914. Why Personal Branding is the Future of Marketing with AJ Vaden, the CEO and Co-Founder of Brand Builders Group

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A personal brand is just an extension of your reputation. It's really just putting a strategy to your reputation to help you become more well known, make more impact and ultimately help you make more money.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. I just have to tell you that on our walk this morning in my Gratitudes, one of my biggest gratitudes was for my podcast listeners and truly I've.

Met many of you.

I have been able to see who you are through stories when you tag the podcast. I've gotten to read all of your reviews and I'm so incredibly grateful. I just have to tell you that truly, this has been 5 years now consistent of getting to chat with you guys and sharing my heart. And I can tell you that it's definitely one of the places that I am most grateful for just personally and spiritually and being able to come and have a place to talk to and feel so human in this experience and knowing that I'm connected to throughout this entire human experience of life and really chat about all of the amazingness, the beauty and especially the challenges so that we can get back to the beauty beauty and just back into our purposes and connection with each other. So I just wanted to give you a massive thank you and tell you how much it means to me before we get started on the show today. And I don't know if you guys have a gratitude practice or not, but I'm telling you it's been something that's been so grounding for me of having you know, we do our power nine in the morning which I'm actually gonna create something for you guys very soon that's coming. But we do gratitudes manifests and excited abouts and it's been something so grounding for me. So if you don't have a practice yet just being able to say three things that you're grateful for every day or text them to a friend and have them share. Theirs is always such a beautiful way for me to like, just really get back into feeling grounded and connected to family, friends, God, all of the things. So you guys, today on the show I have an incredible guest. Her name is AJ Vaden. I've gotten the opportunity to have a few dinners with her and her husband. I actually met her husband, Rory Vaden first. And I can tell you that this podcast is going to be so good for people who need to get even more clear and feel some really solid next steps for their strategy on their brand. So, AJ Vaden is CEO and co founder of Brand Builders Group, one of the world's leading authorities on personal brand strategy. She's also the co host of the influential Personal brand podcast and it was named one of Forbes top 10 podcasts to listen to in 2021. Along with her company, she's been featured in Inc. Success Magazine, Fast Company, Entrepreneur and Good Morning America. With an entrepreneurial career that spans years, she's been part of founding, building and leading four different seven and eight figure companies, all centered about personal and professional development practices. Her client roster includes senior executives from Fortune 100 companies and nine figure entrepreneurs to Hollywood actors, award winning musicians and politicians to New York Times bestselling authors and world renowned thought leaders. You guys, I'm really excited about this because she's worked with friends of mine who have incredible companies, people who I.

Have emulated and wanted to emulate.

She is such an incredible strategist and she also comes on this podcast with a really cool study and some of her findings about a personal brand. So I can't wait to hear your feedback. As always, give us a tag, let us know what your biggest takeaway was and let's jump into the show.

AJ, I'm so excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for coming on.

Oh my gosh, it's gonna be awesome. Already is so excited.

I am like so excited about your jumper today. For those of you who are not watching the video, I think I have that same jumper that's like my light pink jumper that I wear that I just like feel like I'm representing. It's a jumper, right? A full jumper. Oh, is that Paige? Yeah. So I have that jumper and we're gonna be twins. Like next time I see you, we should absolutely be drinking light pink in that jumper and do photo shoot.

Sign me up.

It's going to be great for both of our personal brands. I feel it it's going to just skyrocket. It's going to push our brands over the edge and we'll be like, why did we not do this sooner? It was all about this pink jumper.

Pink.

So.

Well, I'm so incredibly excited to have you here. You and your husband Rory have just been some of the most incredible people in our lives. You really are those people who long distance or we don't talk to you for a while, all of a sudden you will our emails and you're connecting us with these incredible people. You've just always done so many awesome things for people and you are such a walking representative of not only your brand, but of just being the type of person that adds so much value that I truly can see how that shows up for you guys as well. It just people want to work with you, they want to do things with you, they want to do things for you. So you guys watch what they're doing because if you learn anything from them, truly I think it's high how you show up in the world, which is so funny because we are going to be talking so much about that. So, A.J. i know that we could talk all day, there are so many things that we could talk about, but we're going to focus on personal branding. You also have some really cool information from a study that we're going to share later as well. But why don't we get started with that? Can you tell me a little bit about what you guys do at the Brand Builders group?

Yeah, so I think formally as like, as formal as I can get, which isn't very formal and a rather informative. But we are a personal brand brand strategy firm for anyone who wants to become more well known. And it's interesting because we used to say we're a personal brand strategy firm for influencers, entrepreneurs and executives. And then there was this like huge misconception that we were accidentally populating which is a personal brand is only for those people. And that's true. And so we're our personal brand strategy firm for anyone who is looking to become more well known and ultimately wants to be known as the go to expert in their space, whatever that space is.

