Investing in Your Personal Brand with Liam Darmody Ep 86

Ever pondered about trading the predictability of a 9-to-5 for the thrill of calling your own shots? Join me as I chat with the ever-inspiring Liam Darmody for a deep dive into the enthralling world of self-employment.

We get real about transitioning from the corporate grind to the freedom and challenges of entrepreneurship, sharing our journeys of personal brand investment and how it's shaped our careers to better align with our passions.

In this heart-to-heart, Liam and I discuss the intertwining of hobbies and professional life, revealing how authenticity on platforms like LinkedIn can draw in opportunities and connections that resonate with us on a deeper level.

We tackle the fears of judgment and the outdated notion of keeping personal and professional lives separate, highlighting the strength that comes from being genuine in every aspect of our lives.

Plus, we celebrate the supportive communities that have bolstered our confidence and enabled us to grow both personally and professionally.

Wrapping up, we offer listeners some practical strategies for making the most of your social media presence, focusing on LinkedIn as a tool for business growth. Liam introduces his new venture, Liam's Brandstand, underscoring the value of supporting each other's brand journeys. Whether you're looking to strengthen your voice on LinkedIn or simply craving inspiration to take the leap into self-employment, this episode is brimming with encouragement and wisdom to help you navigate the vibrant landscape of personal branding.

Originally aired on LinkedIn / YouTube on Tuesday, December 5, 2023.

Connect with Liam:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/liamdarmody1
https://www.liamsbrandstand.com/

Watch it on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfUclql80ck?sub_confirmation=1

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My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:01

For those of you who are watching, whether you're watching live or in playback, maybe you're listening to this in a podcast on a later date. My name is Brenda Muller and this show is called Enthusiastically Self-Employed, and I am delighted to have with me here today Liam Darmody. Hey, liam, how are you doing today?

Speaker 2: 1:18

Hi Brenda, it's wonderful to be here again. I'm super excited to chat with you today.

Speaker 1: 1:23

Thank you, and we were actually talking in the pre-show that we've been connections and friends on LinkedIn for many years and I think I actually hosted you on my show back in, I want to say, 2020. I'm going to see if I can find the link and show notes and I'll put that on there, but at the time you were a corporate employee. Now you are self-employed and we ran into each other in New York City this summer when a bunch of LinkedIn trainers and coaches got together and had the chance to meet you in person, and I think not too long after that maybe was it even in New York when I invited you. Do you remember when that was?

Speaker 2: 1:55

Yeah, I think it was just shortly thereafter. We had talked about your new podcast and me being on it. I started listening to it from that point on, and then here we are. Here we are Awesome, and I see it from that point on.

Speaker 1: 2:05

And then here we are. Here we are Awesome, and I see the comments are coming in and StreamYard's a little hiccupy lately and I'm not sure if it's StreamYard or if it's LinkedIn, but I see on LinkedIn we're seeing like 18 comments. Here inside StreamYard I'm literally seeing three. One is the LinkedIn user saying yes, and then we have Kevin Turner and I'm not downplaying the value of having John Aspirian and Kevin Turner watching us, because I love and value both of those guys.

Speaker 1: 2:29

They are absolute rock stars, but StreamYard on LinkedIn. Give us the comments. We can see the goods that are out there and we're just not. We're not seeing them inside here.

Speaker 1: 2:39

At any rate, we're going to be talking today you can see the topic right above us about the importance of investing in your personal brand and, liam, in the pre-show we were chatting a little bit and I was sharing with you that this event has gotten higher than usual number of RSVPs, and I'm not surprised because I think you and I are very similar in our personality and our approaches. We're very friendly, we're very welcoming of others and I feel like you and I have paid it forward and built up social media karma for so many other people, and now it's like other people are coming back on and joining us for the show. So, before we jump into the conversation, liam, you and I have known each other for a little while. I know a bit about what you're doing in your new business, but why don't you take a minute or two and tell us about where you are today, who do you help and what do you help them with, and then we'll jump into our chat.

Speaker 2: 3:31

Sure, thanks. So, yeah, I launched Liam's Brandstand in August of 2023. So just over four months ago and I basically help founders and leaders build personal brands that attract clients, talent and opportunity, specifically on LinkedIn, but elsewhere as well. I've been so passionate about this platform for as long as we've been connected, which was October 2019. And I feel like there's been so much opportunity that has manifested itself for me on LinkedIn over the course of the last four years since I started sharing my voice here that it was a natural sort of evolution for me to eventually start helping other people do this.

Speaker 2: 4:13

I was doing it naturally on my own, for free, for folks before, and then I did a little bit of a side hustle and then the opportunity presented itself to launch my own firm and I thought you know what? I should give it a try. If nothing else, I'd be doing what I'm really passionate about for a really long time and see how it goes, and my wife is really supportive of me, and so I've been doing it. It's been an emotional roller coaster Absolutely there's, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that and it's a lot of highs and lows, but it's been a lot of fun and I feel like I'm just getting started. So I am just getting started, so it's good that I feel that way.

Speaker 1: 4:46

That's awesome, and we're going to be talking today about the importance of investing in your personal brand, and I know, liam, that you have been doing this for years leading up to your launch, and I think we have a lot of similarities. We were talking in the pre-show about the backstory, what led us to where we are today, and I really want to focus on where we are today and what we offer, and less on the journey to what got us there, and I even told you, the universe nudged me forward and I think for both of us, having invested in our personal brands created a new door for us to walk through that we wouldn't have had access to otherwise. Would you agree with that?

