Stop Being a Weenie with Katie McManus

Taste yo, yo, yo, yo, I can taste yo, yo, yo, I can taste yo, yo, yo, I can taste. Yo, yo, yo, I can taste. Hello, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. I'm attempting to go live again. Yesterday we were having some audio problems and if you're here, welcome. Thank you for joining me. If you don't mind just confirming that the audio is actually working the way it's supposed to be today, I would so appreciate it. Anyway, I. What am I going live about? Actually, no. So I just, I've had a day. Can I just like, like, level with you all? So my first coaching call of the day today started off with my client expressing distress over the headlines from last night about SCOTUS's proposed vote about Roe v. Wade. As a woman, as a liberal, as someone. Hi, Donna, Welcome. Thank you so much for confirming. I'm pretty upset about it. I don't know if anyone has memory of my birthday last year. If you don't, I'm really hurt. But every year I like to do a fundraiser and I was kind of waffling on what I. You know who I wanted to like, donate money to this year? Pretty sure based on this, we're gonna do Planned Parenthood. Hi, Chris. Hey. Hey, what's up? So let me just give a shout out to Donna Van Dusen for telling me the audio is working. And yes, Chris, thank you. Yeah, the audio is so much better today. I think. I think I have to start using these guys, which is new for me. I'll have to, you know, not lose them. But anyway, I believe the choice to have a family, to not have a family should be a choice that everyone makes for themselves. My birthday fundraiser this year, I'm setting a big fucking goal for it. Okay. I am hoping to raise about $30,000 for Planned Parenthood for their action fund. So I'll be rolling that out shortly. Please stay tuned. It's going to be some kind of like half day workshop and I'm trying to figure out the tech for it. And if you have any topics that you want to be trained on in that, in that half day workshop, please DM them to me. Put them in the comments. Okay. Because I want this to be something that is super useful to my, my world and also create some good. Okay. I'll also have an option if you've been wanting to book like a one on one session with me. But like, I generally don't just offer one off sessions. I generally have my clients commit to working with me. For a period of time. And I get that's not accessible to everyone, but there will be an option for you to upgrade from that to a one on one session with me. And all proceeds will be donated. Okay? I'm not keeping a penny. The only thing that can't be donated is like the credit card processing fees, but depending on how I set up the tech, hopefully that won't even be a thing. Anyway, I wanted to talk today about personal brand. Okay? So you guys just got an experience of something that I care about. You got a sense of what I give a about about my beliefs. You may not agree with them, but now you have a better understanding of who I am and you can kind of trust me a little bit more. Okay. Because you know how I operate in the world, right? You can. Like, if I were to start talking about this later, it wouldn't be a surprise to you, okay. Because you have already set the standard for. Okay. Katie's pretty liberal. She cares about women's rights, she cares about reproductive rights, and she likes to make a big deal out of her birthday. Okay. She likes to have some impact. Okay? So I want to talk about personal brand and about how you need to not get so flipped out about it, okay? Because your personal brand is literally just you. Your personal brand. I can't even say it. Personal brand is who you are, who and how you're useful to people. It's also how people feel when they're around you. Okay? I love that Maya Angelou quote that says, you know, people won't remember what you say to them, but they will remember how you make them feel. And it is so incredibly true. So I don't know. I don't. If you guys want to tell me, how do I make you feel when I'm speaking to you live? And if you've been on the phone with me, how do I make you feel when we're on the phone together? You know, all that ties into my personal brand and the same thing for you. You know, if you're a really great listener, if you make people feel heard and valued and understood, that's part of your personal brand. Likewise, if you're funny AF and you make people laugh like you make people pee their pants laugh, that is a part of your personal brand. If you care about something or you believe in something that is absolutely a part of your personal brand. Like Chris is in the comments right now. He is a big advocate for doing away with the stigma for people who are coming out of the correctional institution. I know I'm referencing that. That's not the term for it, but you know what I mean. He has an experience there. You know, he believes in true rehabilitation and giving people a second chance. And that's absolutely incredible. And that's his personal brand. And all this goes