But I love this so much because I think whenever we have, because you know, we work with entrepreneurs as well and sometimes they don't have their ideas yet and they don't really even know what they want to do. But I always end up telling them like, you should just start like putting yourself out there because you are going to be the thing attached to whatever that Thing is that you are going to decide to eventually be doing so. The sooner you can get out there, the better. But let's talk about that. What is a personal brand? What are some of the misconceptions around personal branding?

Yeah. So we really do believe, I believe, personally as well as your company, that a personal brand is really just the formalization of your reputation. Your personal brand and your reputation are really the same thing with the difference being a personal brand is done with intention to both create a digital life to it, but also create a monetization plan to your reputation. Right. And I think the biggest misconception is that you don't have one. No, it's like we all have one. And I hear this all the time where our personal brand is, well, that's just for a celebrity or an influencer and false. That's not true. A personal brand is just an extension of your reputation, and we have that. And so what I constantly am asking myself and people around me is when you walk out of the room, what do you want people to say about you? Right? If somebody was going to introduce you to someone else, how would you want them to introduce you? And if you were going to be known for something, how do you want to be known? What do you want to be known for? And who do you care to be known by? And those are the formalization of your reputation. And unfortunately, most of us have a reputation by default because we're letting the people around us create it for us. And that naturally happens when we don't create one with intention. So a personal brand is really just putting a strategy to your reputation to help you become more well known, make more impact, and ultimately help you make more money.

I love that you said that. Monetizing your reputation, it's so interesting because I think so many people are like, I don't have the thing yet. And there's so much that you can monetize without even having a thing. I think of that with, like, back in the day, Lewis Howes was such a great example of that. Not of just like not having a thing, but of, you know, kind of just being the personality that connects people and just kind of interviews people and watching this brand explode over him, really asking a lot of questions and monetizing the fact that he connects people and gets on a microphone. And it was a moment for me where I was like, wow, this is so cool. Like, you can really do incredible things without having to, like, have a shtick. You know what I mean? Like, having to have something that you're teaching on or something science based out in the world or something. You know, there was a while where I just felt it was you had to have that like major thing that you were really good at or really separated you from the pack. And for me that was the first time I really started studying someone and I'm like wait a minute. Like you can be really interested in people and create a brand out of that. Like you're just out in the world.

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I'm so glad that you said Louis because it makes me think about Oprah.

Yes.

Oprah was the same way. It's like Oprah became famous for being interested in other people. She became famous for being an incredible interviewer and genuinely wanting to know other people's stories. And I mean, now Oprah is in all the things, all the places, all the time, always the COVID of her own magazine. Right. The super win win there. But. But it's like you can be. Again, it's back to what do you want to be known for? Deep at probably both of their cores, both Louis and Oprah. And I don't. I'm just going to say this from assumption. It's like they have a deep interest in hearing other people's perspectives and their stories, and they want to be known for helping share that out into the world. Like, you can become known for that and make tons of money and make huge impact once you get clear on what it is.

And shout out to Louis, because that's where I met Rory, your husband, for the first time. So that's so awesome. Full circle. Didn't put that together until now. Okay, so tell me about. Sometimes people say I don't need a personal brand. Maybe I have a product. Like use me, for example. I have a product. Do I really still need a personal brand? You know, I'm thinking of doing something totally different. Whoever or not me, but like anybody thinking they're not gonna. They're not gonna like merge. What do you say?

I would say ask yourself these three questions. Do you love products or people? Do you love things or stories? And 99.9% of the time, it's like people fall in love with people and they fall in love with stories, right? That's why we're obsessed with movies, right? We fall in love with these characters, right? You take the personality, the characters out of these things and it's like, I mean, it's a bunch of stick figures running around, like there's no emotional attachment. I think the same thing about sports, right? And I have two little boys, a 2 year old and a just turned 5 year old, which he's very clear in making sure everyone knows. And they have recently gotten into like soccer and sports. And so Nashville also, we're about to open our new mls, Major League Soccer stadiums, biggest stadium in North America, to the National Soccer Club. And so I've really gotten into soccer, so I've been learning a lot about different soccer players. And so I've started following some, just trying to like, get up with the sports. And so I follow Cristiano Ronaldo as well as most of the world. The number one user on Instagram worldwide, he's got like 590 million followers, right? That's one and a half times the size of the United States. It's. It's incredible. And one of the things that it is, I constantly find is like, on his Instagram, he doesn't talk a whole lot about soccer, right? It's like he's infamous for what he does, but what he really talks about is like wellness and nutrition and wholeness and diet and fitness. And he talks about soccer, but he has pictures of his family and what. It just resonated with me so much. It's like people love who he is, not just what he does. And this whole concept of I don't need a personal brand, it's like you don't want people to know you. You don't want people to get to know what you believe or who you are. And it's like to me, it's like if you own a company of any sort or you employ any sort of people, this is a necessity. This is not a luxury, right? We've all heard that old saying that, you know, people don't leave companies, they leave people. Well, guess what? They don't stay with companies. They stay because of people. And it's because they know you, like you and trust you, right? It's like, I don't stay with somewhere because it's like, oh, I'm in love with this brand, please, right? We love lots of brands. It's like, oh, man, I believe in the mission of this person, the vision of this person. I believe in what they believe in, right? And I believe in them. And that was one of the things I was actually talking to my husband about here recently, is that as an individual, doesn't matter. Personal brand, entrepreneur, executive, stay at home, mom, doesn't matter. To me, it's. People have to believe in you as much as they believe in what you believe in, right? And you can only do that when you get to know somebody. It's like just creating this idea of like, I'm going to help you get to know who I am. And the more that I get to know you, I want to know more about your products and services. I want to know how you do things. But when it's just about your products and services, we're in a heavily commoditized space, right? You take light pink, for example. It's like there's 100 different, if not a thousand different types of sparkling roses or non alcoholic beverages that are low calorie. It's like, this is not going to be about the product. It is the story and the mission and the face behind the product that I'm going to fall in love with. And I'm going to choose to advocate for this more than the other product because I believe the person behind it. And that is, in an essence, is helping people get to know you and the story. And they will fall in love with your products because they fall in love with you.

