Mastering Personal Branding | Liam Darmody

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of the Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim speaks with personal brand strategist Liam Darmody about the journey of transitioning from a corporate career to entrepreneurship. They discuss the challenges faced in setting expectations, the importance of building relationships in sales, and the shift in mindset required to effectively market oneself. The conversation also delves into the role of AI in creative industries, emphasizing how it can enhance productivity while maintaining the essential human element in business. The episode concludes with insights on leveraging AI for efficiency and the future of personal branding.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Liam Darmody transitioned from corporate sales to personal branding.
• Expectations in entrepreneurship can lead to disappointment if not managed.
• Building relationships is key to successful sales.
• Shifting from content creation to sales requires a change in mindset.
• AI can enhance productivity for creatives but cannot replace the human element.
• Understanding client needs versus wants is crucial in sales.
• Sales should be viewed as socializing rather than pitching.
• Creatives should showcase their skills consistently on social media.
• Leveraging AI can help creatives work more efficiently.
• The future of personal branding will involve a blend of technology and human connection.

Grab the entire Profit First for Creatives Book for FREE: https://christianbrim.com/free-book-download/

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.634)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Brewster, New York. I don't know where Brewster is, but it's a great name. I hope they have a bunch of breweries and I hope to visit sometime. Joining me today, Liam Darmody. Can I get that right? All right, with Liam's

Liam Darmody (00:28.565)
Nicely done. Yeah.

Christian Brim (00:31.746)
brand stand. I was struggling with that. Liam, welcome to the show. Sorry.

Liam Darmody (00:37.74)
Thank you so much for having me, Christian. I appreciate it. I'm very much looking forward to chatting.

Christian Brim (00:41.666)
I like the brand stand that that that I it I don't know if you're trying to evoke bandstand. Was that your intent or no?

Liam Darmody (00:49.516)
It was sort of I don't know. I think yeah, I just it rhymed bandstand grand grandstand Newspaper stand. I don't know. I just kind of went with it

Christian Brim (00:54.242)
Yeah. Okay.

Christian Brim (01:00.246)
I love it. So why don't you start by telling the listeners who you are and what you do.

Liam Darmody (01:07.126)
Sure. Thank you. So my name is Liam Darmody. I am a personal brand strategist and business innovation coach. I spent the first 20 years of my career in sales ops and revenue operations at startup companies. And then I had an opportunity to pivot my career into brand marketing, largely based on the personal brand I built for myself on LinkedIn. And so I did that and was recruited into a

position and the company was acquired and I decided to start my own business teaching other people how to manifest serendipity on LinkedIn using their personal brand and social sales strategy.

Christian Brim (01:49.903)
Okay, so you got 20 years in the bag here. What prompted you at that point to want to start your own gig?

Liam Darmody (01:59.976)
Yeah, great question. so, know, I had always been in operations because I worked at startups and I was the sort of guy who got stuff done. and so that just is where they put me and I just, I had a go to market mind, a very strategic mind when it came to sales processes and operational processes. And so it was a good fit, but I always felt like something was missing. Like I meant, I meant to be in marketing. I've always been a marketing mind. I've always loved.

Looking at ads and thinking about how brands connect with people. If I could have gone to school again, I probably would have done consumer psychology or consumer behavior, because to me, that's the most fascinating part of business is how do you get people interested in buying from a company or being loyal to a brand? And, um, so I started posting content randomly in, 2020 on LinkedIn.

Christian Brim (02:36.942)
Mmm.

Liam Darmody (02:52.94)
you know, it was the pandemic. I was in a small house with an infant and a toddler and my wife, and I love all of them dearly, but I missed a lot of the water cooler conversations at the office. So I started having them on LinkedIn instead. And two years after that, a CMO at a big technology consultancy came over and said, I, I'm putting together an employer brand and talent marketing team. And, I'm looking for somebody to, to stand it up and run it. And I think you'd be the perfect person.

