion. The compounding benefit is incredible because the podcasts don't go away. They don't disappear overnight. They are there forever. So the next time someone's searching leadership challenges with clients or whoever knows what, what they're searching, that episode is still gonna come up and you're still gonna get an ROI on it 5, 6, 10 years later. This is why it makes so much sense to invest in you, to invest in your brand, and to invest in your company. Okay. Where are executives unintentionally invisible in an AI-driven search?

Oh, this is another such a great question. So number one, their positioning is super vague, right? So if you have on your LinkedIn profile, strategic executive driving growth, AI has nothing specific to anchor it to at all. They don't know what that— AI doesn't know what that means because it's so vague. So the, the way that they're positioning themselves, whether it's on LinkedIn and also on websites, is another big one. On company websites, people are not including their team, whether it's the sales, entire sales org, or whether it's the entire executive team. You have to have more information that's tied to the overarching company goals. And also you can include your own in that too. So if you're working, you know, for example, if you work in radio, right, it's changed a lot over the years. Speaking of theater of the mind, it's changed so much and it's constantly evolving. Well, some of the ways that you could stay relevant in the radio industry is to make sure that you have very clear positioning across everything that you're doing and then have repeated themes of the specific topics that you are focused on. And that might be within AI, that might be within, you know, having these documented insights in other places. But there's a lack of consistent proof that unintentionally people don't focus on because the saying that you use all the time, Heather, you're busy working in your business and not on your business. And so that is where they're unintentionally not showing up.

Oh, it's so true. We talk about that all the time because people, we all get caught up in our to-dos, our tasks, the tasks for the day, and we stop to kind of zoom out from everything and say, what are we missing? How could we grow market share? What are our competitors doing better than What are other industries doing better than us? And really start working on our business in a strategic manner. And until we do that, oh boy, we are in a very vulnerable situation. So thank you for sharing that. How should founders think differently about LinkedIn in the AI era?

Oh, this is such a great question. You have to be there. This, this is like a non-negotiable. Not only do you have to be there, you have to be active. And what does active mean? Does active mean posting? Well, sorry to break it to you, but yes, you want to be out there. You want to be posting, but you also want to stay relevant. You want to make sure that once a month you're looking at your profile, you're making keyword changes, you're making sure it reflects what you do and it reflects the, the depth and breadth of your knowledge. Because whenever you are on LinkedIn, you're sending a signal to LinkedIn's algorithm, letting it know that you are relevant when you're making changes, that you're using the platform, and they're going to want to reward you for whatever you're doing on the platform. So just continuing to be there and continuing to, to network and to create relationships. I think another thing that people unintentionally do with LinkedIn is they completely outsource everything to someone else. And I say this as someone who has an agency that focuses on strategically making someone visible, visible across not just LinkedIn, but also throughout AI. And the reason I say that is because the clients that I work with, the people that I've worked with in the past that have the best results are active. They don't just say, here you go, you take care of it. They actually have skin in the game and they are they're dialed into it. Even if they have a partner that they're working with, they don't completely hand everything over and say, all right, you just handle everything and I'm gonna do this. They're active, which makes all the difference.

Oh, it makes it personal. It makes it real because nobody wants flat AI-generated content and it does not do well. I've tested it myself on my own, um, feeds and it just, it's, it's as the algorithm knows that it's not real. And you are being penalized for that. So you've got to have a team of people or somebody you're working with that can help you to take the load off of you. But you have to be in conversation. You have to evaluate, you have to give your flavor to it. That's the only way that you're gonna grow, right? Yeah, definitely.

I think the biggest mistake that I see that people do is they completely outsource their voice to someone else. And trust me, we ghostwrite for others and we are creating content for others, and I fully believe in it, but I also fully believe that your stories and your personal perspective is not going to shine through if you're just saying, all right, this month we're going to focus on, you know, leadership value in the workplace. I mean, that's something that's super generic that people won't necessarily— anyone could write that. But if you're talking about the experience that happened when there was a merger with another company and you had to lay off 450 people and what that looked like and what the experiences had, afterwards and those relationships and the stories and those conversations, that's a totally different conversation than just saying, I need to write about X. So I think that that's something that's really helpful for someone who's trying to figure out, well, I need to use AI, but I also need my time. And how do I make the best of both worlds? And that's how you do it. It's your stories. It's your personal perspective.

But such a great point is what are these business stories that we have, business examples that we have, and then how can we bring them forward in our own unique fashion? And it's so much more helpful when you have someone like you there to say, okay, let's get into this topic. Let's brainstorm this topic. Because suddenly when someone's asking you those questions, you're like, oh, what? Because even when you just said that, I'm like, oh my gosh, I've acquired 7 different companies where I had to merge cultures and also lay off people at the same time. And like, and I started thinking through like all those solutions and things I would do or would not do again. And everybody's got different experiences based upon what you have uniquely done that can benefit other people when someone's helping to tee you up that right way so you can bring that story forward. Stories sell, facts tell. Stories always going to be the strong suit. Okay. If someone listening today is a founder or a C-suite leader, senior level executive, what is the one structural shift that they should make this this quarter to future-proof their visibility and the company's visibility?