So true.

There's so many different products that sometimes I've even found the person first on Instagram and I'm like, wait, they have one of these or they have this and I'll switch to something simply because I'm like, well, if I'm going to be spending it anyway, I'd rather be supporting someone I think is adding value or that I really like, or maybe that I think is so funny that I just want to be like, or whatever reason we end up falling in love with people. Okay, so what about the people who are listening, who are like, oh, shoot, Like, I knew that this was the case. I knew I probably would need a personal brand. But I don't feel like I have that it factor. In fact, I feel really clunky. Like out in the world, I would.

Say there is an audience for everyone and for everything. And I would ask yourself, how many other people out there feel the exact same way that you do? That's your audience. It's finding people that we relate to that we have things in common with, that there's this shared experience that we're all going through. I think this is the problem, is that people, they logic their way out of this, they rationalize out of this. In the process of doing that, we kill our own uniqueness. We somehow diminish the power of our own story because we think that we don't have it together as someone else or we don't have a special of a talent or a big of an audience or big of a business or niche enough idea. And that is diminishing everything that is uniquely and perfectly you. I didn't say it was perfect, but it is perfectly you. And then we, we logic ourselves out of it. And being a mom has never taught me anything more about personal branding than this is that realizing I know I'm going to screw up my kids. Like I know there's going to be things that I do wrong. It's just a matter of what it is. But the one thing that I am most committed to not doing with my kids is instructing or disciplining or coaching the uniqueness out of them. And it's because like I just believe that they were created as these unique little beings. And I, then I look at myself and I go, at what point in my life did I become so self conscious and so full of comparison and so full of self doubt that I didn't have enough confidence to do what I wanted to? Like when did that happen in my life? And how do I make sure that my kids, it's not that I don't want them to fail, they will fail, but I want them to know that it's okay to fail and it's okay to just do things in your path and there's not a right way to do it. There's only your right way. I mean, you don't have to have a huge audience to have a huge business. Like one of my favorite sayings by a friend of ours is, and it's like, I don't know, I don't think he would mind me sharing this at all. But his name is John Rulin and he says, you know, you don't have to have millions of followers to make millions of dollars, right? You don't have to have that. We convince ourselves that we do, but that ain't true. You just have to live into like what do you do that can provide value to someone else? And then how do they know about it? And so if you feel clunky, it's like maybe you're just a little less clunky than the next person who wants to feel a little less clunky in the future. There is an audience for no matter what it is that you want to do.

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You know, before I was really getting myself out there, I was looking for evidence of anyone who was doing it in a way that felt like I could do it in that way because I just could not. I mean we're lucky I have my hair in a bun and makeup on today. Like I can do it if I'm speaking at an event or going out. But like I was like how do these people do this every day and get on and look shiny and perfect and how is like how. And I think just even looking for those people who made it more like a lifestyle or just share really imperfectly or that was so freeing for me. So really thinking about that for whatever you're struggling with and sharing that struggle is so important because that's going to be just like you said, your audience.

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Okay, so you talked about another point where it was, we talk about who we are. Talk about who you are, not what you do. Can you tell me a little bit about this?

Yeah. So every single time that you meet someone for the first time, I would bet there are two things that typically happen 100% of the time. What's your name? And then what's the next question?

What do you do?

