In this concise interview, Professor Pete Alexander hosts personal branding evangelist Lorena Acosta on the "Winning at Business and Life" podcast. Lorena introduces herself and shares that working with people brings her joy. She recommends reading the final chapter of business books for a compressed summary, though she prefers reading the whole book to understand the author. Her core advice to leaders is to humanize their brands, allowing consumers to connect emotionally and decide a brand's fate. Lorena acknowledges Ed Samani, a client and martial‑arts franchise president, as a spiritual business leader worth inviting to the show. She recounts her first job promoting resorts in Cozumel, where she learned to brand herself and engage audiences emotionally. Throughout, she emphasizes that personal branding is about aligning values with audience emotions so people fall in love with the brand. The episode concludes with Lorena’s contact information across LinkedIn, email, Instagram, Facebook, and a hashtag #BBCBNAwesome.
Chapters
This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
Hi, thank you for inviting me. My name is Lorena Costa and I'm a personal branding evangelist.
Lorena, it's so great to have you on the show. Question number 2, what's, what is something that makes you smile and or laugh about working in your industry?
People.
Ah, can you want to expand upon that a little bit?
Yeah. I mean, people is, is, it's fun. It's fun to work with. People is entertaining, people is creative, people is wonderful, you know, and people is funny. I mean, that's what makes my job to be entertaining and to love what I'm doing.
Oh, I love it. And I can hear that passion in your voice. It's so great. Question number 3. I have a fictitious book. With all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
The last one.
The last one, and why is that?
Because most of the time in all the books is everything, it goes compressive in the last chapter of the books. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
And so I'm assuming that if you don't have a lot of time, go right to the end so that you get the answers, the synopsis?
Well, no, I mean, I like to read the whole book because I like to know, to get to know the author, right? But if, you know, I read a lot and I have found out that in the end of the book is where they put everything compressed, you know, all what they, with what they start, you know, and summarize everything about what the book's about.
Agreed, agreed. And I've done that myself, so I could I appreciate that recommendation.
Yeah.
Question number 4. Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
To humanize their brand.
And you want to elaborate on that a bit?
Yeah. I mean, you know, right now consumers are tired of corporate branding. We are tired of being sold, you know, all the time. And to just, you know, try to sell us a product or something that really doesn't have the value that we're looking for. So when you humanize your brand, you let consumers and audiences to become part of your brand, to fall in love with your brand, to support your brand. And this is what I always tell my clients, you need to humanize your brand. If you want to be successful, because people is the one decide what brand lives and what brand dies.
Uh-huh. It's very insightful. Thank you for that.
Sure.
Question number 5, what other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
Uh, Ed Samani. Ed Samani is one of my clients. He's the president of franchise, for the franchise industry. He's a sensei on martial arts. So besides, and he's a very spiritual man. So besides all what I have learned from him in the business, he's very insightful in what he thinks and what he believes and what he shares daily on his platform.
I see. Well, I appreciate that referral. I'll reach out to him.
Of course.
And our final question, question number 6, please tell me about your first job.
Oh, okay. So my first job was as a promoter in the same industry that I worked for the 27 years. I was in Cozumel. I used to work over there in the summers, and then when I decided that I want to start working full-time, I moved to Cozumel in Mexico. So, I was promoting and branding resorts. And this is how I start my job, my first job.
Wow. So, you found a love for the industry early on. That sounds great.
Yeah. I found a lot of things. I mean, I found a way that I could, you know, right now that you're talking about this and I'm describing what I used to do, this is, I used to, I learned how to brand myself. I learned how to get into the heart and into the emotions of the people that I was inviting to come to see the resource that I was promoting. And, you know, this is, I started up when I was 18.
Wow, wow. So that's, so you've had a real opportunity to build that brand for several years and obviously now you're able to help others with that because of what you found., has worked and what hasn't worked, I assume, right?
Yeah, branding, branding is not just, uh, promoting, uh, services, you know. Personal branding is promoting yourself. Learn how you can sell yourself to your audience. Why people is gonna fall in love with you? Why? What are those values that you have that your audience have as well that are gonna be aligned with your messaging.
Mm-hmm.
That's personal branding.
And I love how you say that, that how people fall in love with your brand. And if you are your brand, people can fall in love with you if you do the branding correctly, as you're talking about. So it's wonderful. So Lorena, thank you so much for being on the show. How could people find you?
Oh, they can find me on my LinkedIn, you know, Lorena Acosta. They can email me, lorena.acosta@bbcbnawesome.com. Www.bbcbn.com. They can find me on Instagram, they can find me on Facebook. I mean, the easiest way to find me is if they Google my hashtag. If they Google #BBCBNAwesome, they are gonna find me everywhere on the internet.
Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