Oh, this is such a good question. Okay, so the number one thing that I would do is I would look at every single thing that you're doing right now with marketing. I would go into your marketing strategy and I would see how your leadership team is connected to your marketing strategy, if it is, if it's not. If it's not, I would do the things that we talked about earlier, which is go into LinkedIn, download a PDF of every single person's LinkedIn profile, and come up with a couple of different topics and/or themes that people can also have their own unique voice and experiences on. So for example, for a personal perspective, if it's connected to the example we talked about earlier, product launch, maybe generate a couple different tracks that each person can post about. Another thing is make sure that on your website, whether it's your own, if you're an individual solopreneur entrepreneur with a small team, or whether you have a large team, look at what your company website has about those individuals and make sure it's connected in the themes and the topics to what you're doing on LinkedIn. In, because that's what people are looking at. They're— and that's also what the machines are looking at. So it's a way to kind of kill two birds with one stone, is to be able to look at both those places and have all that information connected and cohesive with the repeated themes and the consistency.

Oh, it's so good. It's so, so true. And take action now, people. Don't wait any longer. The number one thing people always say to me, and I'm sure they say it to you, Melanie, is, well, I'd be in the same situation as you if I had started 7 or 8 years ago. But if then was the right time, now is the only time. Delaying this is only gonna further cost you money, cost you opportunity, cost you employees, cost you partners, cost you deals. And I know you and I both can't, um, scream that loud enough because the algorithms continue to change. It continues to become harder to grow audience on all social media platforms. The time to get in was yesterday, but instead you can get in today. So get in now. Okay. So when you wrote Theater of the Mind, what was the one chapter you were most afraid of? Or like, what was the one thing you were most nervous about? Oh gosh.

So this is an easy question for me. I was definitely the most nervous about the introduction because I really do what I tell other people to do, which is is you gotta do it, you gotta put it out there, you have to lead by example. And so in the introduction, I documented what I went through while writing the book. You know, commonly when I'm working with a client, they come to me and they have maybe some fears and reservations about putting themselves out there because they're nervous about what kind of reaction they might have from their board or from their team. Maybe someone one that's, you know, they're working with, maybe they're nervous about clients. And so I was a little apprehensive about putting it into the world. And now that it's immortal and it's going to live out there forever, I was, I was concerned. But, you know, it's a real thing that I didn't think really existed until I wrote this book. I thought imposter syndrome was this like BS phrase that people would throw around that were just looking for, you know, I really thought that it wasn't real until I experienced it to myself at the level that I did, where I felt like I was completely stopped in my tracks for everything that I was doing. I was unable to function and I was unable to write this book and I was unable to be who I am because I experienced this. So what did I do? I worked through it. I wrote through it. It and I launched the book. And that's what you really have to do with anything is that when you're coming up against any sort of fear, you don't give up, you just keep pushing, you go through it. Okay.

You choose to see fear as a green light that means go and go faster. Quote from Heather Monahan, Overcome Your Villains, her second book and her first book in line with what Melanie's talking about in Confidence Creator. I have a whole chapter about how I was going to a huge meeting in DC with all the heads of all the media companies. And I was having a panic attack on the flight out there with this whole imposter syndrome and how I decided just to own it and start telling people about the shame that I felt and how that— you can either claim your shame or your shame is going to claim you. I flipped the script on shame and I put it to work for me. It made people closer to me. It made people want to ride or die with me. And it made them know that they really knew me. And that ended up being this, like, really strategic move that I had no idea I was unlocking. By trying it. So I couldn't agree with you more. Okay. Who did you write this book for?

Oh, that's a great question. So I wrote this book for executives, C-suites. I also wrote this for those who are coming up in their career and they're looking to unlock, if you will, a new version of where they want to be in life, in their career,, for those who are solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, go-to-market growth teams, people who don't necessarily want to be creators and they don't necessarily want to be influencers, but they do need some sort of structure and they need some sort of pathway forward of how to get to where they need to be by putting themselves out there.

Oh my gosh. Everybody needs that. Everyone needs— it's for everyone. Melanie, where can people find the book? Where can they buy the book?

So the easiest place to find it is on Amazon. It's available in, um, both paperback, hardcover, and also Kindle as well.

Theater of the Mind by Melanie Borden. And where do you suggest people follow you to get more tips like what you've shared with us today? Sure.

So LinkedIn, you could always find me on LinkedIn, Melanie Borden. You can also find me on Instagram. I'm starting to become more and more active there. Um, my handle is Human to Brand, and you could also come to my website, which is human2brand.com.

Guys, check out this book. It's a game changer. If you need a roadmap to go ahead and elevate yourself as a thought leader, your personal brand, which you have one already.

Take hold of it.

I wish you had done it 7 years ago when I did, but instead do it today. Do not fall asleep on this one. And she gave you the roadmap for it. She's gave— she wrote a book about it, Theater of the Mind. Melanie Borden, check it out on Amazon. Melanie, thank you so much for creating in the world, and thank you for being here today. Thanks, Heather. Until next time, guys, keep creating confidence. You know I will be.

I'm gonna make it my own.

I decided to change that dynamic. How do you like them apples? I couldn't be more excited for what you're gonna hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably, something will happen. No one succeeds alone. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. Come on this journey with me.