What do you do? What does that have to do with anything? Like, it's the most bizarre question to me, right? Like, what does that have to do with anything? Right? Are you trying to give me your money? Do you want to buy my stuff? It's like, why does that matter? It's like, have you ever been asked the question, so tell me, who are you? As soon as you meet someone, it's like, no. It's like somehow in American society, or perhaps society at large, but I'm going to speak to Americans specifically, since I am one, it's somehow we created this pecking order of what do you do? And somehow it's equated to some amount of worth, right? It's like there's this pecking order of how people view what you do. And it's like, that's just a tiny part of life. Like, that's my profession. That's what I've chosen to do with a certain amount of hours of my day. But that is not who I am. And here's what I have found across the board, up, down and all around. And this may not be true for everyone, but I find this to be true with the majority of the people in our circle, is that people care much more about who you are than what you do. And I just think about, like, all the things that I put on social media. And again, I'm only going to talk a portion about social media because I believe that is only a portion of your personal brand is online. I will post a well thought out piece of content and it'll get X amount of views and engagement. And then I will post a video or a picture of me and my kids dressed up at Halloween or just living life. And it is 10 times the engagement, every single time, every time. And there's. That's because it's. People want to know who you are. And so again, at the end of the day, it's like, what I do is just a piece of my life and what I do will change throughout my life. But there's not enough emphasis on, like, who are you? And one of the things I find is, like, that's how you really get to know someone. And if we're trying to leverage our reputations and personal brands to increase our trust in the marketplace and expedite our trustworthiness in the marketplace, then people have to know who you are. Right? They want to know. It's like, do you have kids? Are you married? Do you travel? Like, what do you do on the weekends? Like, are you a workaholic? Are you only. Like, do you really only talk about personal branding 24 7? Because that's all I see online. And it's like, no. I talk about that a portion of the time. I am most often talking about Paw Patrol. There's a lot of Paw Patrol conversation. And so I think a huge part of that is letting people get to know you. Because I'm going to say this a million times. People fall in love with you, not what you do. And a part of who you are is providing value. Right? People love to get value, but you can provide value without having a job. Right. And I think about all the things that, you know, my friends come to me for, naturally. And I think it's an interesting thing, because what I found is for many, many years, I was not being intentional about what I want to be known for. And so I would get people coming to me for sales all the time. I don't want to talk about sales. I'm really good at sales. That's not my heart. That's not my passion. But I had accidentally conditioned everyone around me to know me as the salesperson, the sales consultant, the sales coach. And I looked around and I said, well, that's my fault, because that's all I'm introducing myself as. That's all I'm talking about. And that's my fault. So it's. The last three years have been a really intentional shift. And what I talk about offline and online, to recreate and recondition how I want people to view me. And it has a lot more to do with who I am and what I believe and less to do with my chosen profession or my title.

Oh, man, that is so true. I can think back to times when I was. I put myself in a box, but then I was, you know, it reflects back to what you're doing. And I was still really. I was kind of coming out of the fitness world, but it took, like, a good two, three years to change that conversation. And I was done with it a year before I left. So for about four years, because it was. It's in Your bio. But then if you lead with it on a lot of stuff that you're doing. It was like I was being asked, I'd come on something really hoping to talk about business or about mindset, and I'd get asked about macros and portion size. And I was like, oh, my gosh. I literally, like, did not think this was going to be about this. And it's not their fault because that conversation was still out there because I was leading with it.

Right?

Because that was the thing that I thought made me valuable because it had made me valuable once and it was like that transition there. So what about for all the people who are in a transition? Because we're technically always going to go through one or we're always in one for somebody maybe who is looking to get into, who is probably most of your client actually, who's transitioning into something new. How do we start to shift, shed that past life and move into this, this new one?

Well, I think there's a transition period that's just natural. You can't just like, you know, cold turkey, bait and switch and just don't talk about that.

I won't talk about that.

I don't think that's natural. But I think you actually talk about you are in a transition. Be open and transparent about it. Like, talk about why are you transitioning out of something that you were doing and into something else and lead with the why behind you're going through this change. Because people will relate to that. We all go through change. And I think that's the easiest thing to do is just be transparent about the fact that it's like this was my life for the last 10 years or 20 years or five years or one year. But, man, I see something different for my future. And this is what I'm going to be talking about moving forward. And so there's this combination of this is what it was, this is the change I'm going through and this is what I want it to be, moving forward. And I think the best thing we can do is just take people with us through the change, take them with us through the transition.

I totally agree. I feel like that is really the only thing that's kept my kind of career going through. The whole thing is it's never really stopped. In fact, it's only gotten better, I think, because I tend to gain more people talking about the transition. Because you do you cast a wider net because now you're talking to. You're kind of talking to a lot of people because everyone transitions, Everyone at one point, we're in a transition, so I love that. Okay, so I know that you are loving talking about the state of your comfort you said will ultimately hold you back from your calling. So tell me about this conversation.

Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting when I think about all the things that have to do with just life. Right. And, you know, my world is, you know, somewhat shaped around this idea of personal branding and reputation. You know, that's our business. But I'm really in the business of helping people figure out who they are, what they want to be known for. It's a really awesome job, but at the same time, it's like we want a strategy and a monetization plan around that. And one of the things that I hear all the time, up, down, and all around, it does not matter if it is from the person who's just leaving their corporate 9 to 5 and they're going to go all in, or it's the person. Person who's already a household name. It does not matter. People go, I don't know if I can do that. Or I don't know if I'm cut out for it. Right. Most people would say it's something around imposter syndrome.