Speaker 2: 5:23

Oh yeah, absolutely. It's so interesting to see what happens when you put yourself out there and when you share your perspective and your personality and your thoughts with people on a consistent basis, people think about you, and when you're even not engaging with them and so opportunities present themselves. Right, I think the last time I was on your show I had just been hired by the company that I was hired by when I moved down here to North Carolina, and that was a career pivot for me. I was essentially interviewing for a position with them and the chief marketing officer was like I could hire you for this role, but I think you might like a different role that I haven't really formally created yet, but it's high priority for the business, and it was an employer brand and talent marketing role. And I was like I don't, I don't have any experience doing employer branding. What are you talking about? You do?

Speaker 1: 6:10

it. You do it every day. I've been watching you for six months.

Speaker 2: 6:12

You can see that from your online activities, from your LinkedIn Exactly, and so that's when the light bulb went off for me that, oh, like, this is actually a really. This platform has the potential to open doors that you didn't know were open or existed. And you've probably heard me use the phrase that LinkedIn is not a social media platform. Linkedin is a serendipity manifestation platform, which doesn't sound as fun, but it's a little bit cheesy, but I truly believe that this platform gives us the opportunity to manifest our own serendipity, and I think that is something that everybody should try and do in a global, connected world.

Speaker 1: 6:46

I don't think I've heard that phrase from you before Serendipity I'm trying to type and talk right now and that's a tricky word, serendipity, manifestation yeah, it's a mouthful. When you were an employee, were you intentionally building up your brand? What gave you the courage to start branching out? Because a lot of people and there are probably people watching this right now they're corporate employees and I tightly clench when I say they're corporate employees and you're held to a certain standard and you, when you are doing your activities online, you're a reflection of your company. So you might not be as willing to put yourself out there and to allow people to learn about your personal brand and to learn of your company, so you might not be as willing to put yourself out there and to allow people to learn about your personal brand and to learn about your personality. But what was it for you that prompted you to start really leaning into your personal brand online?

Speaker 2: 7:35

So I had honestly just been noted. I found myself spending more time on LinkedIn. This was 2019. And I found myself using LinkedIn a lot more for information and education and entertainment. To a certain extent, although it's certainly evolved a lot since then, it's more entertaining now than it was back then, I think, and so I was just paying attention to that and thinking to myself.

Speaker 2: 7:54

I've never really been big on social media. I was never really big into Twitter or Instagram or Facebook. I posted for a while, but it wasn't like it was an intentional decision. It was just kind of something to do and I thought, if I want to really invest in a platform and share my thoughts and kind of talk about business and meet new people, this seems like a good place for me to do it. So I started to do that in Q4 of 2019 and into 2020.

Speaker 2: 8:22

And that sort of took on a life of its own. It ended up I was on paternity leave after my daughter, piper, was born in November and I'd seen all these other folks that were sharing freely and a lot of getting a lot of engagement and LinkedIn coaches and trainers like yourself and several others that I've been following for a long time and I thought you know what. I'm just going to start spending some time here and start sharing my thoughts and the whole premise for me. I'm lucky because I've worked in technology startups for the majority of my career and technology startups are a little bit less worried about that. Right, if you work for a big Fortune 500 company, there's a little bit more kind of risk associated with it and people aren't necessarily as comfortable with it sometimes. But even then you've got companies like Cisco that are training their staff to be LinkedIn influencers. That was a headline in Fortune magazine.

Speaker 1: 9:08

Yeah, that was big. Was that at the beginning of this year or sometime in?

Speaker 2: 9:11

2023? Yeah, it was about a year ago that I first saw it, and I just I view being the other thing that you'll hear me say a lot is that your personal brand is not who you are online. It's who you are online, and so it's just an extension of me being who I am with everybody that I talk to. For the most part, right, I'm talking about things that I'm passionate about and things that interest me, and finding people that are interested in those things and then connecting with them, and that ends up translating the conversation, which is one of my favorite things on earth. That's how I viewed it, and it just took on a life of its own a little bit. I started spending tons of time here and then the pandemic hit and this became my soul. This and Clubhouse is my sort of outlet for having conversations with other adults, because I was in a small house with two tiny kids and my wife, who, she, loves me and I love her, but it's always good to get out there and talk to other folks too.

Speaker 1: 10:05

Yeah, and I used to joke that during the pandemic, whenever I would do like a zoom call, I would always encourage people like can you turn your videos on please?

Speaker 1: 10:14

Because I need to see other people other than my husband and my kids and I love them all, but I think there's only so much time that we can take being inside the four walls of our own house without seeing the people. And I think Clubhouse for many of us was this new outlet and it took off and we really got to know each other from an audio standpoint. And then I think I know Clubhouse is still out there, but I feel like it wound down a bit after that first initial year and then a lot of us went back onto LinkedIn and but we came back with these new found friendships and insights into personalities of other people and I feel like in some aspect it probably planted the seed for you and I don't know if this is true or not pun intended for Liam's brand stand, because I know you've got like a lemon theme on that. Am I remembering correctly?