And I was really flattered. said, you know, that's amazing. Thank you. But I don't even have the words brand or marketing on my resume. Right. Why, why are you reaching out? And he said, I've been following you on LinkedIn for six months. If you can do what you do for yourself here for our company, and, you have the sales operations and sort of process automation skills that I assume that you do. I think you're a shoe in for this position. So interviewed for it, wrote the job description and away we went. And then two years later.

we were acquired, for a little over a billion dollars. And so I got a little bit of money from that. And then six months after that, I was let go, which I was expecting and they did right by me on the way out. So I was at a crossroads. Do I go back into startups and work in operations? Cause that was my background. Do I go work in employer branding at, you know, larger companies where employer branding is more prevalent? or do I start my own business and teach people how to.

manifest serendipity and create opportunity for themselves by leveraging this powerful platform known as LinkedIn. And with the help of my wife, who, you know, sort of reminded me that I've been talking about this for years and thinking about, you know, could I make a consultancy work? She said, look, now, now's the time you've got the runway. I've got a job. Let's go. see how, how it goes. And that was two years ago on August 7th.

Christian Brim (04:40.728)
Beautiful. having a little coin in the bank helped with that decision.

Liam Darmody (04:46.398)
Absolutely. Yeah, I would say, you know having a spouse who had a full-time job that covered all of our expenses and Having money in the bank definitely helped give me the confidence to do it But my pride my pride and joy of the last two years is that I haven't had to touch savings So paid all the bills haven't missed a mortgage payment and haven't had to touch savings. So I feel good about that

Christian Brim (05:08.782)
Well, that is a win. Uh, a hundred percent. It's a win. So, so what, what were some of the challenges that, that you encountered in the last two years that you didn't encounter? mean, you know, working in startups, you get to see a lot of similar things that small business do. Uh, but, but there had to be a couple of things that maybe you weren't aware of. Um,

Liam Darmody (05:28.705)
Yep.

Liam Darmody (05:34.712)
yeah, for sure. Hola.

Christian Brim (05:36.302)
What were some of those challenges?

Liam Darmody (05:39.722)
I think the first challenge was expectations, setting expectations that were rooted in data or concrete data. I didn't necessarily know what to expect. I had a relatively large audience on LinkedIn when I launched my business. And I think I sort of naively thought that, once I set up my own shingle, they're just going to come flooding in. And the truth is that

Christian Brim (05:43.054)
Hmm.

Liam Darmody (06:05.834)
It took a lot longer than that. took, you know, probably three months before I really felt like people were thinking about me in a different way, because for years I was just the guy who showed up and shared content and didn't really have any type of ulterior motive. wasn't doing any business development. and so that shift in perspective, I think took a while. I also think that, you know, making sure that your expectations are aligned, is important, right? Like coming out of the gate, expecting droves of people.

because of the size of my following, sort of set me up for disappointment. was like, does this mean there's no viable market here? Does this mean that there's not, you know, and it was just sends you for like a whole roller coaster of emotions, which is entrepreneurship, right? So that was one challenge that I think I had. think the other challenge is the fact that I'm not on a team, right? I'm a business of one and I'm a hugely social animal.

Christian Brim (06:59.086)
Mmm.

Liam Darmody (07:04.969)
You know, woo is my number one strength finder trait. I love people. love conversation. I miss a team dynamic pretty, pretty much daily at this point, but, you know, you learn how to fill those gaps with community conversations on LinkedIn helped me a lot, conversations with clients and things like that. and then I guess the other thing is, not having people to do it for you.

Right? You know, I'm like, you know, my Calendly breaks. I'm like, that's on me. Right. My finances, my, you know, questions about accounting, questions about bookkeeping, like all these things that I have, I am used to surrounding myself with other people who know that inside and out. And when you're an entrepreneur, you're just figuring it out yourself. So I think those are the top three things that were the most challenging for me to get over in my first two years.

Christian Brim (07:37.486)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (07:57.23)
Yeah. And I, I, I would say that echoes most of what I hear. Um, it's just the volume of stuff that you don't know, but it, but it is the mindset. I think the mindset shift of responsibility, working with the team as an employee, have a narrowly defined role. Even if you're someone like yourself, who, uh, was someone that was known as a problem solver and, could get things done.