Totally.

And there's these beliefs of, well, I can't do that, or I'm not prepared enough, I'm not smart enough, I don't have enough resources, I don't have enough time, I don't have enough money. I. Whatever, fill in the blank, right? It's. I can't, I won't, I don't. And I just fundamentally, I hear these things and I think about one of my favorite Steve Jobs quotes, and I don't know when he said this, but I know it was like towards the latter half of his life. And he said, the moment that you realize no one else in the room is smarter than you is the moment that you'll begin to change the world. And I think that's true for everyone. And sometimes I just believe we have to put some blinders on and we have to stop comparing. And I think the number one problem that we find is that we tend to compare our step one to someone else's step 1000. And we try to do what someone else has been doing for 10 years, and we get mad that it didn't work in six months. Or, you know, we try to launch something and we, we thought it was going to happen at this point and it took longer or it didn't launch the way we wanted. So we, we give up Right. We give up and we're like, well, that's, this is a sign. It just wasn't meant to be. And it's like, that's not true. Not true. That's not how this works. If people really knew the behind the scenes story on how much time and effort and how many years that most entrepreneurs are at it before it works, it would be a very humbling state of mind to go and I'm going to do this. And what I have find that for most people is they're just too comfortable. They're too comfortable, they don't have enough patience, they don't have enough endurance. And that's what they're lacking. And what I really believe is that your comfort, your own inability to get uncomfortable and do things that you don't know, do things you've never done, do it with people that you've never done it with, that is what will hold you back from your ultimate calling. It's like the moment that you just, you question is the moment that you're saying, I'm not good enough. And you're the only one saying it right? Because at the end of the day, no one else's commentary matters. But it's like, if you believe in your core and whatever it is that you're doing enough, then there is a way to make it happen. There is someone at some point in your story that's going to make these things connect the dots. Most of us just don't have the patience or the endurance to make it to that point. And I remember for most of my sales career, people would ask, well, you know, how are you this like, million dollar producer? And you know, it's kind of like funny. And I never thought it embarrassing at the time, but my number one tactic was literally outlast the competition. I do not have to be the best. I just have to outlast everyone else.

Oh my God, I love that you shared that. That was mine in fitness too. Like, I literally was one of the girls who went the longest without winning. And I was like, they're gonna stop. Eventually they're gonna stop and I'm gonna keep going. And that was like, Was that really my plan? Yeah, it ended up working.

It did.

And you know what's interesting? Just on top of that, if people are like, is that really a plan? I want to talk about why that probably worked for both of us. I know for me, part of it is you just become so consistent and people start to just trust that you're going to be someone who gets the Work done, no matter what, win or fail. And that goes back to. I love this because it goes back to like, monetizing your reputation. And even though I wasn't winning yet, I truly had started monetizing the fact that I just show up and I'm consistent and I'm able to get these results even if it's not the number one result. It really is crazy that that started as just even. Just that plan of, well, I'm going to hang in there and maybe one day I'll win. But that actually started the momentum for me. I would love to hear kind of.

Yours, I think, for me, is it. It really started to build this consistency factor of one. She's not going away.

One of the things that I showed up, give her what she wants.

One of the things that I got really good at was follow up. And my core values in my own personal life is responsiveness. Like, responsiveness is really, really important to me because it makes me feel important. And so I make sure to try to be as responsive as possible to others. And one of the things I started noticing is because I'm super detail oriented, I schedule everything, maybe to a fault. I had everyone on tickers of when I would follow up. And it's like, I don't care if you said no to me or maybe or at a later date. I actually followed up with you. Like, I actually did what I said I was gonna do. And if you said, call me in six months, I would actually call you in six months if they said, well, it's not a good time. And it's like I just moved it forward in my calendar. And I think there was this level of consistency of I just kept showing up. Like, I just kept staying on the radar until the time was right. And my husband always laughs. He goes, you just. You don't hear. No, all you hear is not right now. And that's true. It's like I don't process things as. No, I believe that there's always going to be a time and life. So much about timing, it's that for most, it's just not right now. And I just have to be top of mind for when it is the right time, which means I have to be present.

Oh, so good. Yeah, that really hit me with just the fact that you makes you feel important when people. Sorry, what was the word?

Is your core value responsiveness?

Responsiveness. Yeah, that one hit me really good and triggered me mildly because I'm, okay, this is a question for you. How do you manage that as a Woman who has children, who is very busy, who has a business, who if responsiveness because I love being responsive, but it also can feel very heavy to me. So how do you manage it if that's a core value, if you can't get back to people, like if it's.

Killing you, well, you definitely don't do it by yourself.

Okay, great.