Speaker 2: 10:56

Yep, yep. I don't know why I didn't do a chili pepper. I should have done a chili pepper, but I did a lemon, I did a lemon.

Speaker 1: 11:02

Let's talk about this Like personal brand. There are some elements of your personal brand that are related to your career and there are some elements of your personal brand that are just personal in nature. For you it's hot sauce, for me it's pie. So talk to me about the hot sauce. Where did that come from?

Speaker 2: 11:17

I just I've always liked hot sauce. It's been something that I've put on most foods that I eat for a long time. And then I think in general, we just see hot sauce becoming a much more popular thing in food and you've got shows like hot ones that. Have you watched hot ones?

Speaker 1: 11:34

It's a TV show or.

Speaker 2: 11:36

Yeah, it's basically like a YouTube show with a guy that interviews famous celebrities and they eat 10 chicken wings together and progressively hotter sauces on each wing and then you see the celebrities reacting to the spice levels of the sauce. So it's becoming a bit more popular in culture and I just I tend to be all in on things when I go all in on things, and the hot sauce was something that I just I have a collection. It's far too large. I've made hot sauce racks to store it all, which is in the back corner of my office here, and it's not even that I've cycled through them all that much. It's just it's almost like some people collect wine and I collect hot sauce, which is not for you.

Speaker 1: 12:13

And so, but you actually do like hot sauce right Like you'd like hot sauce and for me, I feel like the same way when it comes to pie. Like pie has become so intertwined fine, with my brand. Sometimes I'll go people will say do you like pie? Do you actually like pie? And I'll be like I actually do. I don't like eat pie every day.

Speaker 1: 12:30

I like using the analogies and things like that Thanksgiving, I wish we had dessert first, because pie never gets to see its full potential because we're already stuffed by the time we get to it. But I do like pie and I think that's an important element. And for you and I, with both of our personal brand elements you your hot sauce and me the pie is allows you to connect to people in a different way, because when you talk about hot sauce, I'm imagining people in the audience. They're like oh, I'm from Metro Detroit and there's this hot sauce place here that I got to tell you about. Or we have this special line with XYZ brand and I'm imagining you probably get gifts of hot sauce like all the time. Is that?

Speaker 2: 13:07

fair to say. Yeah, I've gotten at this point. I think I've counted 23 bottles of hot sauce sent to me from folks that I've met through LinkedIn, the furthest one being a gift pack from a gentleman by the name of Keir Finlow Bates, who lives in Finland, did a finished hot sauce exchange, so I sent him a bunch of hoff and pepper, which is my favorite hot sauce, and he sent me I can't remember the name of it, but it was finished hot sauce that you can't get in the US, so it was-.

Speaker 1: 13:33

And has your wife. Is it Megan? Am I remembering correctly? Yep, has Megan cut you off yet? Has she said tell your friends not to send you anymore? Has she told you that she's drawing the line in the sand yet, or not yet?

Speaker 2: 13:43

as long as it doesn't leave this room and I don't, I think I'm safe. But yeah, for a while there I had my hot sauce racks in the kitchen. She was like can we do something about these?

Speaker 1: 13:52

it's too much megan, thank you for supporting liam. I'm not sure if she's watching in, whether she's watching live or she might be watching playback later, because I know she's working, but I know what it's like to have a hobby of things and, similar to you, I I I do enjoy pie, but I'm the only one in the house that really likes it to the extent that I do Like. Sometimes they'll have a slice or two, but it's more things to my office different pie tins and things like that. But I think and we're here today and you might be like somebody might be tuning in going why are they talking about pie and hot sauce? Because we're here talking about the importance of investing in your personal brand, and I think personal has to be a part of it. But then the other side is the professional brand.

Speaker 1: 14:34

So talk to us a bit about how building your personal brand has allowed you to and I'm going to say without a doubt successfully launch a brand. I know you're only like four months in at this point, but I know that I'm not the only person, liam. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is going to be so fun to watch his career acceleration. You're at the beginning of the journey. You've got so many people that are supporting you. You've built up. I'm like. I'm just like watching and waiting because I think you're going to your personal brand is going to explode your business. But talk to me about how your personal brand has helped you to launch your professional brand.

Speaker 2: 15:06

First of all, thank you very much. That's very nice of you to say. I think one of the things that's challenging about doing your own thing is that the only person that you're always around is yourself, and self-doubt can creep in. So that was very nice to hear. Thank you for that and for giving me an opportunity to chat about it. I think that, honestly, the personal component of our personalities is what attracts people to us automatically, and if you're building a personal brand and a professional brand, adding the personal elements to it, that's what's going to get people interested and intrigued. The number of conversations that I have every week that start with, hey, what's your favorite hot sauce alone are surprising to me, and those conversations can go all sorts of different directions and some people might think, oh, sharing that you're a hot sauce afic surprising to me. And those conversations can go all sorts of different directions and some people might think, oh, sharing that you're a hot sauce aficionado on your LinkedIn profile is so unprofessional and it's. You know what the beauty of building a personal brand and a professional brand is that effective branding attracts the right people and detracts the wrong ones. Right, and so as long as you look at branding through that lens and say I want people to be attracted to my personal brand and engage with me and attracted to my professional brand, who are love-like minds and who are willing to let people continue having their personal brands when they work in a company, and things like that.