to, like, it just makes you more memorable. You know, if you're. If you're listening to me, you know, I talk a lot about how small businesses can build their business, get more clients, become more sustainable. Sustainable. Make more money. We don't, as small businesses, we don't have a marketing problem, okay? We don't have a marketing problem. I don't spend my days wondering how much money I'm gonna throw at my super bowl commercial, okay? I'm not that big, okay? I'm also not wondering how. How I'm gonna buy space in a grocery store like Coca Cola, okay? Like, those are not the problems I have. The problems I have are being memorable, okay? I need people to remember me so that they could potentially become my client or introduce me to my client, okay? And if you're a small business, you have the exact same problems. You need people to remember just that you exist in the world, okay? And you Sharing information about yourself. Nothing. It doesn't even have to be too intimate or personal. You could share that you like arts and crafts and actually, let me. Let's play some show and tell. So. I love arts and crafts. I have been working on this project for. Gosh, I think I started this, like, four years ago. I was in New York, and I bought all this felt. All this felt. This is a lot of felt. It's all natural. It's, like, beautiful. I think it's made out of, like, merino wool or something. It's way more expensive than felt ever has to be, by the way. But I was like, you know what would be so cute is if I made little birds for the Christmas tree. You know? So, like, these I cut. I made the little mold or the little stencil, and I cut out these in felt. And I haven't sewn it together yet, but one side is awake and the other side is sleeping. And then in different colors, I cut out the wings that I still haven't attached yet. I haven't finished. This is like three or four years in the works. But me just sharing with you that this is the kind of stuff that I spend my time on is part of my personal brand. This is something that you might remember about me, is that I start projects and sometimes don't finish them. Mostly do not finish Them. Okay, let's be real here. When I got my stuff from California, literally, it was boxes and boxes of yarn and boxes and boxes of projects. Knitting projects that I had started and never have nor will complete. Okay? That is a part of who I am. And if you're. If you're in my world, chances are you know this about me anyway, if I ever do finish these little things, hopefully by Christmas. It's just a lot of fiddly work. It's a lot of fiddly work, and I get bored really easily. And I kind of like work that's just mindless. It's one of the reasons I love knitting is because you just. I can do it without looking at it. Most of the time. I can watch tv, I could have conversations. I can listen to a book. I can actually read a book also while I'm knitting, but that's a different story. But anyway, so, yeah, so as business owners. Back to the point. Hi. Back to the point is that we have a problem of being remembered. Okay. Which is why we have to just give people enough to remember us as humans. Humans, okay. This is one of the reasons that when my clients come to me and they're wanting to build a business and they're thinking, okay, well, I need to have a company name. Yeah, sure, you can have a company name for your llc. But, like, when you're marketing, people are just going to remember you. They're going to remember your name, they're going to remember your last name, hopefully, and that's what they're going to be Googling after the fact. That's what they're going to be looking up on LinkedIn. My dog is licking my hand under the desk right now anyway. And so you really have to give them enough. And one of the examples I like to use is, you know, how much information do you know about your neighbors? You know, what do they do for fun? What are their favorite beverages? How have they decorated their home? All that stuff. Luna, I get it. I know, I know. Just soon. Just give me a moment. All that stuff plays into you remembering them and knowing them and having a sense that you trust them. And so as you're thinking about building a personal brand, if you're. It's at all on your radar, I want you to just think about, like, what are the things that people will remember about you and what are the things that your friends and family members ask about you? Because that all ties into your personal brand. Funny. This is just a quick one. I wanted to make sure that everything was working audio wise. Obviously, Luna is having a meltdown, so I'm going to wrap it up here before you have to listen to her much longer. I would love to hear some things that you're thinking about when it comes to your personal brand. Luna, stop it. And I apologize for this super random all over live today. I hope you got some value out of it. And if you didn't, I hope you just see how my ADHD brain works sometimes. Anyway, we have to go to the dog park now and I wish you a good night. Bye.