I have a full time EA who's in my inbox and one of the things that we have gotten really good at is identifying what emails are just for me. So then I have a folder that's in my inbox that's called AJ Urgent and anything that is that requires my response personally goes into my AJ urgent folder and that means it requires a 24 hour response. And so I may not check my entire inbox. I have lots of folders, lots of rules set up. I don't get to all of them every day or even every week, but I do get to that one every single day. Okay, right. And some things I'll even get in there and I'll dictate, yes, that does need my response, but I wouldn't say it's in a 24 hour. And so some of these things take a lot of work and response time. And so my SOP is just to go, hey, I've seen your email. It's going to take me longer than not to get back to you. I just want you to know I've seen it. I'll get back to you in the next seven to 10 days. Right. So it's like even just that of going, I see it, I recognize this, I'm on it. But this is outside of my current bandwidth. I at least do that.

That is a total hack you guys. Like I'm actually going to use that now because my I'm going back and forth with this with my chief of staff. We're just trying to really get a handle on it. And that would be. Yeah, that's absolutely such a hack. I'm going to start doing that. Thank you so much for.

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Okay, so, oh, and also about the following up. So, so good. In the network marketing company that we were in for a long time, actually still are in, but they would always say from the stage over and over and it's just like so crazy how sometimes if you just follow the things that people are saying, the things that AJ is saying on here, it actually works like it's the thing that people are not doing. So they would always say the money is in the follow up. Like it's never going to come right away. It's always going to be, you know, probably the sixth, seventh or eighth time that you follow up is when you start making that money consistently. So if we're not doing that with every single person, then you can pretty much count on not getting paid, which is very like a very interesting way to look at it. So okay.

And to that point, the truth, it's the truth about being online as well, right? Being present and consistent with social media. It's like I see advertising, marketing, sales, content creation, they're all the same. They all follow the same formula, which is consistency wins. And it doesn't always happen overnight. It most often does not happen overnight. Right. Consistency takes longevity, but consistency wins. But you've got to show up. You have to train people what to expect from you. That happens in sales, that happens in advertising, happens in marketing, happens with social media, with content creation. I remember being in college and I was an advertising major at the very end of college and. And they said it was the billboard rule, right? And it's like on average you have to pass a billboard seven times before you actually have mental recognition. Right? But the truth actually is in sales too, it's like I actually would most. I most often would have to email or call or have conversations like five, six, seven times before we'd ever get to a final answer. But then you think about the expediency of technology today and it's like, man, it's unlikely you'll ever see someone post something seven times with the way the algorithms are. And so just think about that in terms of how important your consistency is.

Oh, it's so true. I have some friends who are like, oh, my course didn't sell or my event didn't fill. And I'm like, did you have one? Because I follow you. But I didn't see one thing about it. And they thought they were being annoying. And I'm like, didn't even know you had it.

So overly annoying.

As annoying as possible so that we can see it maybe once, you know, maybe. Oh, my goodness. Okay, let's talk a little bit more about getting out of your comfort zone. What are some things for people that you recommend when they're first starting their personal brand or when they're transitioning into a new position or brand or company that can really help them get out there quickly even if they don't feel like they're an expert yet?

Yeah, that's so good. So I'm going to give you. You have to know the answer to these four questions. Okay. And I'll talk a little bit about them. Just feel free to stop me when I'm talking too much. But these are the four questions that you want to be able to answer. The first one is, what problem do you solve in one word? Right. And don't confuse a problem with a solution or a benefit. Confidence is not a problem. If you say I help people have more confidence. Confidence is a benefit. That's a payoff. It's not a problem. So what's the inverse of that? Right? It's insecurity. It's self doubt. Right. It's low self esteem. Right. You have to know. It's like, what is the problem that you solve for people? And this is some sales psychology. It's like, people will always be willing to spend more money to fix or solve a problem than they will on a luxury, right? At the end of the day, it's like, If I have $30,000 laying around, which most people don't, and the options are I have to buy a car because my car just broke down, or I'm gonna buy that speed boot for the summer, right? At the end of the day, it's like, you're gonna do the necessity of fixing the problem almost every single time. And so the problem has to be bigger than the price tag that you're putting on it. And I hear it, like, to that point, it's like, well, my course didn't sell well. What was the problem the course was going to solve for someone? And it was a. Was it a big enough problem that they would pull out their credit card and spend a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars to solve that problem today? And most of us are not very clear on what problem do we solve? So that's the first get crystal clear to the definitive of one word, of what problem do you solve? So that's just part one. Part two is who do you solve it for? Who is the intended audience? And the answer is, not everyone. That is the wrong answer. I will not tell you. You have the wrong answer. Except for in this one place. No. There is a unique and specific audience. And what we believe is that you are almost always most well positioned to serve the person that you once were. So if you're not sure on who your audience is, go back to the person that you were when you had this problem and walk us through that. Like, where were you in your life? And so we believe that, you know, audience, right? The who has two parts. You've got demographics, right? You've got age, gender, socioeconomic status, geography title, income position, all these things. That is one half of it.

It.