Speaker 2: 16:21

And I'm okay with people just scrolling if they don't like it. And that's what I think a lot of people spend too much time thinking about is what if somebody doesn't like what they see? And I used to feel that way too before I started posting on LinkedIn consistently. I would say what happens if they don't like it? Well, my boss think I don't have enough value to add, I don't even know where to start, et cetera. It's a very common feeling. There's a stigma about posting content on LinkedIn, and there still is, but it's lessening year over year.

Speaker 2: 16:49

And so I think really the what I'm trying to get at here is that if you're just yourself and you're sharing your thoughts and they're not inflammatory or things that would upset folks necessarily, then you're going to be okay. You're going to, people are going to find you who find you endearing and want to get to know more about you, and from there opportunity can create itself. And so I think the other thing that people need to think about is like when we work at, companies hire us because they think that our personalities would mesh well with their culture, with their employees, with their clients, with their customers. They encourage you to bring your personality to the office, like the first question that people ask on Monday morning in an office is how was your weekend? And I've never had anybody turn around and say this is a professional environment. I'm not answering that question right? People relate to each other. It's relatable.

Speaker 1: 17:37

Talk to me about my dog. I'm sorry. No, this is a professional environment, you don't need to hear about that.

Speaker 2: 17:42

So the whole concept of I can't express my personality on LinkedIn, I just think, is short-sighted and doing a disservice to ourselves. So that's part of it. I think there is no longer a work Liam and a personal at home Liam. Yes, at home Liam is probably a little bit more casual and probably says more bad words, but I'm still basically myself, no matter what situation I'm in, and as long as you maintain that continuity and consistency, then I think you'll be fine.

Speaker 1: 18:11

Yeah, and I think your confidence and I'm saying this as an observer of you and I've always been a supporter of you, but I feel like your confidence. I've seen your confidence in yourself flourish and I think part of it is giving yourself permission and the other part is the feedback that you get from your online community. Would you agree with that, do you feel? Like you're getting more of that positive feedback from folks.

Speaker 2: 18:33

Yeah, absolutely, and it's a funny sort of story that I tell. When I was 13, 12 or 13, my dad and I lived in Los Angeles, california, and it was a really lonely year for me and he played the role of dad, brother, best friend, everything, and we used to drive around in Beverly Hills because that's where he would work and look at all the stars, mansions, houses and whatnot. One day he asks me what are the? What's the most important thing in your life? And I thought for a little bit and I said human relationships. And to this day he's. I almost drove off the road.

Speaker 2: 19:06

I was expecting you to say, like my PlayStation or whatever, my Xbox, right, but even in, even that early in my life, I had so much appreciation for connection with other human beings and that, for me, has been what LinkedIn has provided and it's only getting better and better. And I'm talking to more people and we now have global networks, like it's phenomenal to be able to talk to people from all over the world and find them on a platform and find commonalities and common interests and professional opportunities. That's really been great. And as far as confidence is concerned, I appreciate you saying that it's funny that the project.

Speaker 2: 19:42

The outward projection is there when internally, I'm like Am I doing this right? There's insecurity there, but a lot of it had to do with accepting that mindset that I spoke about earlier, which is, if somebody doesn't like me or doesn't like the content that I'm creating, then they can scroll by and it's okay. It's no harm, no foul. You're not everybody's cup of tea and that's fine. It's just that way, offline as it is online. And once you accept that and you just start being yourself with reckless abandon not reckless abandon, but not caring about what you put out there then it's liberating.

Speaker 1: 20:17

Yeah, I completely agree, and I always tell people like energy moves in one direction and you can choose to focus your energy on the positive direction that supports you and supports your prospective clients and the people in your network, or you can allow the negative energy to pull you back. And I don't know if you noticed yet I'm sure you did but on your post yesterday you got somebody commenting negatively about me, saying I don don't like her, and she called me a troll. And I'm like I don't know that I've ever actually called someone a troll, and maybe I have, probably I have, but I know you didn't respond to it, but I did because I wanted to use that as an example of what I do. And actually, Liam, I want to let you in on something too. I've noticed that when posts start to become some like semi-viral I'm using air quotes as I say that semi-viral is when the negative comments start to come out.

Speaker 1: 21:06

So when I saw that, I was like yes, and the fact that we can use that almost as like in gymnastics, when they're running and they jump on the springboard before they go up on the pummel horse or whatever. I like to use the negative comments as a springboard for positivity, and that's exactly what I did yesterday. I thanked the person because, to your point, if you don't like what I post, scroll on by. The person was actually bothered, them enough that they had to leave a comment and I said thank you for that, because by doing so, you're actually helping Liam to get more visibility, because every comment helps to broadcast this post out to the network. And, by the way, I'm not responding for you, I'm responding to everyone else to let you know that this is what we do.

Speaker 1: 21:49

We help to educate people on the platform. And thank you and have a great day. And I ended with that positive and going back to the, you can use these circumstances to build positivity, to support your personal brand, or you can let the negativity suck you in, and sometimes, when I see those negative comments, I get. My heart starts racing a little and, oh, people don't like me, I don't care, you don't like me, you're probably not going to work with me anyway, but any thoughts on that.