The other half are the things that most of us leave out, which are the psychographics, which is for your audience. What are their biggest fears? What are their limiting beliefs? What are their biggest dreams? What are their passions? What are their hobbies? What do they want their life to look like? And what's holding them back? Like, really get into the psyche of your audience. It will be easier when you go, who was I when I had this problem? How old was I? What was my state of mind? Like? What was holding me back? What did I want more Than anything. But you got to know what problem you solve. But then, you know, you got to know, who are you trying to solve it for? I mean, the more clear you are, the better. My husband is a clever man with many weird sayings, and he always says, the more terrific or the more specific, the more terrific. And however cheesy that is, it has always stuck with me. It's like, but you remember, make it specific. Make it specific. So what problem do you solve? Who do you solve it for? And then how do you solve that problem? What is the message that you have to help someone overcome that? And it needs to be short and actionable, and it needs to be tangible. Again, we work with a lot of people who are trying to build their reputation, build their personal brands, and they say things like, you just have to get in touch with your inner being. What is that? Like, how do you do that? Tell me what to do. Like, you can't say, you know, chase your dreams. Okay, well, how do I do that? Like, it needs to answer the question how? And so take it to the very first step, the most mundane. And it's often not sexy. And that's unfortunate because most people think in terms of marketing language. Oh. Like, the message I have to have is sexy and has to be markety. It's like, no, it doesn't. It needs to be clear. Clear is better than sexy. Like, can I read it and understand it? That is better than it. Clever. And I have no idea what the effort means. Really clear. Right. So know what problem you solve to the one word. Know exactly who your audience is, both demographically and psychographically. Then know how you're going to solve this problem that you know your audience has, you know that they're struggling with. And then last but not least, you've got to have a plan for how do I make money solving this problem. So what problem do you solve? How do you solve it? Who do you solve it for? And then how do you make money solving this problem for that audience? That is where you start. And doing anything before that is a waste of your time, money, and resources.

Oh, so good. Okay, so I know that you have some really cool research around this. Do you want to share that with everyone?

Yes. This is why I nerd out. I love this part. I totally geek out on data and stats. I may not look like it, but I love a good spreadsheet. About a year and a half ago, my company, Brain Builders Group, so I kind of commissioned this and I led the study, but we partnered up with a team of PhDs out of Austin, Texas from the center for Generational Kinetics to go out and field the first ever US study on the state of personal branding. So we did a full blown research report. It took about six months, which to me was five months too long. We went out there and this is like statistically valid to plus or minus 3%. And they went out and they fielded this study. So we created the questions, we went out across the United States, fielded this whole study, then spent almost three months compiling some mating and, you know, analyzing all these data mainly to answer three really important questions that we had for our company. And my husband and I, who are business partners, said, well, holy crap, if we're going to go like eyeballs in on this for the rest of our life, we need to make sure that we can answer the questions to the ones that we have, which is, what are the impacts on personal branding today on Americans? Now, this is specific to the United States. One day we'll go worldwide. This one is specific to American. The second one is how does a personal brand impact a company? Right. So traditional marketing and corporate branding. And then the third is, do personal brands really carry more influence in the marketplace? Yes or no? So those are the three things that we really wanted to know. And so at a very high level, here's what the things that we would say is that personal branding is absolutely without question the future of marketing. In fact, Gen Z, which is the largest emerging workforce. Right. Which are very different than Millennials. Very. They say that personal branding to them is not a state of popularity or vanity. It is a critical and essential part of their decision making process and whom to purchase from. That is substantially different than any other generation. Substantially. The second thing is that personal branding is highly profitable. In fact, 52% of Americans said that not only would they spend money, but they would spend more money working with a professional who had a personal brand versus a person who worked at a large company. That is a huge shift. And our, you know, just awareness of how important the individual trust factor is versus being a hidden face behind a corporate logo. It is a huge shift in the way that our expectations are and who we buy from. And then the third thing is that personal branding is actually a trust accelerator for the marketplace. 82%, the largest statistic out of this entire study, 82% of Americans, regardless of your age, regardless of what category you fall in, Gen Z, Millennial, baby Boomer, Gen X did not matter. 82% of American and said that they were more likely to buy from, recommend Trust and promote someone who had an established personal brand. So then that begged the question, well, how do Americans view a personal brand? What did Americans say were a personal brand? And this was my favorite part of the study, because it was where we were so wrong. I mean, sometimes it's good to be wrong. In this case, it was really good to be wrong, is that Americans said to them that a personal brand is simply someone who is recognizable to them.

Wow.

That's it. So, you know, it could be the school principal, the local pastor, grocery store owner, banker, or it could be like, pit bull. Right? It doesn't matter. It's just whoever is recognizable to them online or offline. Wow.

Well, everybody needs one, clearly.

That's our consensus.

Yeah, truly. I mean, and you guys, you heard in the beginning that even if you're thinking of something or you don't know, it's a really great time to start talking about who you are. If you're confused on what that is. She gave you a lot of really great questions, and this is what you guys do. What you and Rory do better than anyone else is helping people get clear and really having things set up in programs to kind of hold their hand through the process so that they can lean on that, give them, you know, help answer their questions and all those different things. So can you tell me about exactly what you guys do? If someone was to say, okay, I clearly need a personal brand or I need to grow my personal brand, who is the for and what do you do?