Speaker 2: 22:16

Yeah, I certainly remember the comment you're talking about, and my response to that comment would if I had left one, would have just been we can't all be everybody's cup of tea, and that's perfectly fine. I think there's just not any use in trying to please everyone, because that's an impossible task. So focus on being yourself and engaging with people who find you engaging, and you'll be fine.

Speaker 1: 22:36

Yeah, and she dropped in the statement that you said. Thanks for watching, jihan. By the way, track the right ones, do track the wrong ones, and I think that's what we do with our posts and our activity and through the things that we're doing to build our personal brand. What I'd like to do now is change gears a bit, liam, and we're going to invite folks from our audience to. If you have any questions for Liam or if you have any thoughts on the conversation. I'm looking to the side right now because the comments still are not coming up all the way inside of StreamYard.

Speaker 1: 23:06

Oh, I can actually see Jihan's comment did come up on here, but I have a question from Beth, who's watching. Thank you so much, beth, and Beth says any advice, and I don't know that there's an answer to this, liam, but I want to hear what you have to think. Any advice on how to come up with a dollar value for your LinkedIn presence? I'd like to quantify it in my pitch decks, but I cannot find a model to use, so any thoughts on that? How to demonstrate your I guess it's really demonstrate your value to your network as it relates to trying to gain new business. Any thoughts on that?

Speaker 2: 23:33

So I think the closest thing that I can think about is I still am a user of Shield, which is a data intelligence platform for LinkedIn, and they have this module within Shield that shows you how much your impressions would be worth at a specific cost per impression.

Speaker 2: 23:53

So cost per impressions is now a little bit of an outdated advertising metric anyways, but it's still very much exists, and the average CPM on LinkedIn is somewhere between 35 to $50 per CPM per thousand impressions. So you can theoretically calculate it that way, but other than that, I don't necessarily know that there's a purely mathematical or scientific way to do it. What I do know is that there's more and more people that are partnering with brands on the platform, like a B2B brand on the platform, and converting people into subscribers or customers for those brands, or lead gen for those brands. I think it's also very important not to just focus on impressions but focus on engagement as well. An engaged audience is going to be much more likely to take you seriously as somebody that's partnering with a brand, versus just pure impressions. So that would be my suggestion.

Speaker 1: 24:46

That's a good statement, and I think a lot of these are like soft numbers, even in the PR world. When we talk about cost of gained media, like how do they actually quantify that? Because if you're getting coverage by media outlets by not paying, how can you put a price on it? Because you wouldn't pay that price and be able to get some of that same coverage? So it is a little bit of a funny thing, but I had forgotten, and I have Shield Analytics.

Speaker 1: 25:07

Every now and again I go into that data but that might actually be a good path for you to look at in terms of a route to look at quantifying. But I think it's also to your point, liam. Looking at you can help to illustrate the number of impressions you're getting for your posts in a year, and LinkedIn now has those analytics in our profiles. And you can also look at things like connections, which are capped at 30,000 followers, which are unlimited. I think general rule I like to look at, liam, is overall engagement, and we were chatting back and forth on this morning's post about frequency of posts and the algorithm at play and reach and impressions and things like that. But I think what's really key is that when you post, you're getting engagement on every post. I see that as value, comments likes and then replies back. Would you agree and anything to add to that?

Speaker 2: 25:58

Yeah, for me, the conversation is where the party's at.

Speaker 2: 26:00

On LinkedIn, I view myself as the host of my post, and when I put content out there, I'm inviting people to have a conversation with me and with each other. I think that is something that I have the luxury of doing because this is my full-time job, so not everybody can do that necessarily, but I view time spent on LinkedIn differently than I view time spent on other social platforms. I view it as an investment of time rather than a time suck, and I think a lot of people say I don't have time to dedicate 30 minutes to LinkedIn every day, but then they're spending two hours scrolling on TikTok, and my question to those people is what are you deriving from that? Two hours of scrolling on TikTok that you couldn't get the same benefit doing it in 90 minutes and then spending 30 minutes on LinkedIn having conversations with people who might open doors to opportunities that you don't know exist yet, right? So that for me is the biggest delta between LinkedIn and all these other platforms, and I view it as an investment of time.

Speaker 1: 27:05

I think that's a really good point. And to add on to that, we all have 24 hours in a day.

Speaker 2: 27:07

I don't think you get any more than 24, Liam Do you still get 24?

Speaker 1: 27:09

Okay, like when you're self-employed. You might feel like gosh, I worked 28 or 36 or 48 hours today. Like, really, only you get 40, you only get to 24 hours in a day.

Speaker 1: 27:18

But I think it's. How do you use that time? And use a pie analogy If we all had a pie, there's only so many slices. There's 24 slices in the day, 24 hours in a day. So if you're going to spend an hour of that scrolling through on TikTok and I get it Sometimes we need a mind break. We just need to watch the funny dog videos and the dances and you need that break.

Speaker 1: 27:40

We just need to watch the funny dog videos and the dances and you need that. But then you do need to balance that out with productive time, and how is it helping you to reach your personal or your personal, your professional goals? Yep, yep.

Speaker 2: 27:49

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 27:50

And on that note, we talked about clubhouse a little bit earlier and I'm curious about the question too, because I was like heavy, I was on clubhouse, like a clubhouse, clubhouse room, every morning. Whose group was that? You were in that group and I can't remember who led it up. Do you remember whose it was?

Speaker 2: 28:03

The Linked International Club.

Speaker 1: 28:05

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:05

That was mine, that was me and Ariel Lee and Andy Foote and Leah Turner.

Speaker 1: 28:09

Yes, yes, yeah, so you were the guy who created that group?

Speaker 2: 28:12

I don't think I and there where I could.

Speaker 1: 28:20

Do you still use Clubhouse, Liam?

Speaker 2: 28:22

I do not. It was actually so interesting. You talk about like right time, right place. Clubhouse just came on the scene when everybody was craving human connection, right, and so the power of voice over the internet, with all these different ways to hop into different rooms and hear all these different topics, and you're meeting people from all over the world in voice format, which is was new at the time and it just was like it was magic in a bottle. I remember I was spending like eight hours a day on that platform and we were running a daily show from 8am to 10am from January until May and grew it to 7,000 members and and then we just got to a point where we were like this is too much and we stopped Memorial Day weekend. That was the end, and that was it. I haven't really been back since.

Speaker 1: 29:09

Yeah, do you still have it on your phone?

Speaker 2: 29:10

Nope.

Speaker 1: 29:11

No, it's funny Cause I have it. I still have it on my phone, but it's the. I have the iPhone and if you don't use the app in a while, if I click on it it's like trying to download it again. So it's been a bit. It was probably like three or four months ago.

Speaker 1: 29:21

I just went on and I scrolled it just felt like it was starting to get a little junky. A lot of the top and the good, the cool kids I knew and I followed weren't on there anymore. It was like just a mishmash of different things and I, andrew, it doesn't look like Liam's using Clubhouse anymore, but more power to you for those folks that are finding some values on there. So here's another question I can see on LinkedIn and I can't see it inside here to bring it inside, but this is coming from Kenneth Lang and oh, actually it did come inside here. So, liam, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but LinkedIn is now starting to restrict personal requests or the personal personalization of notes in invitation requests for people that are using the free basic version of LinkedIn.

Speaker 1: 30:10

They tried it for a while. There's a lot of negative feedback that they got and then they reverted back to giving it out, to allowing everyone to do unlimited invitations with a personal note, and now it appears they are restricting it again. What are your thoughts on it, if you'd like to share?

Speaker 2: 30:24

Thanks for the question, kenneth. Good to see you, man. I have a slightly different and controversial take on this than I think most people would expect and it ties back to what I was saying earlier about LinkedIn being an investment. They say that your network is your net worth, and I truly believe that it is worth 20 bucks a month or 40 bucks a month, depending on what premium account you have to be able to message and connect and have a network with people all over the world. I think that LinkedIn understands its value.

Speaker 2: 31:00

Now. Linkedin is in a unique position because there's no competition. I think it would be different if we had another 1 billion large platform that was focused on B2B relationships and professional networking. That would be maybe a different situation. So I'm not debating that necessarily, but I think from my perspective, I have actually used Sales Navigator throughout the last four years, on and off, for that very reason. I paid the 120 bucks per month to actually be able to cultivate really strong connection with my network, and some people will bookmark everybody's recent activity page and then make sure they're not missing the comments or the posts that they're putting out there. I just create my own little home feed within sales navigator, so that I'm not missing people's stuff, and that was even before I was doing any type of business development on the platform, and so I've always viewed LinkedIn as an investment of time and resources that paid back in dividends.

Speaker 2: 31:55

I think the one thing I will say is I think 10 connection requests is a pretty stingy amount. I understand LinkedIn wants to put people into that conversion funnel and get people paying for the platform, but I think 10 is a bit much. I think it might be a bit premature, to be honest, because I think LinkedIn is still this relatively new place for people to spend time. Most people just go there when they want to find a new job, and so if the idea is we want to get more people spending time on the platform and more people connecting and more people using it, if you're putting a price on it, it's going to be difficult to grow that user base, but on the flip side, you could be seeing more people that are really taking it seriously, investing, and so it creates this.

Speaker 1: 32:39

It's almost like a tiered system, which is interesting, and so it creates this it's almost like a tiered system, which is interesting, yeah, and it's interesting that you talk about. Most people are using LinkedIn as a job search site and I'm going to try to find the stat and if I can send it if I can find it, I will send it to you and I'll put it in the show notes for the podcast as well. But actually more people are using LinkedIn for professional networking purposes and for business development and for personal branding than are using it for job search. I think there's a lingering branding issue with LinkedIn that it is a job search site, because I think when it first came on the scene and myself included it was an alternative to Monster and Hot Shops. It was like, okay, we can actually connect with people, not just look at the job opportunities. And even if you look at the LinkedIn app, I think the second way it describes itself is for jobs to find jobs. So there's that's happening, but I'll look up and I'll find the stat to show and just to help. I think we those of us who work in LinkedIn coaching and who help people use the platform we're continually educating people on how to use the platform and build their brand, but I think this is one of the things we need to like.

Speaker 1: 33:40

You might think about LinkedIn as a job search site, but it's actually used more by people for professional networking purposes, and I loved we were chatting back and forth on a thread this morning about post and reach and frequency of posts, and you asked the question, which I so admire you for saying what's your source for that? And thank you for doing that, because I think we need to challenge data points that we're given, and when experts I'm using my air quotes again when experts are giving us advice, even if they are fellow experts that are more established in the field, when they're giving us advice and they're saying no, it's this way, I think you need to say what's your data point? Is that coming from LinkedIn, or where's your source for that data? Like I said, I'm excited to get into the conversation. I love that you offered a counterpoint on that.