I would say who we work with, like our core target audience are experts. They are experts and expert in what that varies. Right. We work with anyone who knows that they have value to give to a certain audience. And what we do is we help them clarify that into a very clear, like, this is a problem I solved, so I know how to market it. Right? This is the positioning of my message so people know what they're going to get from me. We help you get super crystal clear on who your audience is so you know where to find them, both offline and online. So digital, like that's a part of it. It's not the part for everyone. It's, I would say, somewhat sacrilege that as a personal branding firm, I would even say that social media is not for everyone, but it may not be. And I think there are many different things that are important. And I will double down on this quote by John Rulin. You do not have to have a million followers to make a million dollars. You have to know who your audience is and you have to make sure your problem is bigger than the price tag and that's what we help you do. But it's hyper specific to experts. But we're a strategy firm, right? It's like we. If you think about it in terms of building a house, we're the architect, we're the architects for your personal brand. It's your business blueprint. It's the branding component, it's the positioning component, it's the content component. We're not going to build your website. That's not what we do. There are much better people at that than we are. But we will outline the infrastructure of how do you actually make your website convert? That's what we do. Great. You have a website, does it make you any money? Great. You have social media, does it make you any money? I don't know. It's like we make sure that you have a business plan for conversion to actually help you grow your impact and your income. We like things to be pretty, but we prefer them to work.

So good. Okay, so where can people go if they want? Are you guys still doing. You're still doing the call, correct?

Yeah. So this is.

Tell me about it.

We set up a custom link for everyone listening to this call. So if you go to freebrandcall.com forward/lori harder. So that's freebrandcall.com forward slash lori harder. You can actually go and check this out and you can request to have a free personal brand strategy call with one of our team people. This is not a sales call. Although at the end, we will talk about what we do. It's a natural part of it. But on this call, we are literally going to have the same discussion that I had with Lori today. Tell me what you're currently doing. Tell me what you want to be doing. Are you clear on your problem? Do you know who your audience is? What's your business model? We're actually going to sit for roughly 40 minutes and have a brand strategy session with you. It is a free brand strategy call. And at the end, then we'll just say, like, do you want to hear about what we do? Do you want to hear how we could help you? Most people say yes. Sometimes I say, I'm good. I got what I wanted. All right? For us, we do this because there's two really important things for us. One, we are not a fit for everyone, and not everyone is a fit for us. It's much better for you to know that before you invest money with us, and it's much better for us to know that before we invest our time into you. So we want to make sure it's the right thing. Two, we are not afraid to give it all away. We will give you our advice, we will give you our opinions, and if we're not a fit, we will, we will stack you up with full resources and send you on your way. Because this is a commitment, right? Building a personal brand is not a hobby. Building a personal brand is a business and it needs to be treated like one. So it takes time and intention and yes, money and resources. We're really upfront with that. So we want you to know what you're getting into, know if this is what your heart is calling you to do, because it really does need to be a heart calling. We serve what we tell people is like we serve the mission driven message messenger. It's that person who, they want to make money, but they want to make an impact a whole lot more. And they believe that the more impact I make, the income is a byproduct of helping people. And if I can help more people, help more people, I'm going to make money as a, as a byproduct of doing that.

Well, you guys, everybody listening. Truly, they've been doing this for a very, very long time. And there's so many people that you probably follow online, the listener who they have helped. I know that you have helped a incredible of people who have massive impact in the world. Podcasters, authors, celebrities, preachers, like, you name it, speakers, all of these incredible people who are out there that I know that you have also been behind and helped push their brand out to the world and help them push their brand out into the world even more. So you guys, I feel so good about sending you to freebrandcall.com loriharter because I have seen it firsthand. I've gotten to learn from them. I've been in rooms where they're teaching. I've gotten to be the student. And we absolutely love AJ and Rory and the brand Builders group. So, aj, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm so just like you just gave a wealth of knowledge. Even if people don't do the call, they literally just got everything that they need to grow their brand or start a personal brand. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I so appreciate you.

Oh my gosh, it was such a pleasure mainly just to get some, to spend some time with you.

So I feel the same way. We'll have to get a Nashville vacay down again. I want to go back to that restoration Hardware and drink rose with you. So in our. Yes, in our pink outfit. So, you guys, one of the biggest things that you can do for AJ is to give her a tag on Instagram and let her know what your biggest takeaway was. Aj, what is your Instagram handle?

AJ Underscore Vadin with a V. Like Victor.

AJ Underscore Vaden with a B, you guys. So give her her a shout out, let her know what your biggest takeaway was so that she can know all of the value that she brought to you guys. And we're so grateful for you. And until next time, earn your happy.

Bye, everyone.

Sam.