Speaker 1: 34:25

What I thought you were going to say, though, liam, is, if you already are doing a good part with building your personal brand and building relationships and commenting on your posts, if you send that person an invitation, they're going to go oh, liam Darmody, and they're not even going to question. They're going to accept it right away, but I get the business model, the tie-in and, to echo what you said on Sales Navigator, it's such an amazing platform For most people, though you can do what you need to do on basic Premium makes sense for business development, sales Navigator if you're building your own business and using it deeper for sales would you agree with that?

Speaker 2: 35:07

Yep, I would say that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, to your point earlier. You know you will be. People will accept you if you're showing up on their content and providing support and having conversations and breeding familiarity.

Speaker 2: 35:11

I think I always say that the value of building a personal brand is getting on the radar of people who, the radar you want to be on right and social selling is a very new evolution of go-to-market and business development practice, but it's proven that it works. It's harder to measure, it requires more patience and a little bit more far out thinking and strategy, but it can be very effective. And the other thing to think about is that when you're putting comments on somebody's posts, I think we live in a bit of a bubble where we're surrounded by LinkedIn experts. We're surrounded by ghostwriters all over the place. There's LinkedIn gurus all over the place. Everybody's got at this point. The knowledge has been shared to thousands and thousands of people, and so you see a lot of people talking about like this is the way to do it, this is the way to do it. Whenever I work with anybody, I always say this is what I've observed.

Speaker 2: 36:00

This is my recommendation. I cannot certify that. This is the only way. I don't know. I don't work at LinkedIn and I think anybody who is going to say this is the way you do it.

Speaker 1: 36:11

It's a red flag because I think you got to challenge them. And like you did for me. You like what did? You hear this from LinkedIn and I think that's a really good point. So we're here today talking about personal brands and I want to shift gears a little bit and show folks up on screen right now your website. I just pull it up on screen and then I want to share the web address as well liamsbrandstandcom. So that's L-I-A-M-S brandstandcom. There's a backstory about the picture that was taken. Was that in New York City?

Speaker 2: 36:43

I think you took that, did I. I'm pretty sure you took that picture.

Speaker 1: 36:48

I demand photo credit. No, I'm kidding.

Speaker 2: 36:50

I can put that on there. Wasn't that like right outside of the doors. Before we walked into one of the suites in LinkedIn headquarters, that was LinkedIn's sort of lobby at Empire State Building. When we were all there it was awesome Going to the mothership.

Speaker 1: 37:04

Yeah, sue had asked a question. Let me pull Sue's comment up and it's a nice kind of pivot into and Sue said looking forward to Cabo, hearing more about Liam and his shiny new brand and work. Now Liam's brand stand has been in the market for about four months. So tell us Liam for those of us that are watching right now or maybe listening to the podcast later, they like what they hear about you, but now they're like what is Liam offering? So summarize for us what are the offerings through Liam's Brandstand?

Speaker 2: 37:33

Yeah, I started out of the gate offering personal brand packaging, employer brand consulting and social sales strategy, and I quickly realized that I was probably taking on a bit too much in terms of messaging and how to go to market, so I scaled it back a little bit and I focus almost exclusively right now on personal brand coaching. So I have a one-to-one session where it's just an informal agenda driven by the person that signs up for it, and then hour of time just shooting the breeze about personal branding and LinkedIn. I have a more robust and in-depth one-to-one which is basically walking through LinkedIn as a product, all the different product features, strategies that I have for content creation, and then I have a one month plan that is essentially me doing that, plus a month of support. So as you go on your journey and put into practice some of the things that we have strategized together, I'm with you along the way and we can go back and forth the whole month.

Speaker 2: 38:29

And then my third package is a quarterly package where you'll get 12 ghost edited posts per month, and I say ghost editing instead of ghost writing, and the reason that I make that distinction is that I very much believe that our personal brands need to start with our own voice and our own opinions, and so I think having somebody just ghostwrite something for me is not the way that I want to do it. I could probably make more money doing it that way, but it's one of those lines in the sand that I've drawn for myself. My ideal customer is somebody who wants to write and wants to develop their voice and build their brand and build their voice on the platform and just needs a little bit of help doing it. So that's my like VIP package, and actually that's the one that I've sold more than anything so far, which has been interesting.

Speaker 1: 39:17

I didn't expect that that's awesome and, by the way, when I came onto your website this morning, there's lots of other great photos of Liam on here too. But when I came on, there was a little pop-up that came on and said hey, do you want to join my email list? And I don't think it's coming up anymore, Cause I are. I did sign up. As soon as I saw the pop-up, I'm like, yes, I'm going to join. So I want to join Liam's email list because there's a lot of great offerings and expertise that he has to offer you. And then the next thing is I'm going to pull up your LinkedIn profile, Liam, and I want to ask the question are you open to connecting with folks here on LinkedIn and, if so, any special instructions you'd like to give them about connecting with you?

Speaker 2: 40:02

I'm absolutely open to connecting with folks on the platform and it makes sense, and happy to help anybody that is looking for help on the platform. I'm always I'm an open book and I love conversation. Yeah, definitely, reach out. No advice necessarily. If you want to reach out with what your favorite hot sauce is, I'm always down to talk about hot sauce. That's a good icebreaker. But yeah, no, if you just want to mention that you saw me on Brenda's show, that'd be great.

Speaker 1: 40:26

And I see one thing at the top of your profile. I see that you've got the talks about hashtags, which tells me that you have creator mode turned on. So, if you don't mind, I'm going to remind people that if they visit your profile, the blue button is going to say follow. If you want to connect with Liam, what you'll need to do is click on the more button or, if you're on the mobile app, click on the three dots and then you'll see an option underneath from your view that will say personalized, invite or connect. My view.

Speaker 1: 40:51

I'm not seeing it because Liam and I are already first level connection, so I'm not going to be able to see that on there, but do mention that you just you saw Liam on the interview with Brenda. He'll know where you came from, because it's once every three years for us. We'll have to get you booked again in 2026 and see where your business is then. Maybe sooner than this has been such a delight having the opportunity to chat with you here today and as we wrap up our conversation, I want to give you the chance for any final thoughts on the importance of investing in your personal brand.

Speaker 2: 41:21

Yeah, wow, so I yeah. First of all, thank you so much for having me. It's been fantastic to to catch up with you. I always love our conversations. I'm very passionate about this topic. I think the biggest piece of advice I can give to people is not to overthink it. Don't let those like inner voices inside that say you're not good enough and nobody cares what you have to say, stifle your creativity and your willingness to put yourself out there, because I promise you that once you do it, if you put an authentic voice out there and you're consistent with it and you're patient, over time amazing things will happen. There's a bit of a flywheel effect that goes into effect and it pays dividends. So just I understand if people are shy about it, and not necessarily a hundred percent sure they want to do it, or they get cold feet when they want to hit post. I honestly still feel that sometimes myself and more often than not, those posts are the ones that do the best.

Speaker 2: 42:16

So it's funny how that. It's funny how that works, but I can honestly say that my life has changed dramatically since investing in a personal brand, and I think everybody's can. Don't do yourself the disservice of holding back All right.

Speaker 1: 42:31

Follow Liam. He's got great advice, you guys, and it's so exciting to see the start of his journey. And, liam, I'm here for you, to support you, and there might be some folks watching and listening going why is she bringing another LinkedIn coach onto her show? Like, why would she do that? Because some people are like that's a competitor.

Speaker 1: 42:46

No, I'm of the abundance mentality and you and I I don't know if we first started interacting through the Rockstar list I feel like you reached out to me and you said hey, I admire what you're doing and eventually you were on my radar at that point. Eventually, I did feature you on the Rockstar list, but it was in the non-trainer version of it, because at the time you were a corporate and now, if I was still publishing the list today, you would definitely be on it. And you actually are prompting me to think about do I revisit it again? And I had three versions the LinkedIn coach trainer version, the non-LinkedIn coach trainer people that were just rocking it on the platform. And then I had the people that had a hundred thousand followers and above cause. They're in a league of their own.

Speaker 1: 43:28

So I'm trying to think about what to do to revisit that, but I am bringing people like Liam on the show that I believe in, that I support. He has supported me throughout my career and I'm always one. Liam that of the abundance mentality. I think there was more than enough pie to go around for all of us, and the more that we share the pie, the bigger I slice of the pie can be, and I'm sure there's probably some hot sauce analogies with it too. The more you taste on hot sauce, the more refined your palate, because the more you appreciate?

Speaker 2: 43:54

Yeah, the hotter, the more you eat, the hotter you can suffer there you go, something like that.

Speaker 1: 44:00

But I bring him on because I know that there might be people that immediately are like oh, I got to work with Liam and Brenda's doesn't vibe with me. And there might be people that come on and they're like I don't know if Liam's the right fit, but Brenda's a better fit for me. So the more that we can support each other and build each other up, I think the more that we do succeed together.

Speaker 1: 44:18

On that note, yeah, I want to say if you enjoyed this discussion, do us a favor, if you could, because Liam and I we don't get performance reviews anymore and that's one of the things I don't miss about corporate. We do like getting feedback. So drop a comment below and let us know if you found this conversation helpful today. Whether you're watching now or in playback, we'd love to see your feedback. And another thing you can do to help to build up your personal brand if you're watching this is as soon as this video is done playing, you'll see a share button at the bottom. Go ahead and click on share. It's a great technique.

Speaker 1: 44:47

If you have not yet posted on LinkedIn this week, this month, heck, even this year Go and share it forward. Tag Liam and I in your post. Reminder to when you tag, you use the little at sign and then you type in our names and Liam and I will see that you've tagged us in the post. We will jump into the comments and maybe you could share with people why they should watch the video. I think that's pretty good advice. What do you think, liam?

Speaker 2: 45:11

Love it, that's great.

Speaker 1: 45:12

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:12

It covers everything for me.

Speaker 1: 45:13

Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 45:14

Brenda, it's been great to be here.

Speaker 1: 45:16

Yeah, it's been a pleasure. And again, liam, I'm proud of you and your success and here to support you from the sidelines. If you ever need anything, let me know, and I'm looking forward to having you back on the show in the future too.

Speaker 2: 45:26

Likewise right back at you.

Speaker 1: 45:27

All right guys stay safe and stay healthy everyone.