Ultimately, not everything was your responsibility or your, or your decision. And as an entrepreneur, it is, and that can lead to gridlock a lot of times because people don't know, right? Like, okay, the technology, the technology breaks. Well, I don't know the technology and I don't know who to, there's no one to call. Right. I want to go back to what you said about,

Liam Darmody (08:28.064)
That's right.

Liam Darmody (08:48.416)
Yeah, yeah.

Christian Brim (08:53.876)
how you had this network following, but that didn't result in immediate traction. What did you have to do or change to shift your content? what did you start talking about in different things with different tone, different intentionality? What changed from just being the guy that put content to I'm trying to sell something?

Liam Darmody (09:15.592)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Liam Darmody (09:22.922)
Yeah, it's funny because I, when I started posting on LinkedIn, a lot of people that I was spending time talking to were people who had sizable followings, who were doing business on LinkedIn. And so their content was pretty consistent. They would pretty much talk about something, some flavor of the same topic in a couple of different ways every single week. And many of them used to say to me like, what are you even doing here? Like your content's all over the place. And I remember my response was, well, I'm not.

I'm not doing anything here. I'm just here for vibes. Like I like talking about business and building relationships with people. And so I definitely had to shift my strategy from a content standpoint to start talking more about what I do and how I do it and who I helped and how I helped them. And that took a little bit of getting used to for me as well, because I am as much as I think that everybody is in marketing and sales now in some capacity, I have never really been

one to self promote. And so it's hard for me sometimes to put content out there that is promoting something because I want to give my audience the trust and the benefit of, you know, they're adults. If they want to work with me, they'll look at my profile and they'll come and drop a message and set up a call and we'll have a conversation. But people's minds are very short. And so you have to always be in front of them and you have to always be reminding them of what you do and how you do it. And so that was a big adjustment for me.

Christian Brim (10:24.462)
Mmm.

Liam Darmody (10:51.884)
Rather than just waking up in the morning and being like this is what I feel like writing about today I had to start thinking about okay. Here's some of my core content strategies here comes some of my core pillars I'm leveraging AI pretty heavily because AI is a fantastic thought partner and it helps with efficiency And so that was probably the biggest thing

Christian Brim (11:11.168)
Yeah. And the idea of being a salesperson, I mean, you obviously are someone that enjoys people and enjoys conversation. So it probably came easier to you than some, but there's, there is an aversion to selling that I think most people are just like, they, they, they don't want to be sold to. So they don't want to sell others. Right. Like

Liam Darmody (11:30.102)
Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (11:39.584)
Yep. Yep.

Christian Brim (11:40.554)
I, that there's something that feels, dirty about it. so, so how, how do you approach that with yourself and that, change, and then with your clients, like what, how do you get over that sales phobia?

Liam Darmody (11:45.068)
Yep. Yep.

Liam Darmody (12:01.622)
So I think for me, the sales phobia, it's always there a little bit because I don't necessarily want to come across as salesy. But I shifted my perspective and I encourage others to do the same. Personal branding is very powerful. Social selling is a very interesting concept because the idea is you build an affinity for who you are.

as a person, right? And you add people to your network strategically so that they can start consuming the content you create. They can see how you think and how you communicate. the objective of building a personal brand is get people thinking, this person seems like somebody fun to work with. Right. That's kind of the top, top of funnel thought that you want them to have. And then eventually they'll, they'll start reading through your content and one content piece you put out might get them to reach out to you and strike up a conversation.

That's obviously the ideal scenario because it's all inbound and that's how the majority of my business operates. But, the other side of it is that. You know, I view sales in the sort of traditional sense of like old school relationship building sales, not what it's become in many industries, which is, know, an SDR making a hundred calls a day, trying to get somebody on the phone and having sales math, trying.

Calculate out right for me. It's about cultivating relationships with people Where there's not really any expectation I'm also very honest, right if I connect with somebody that is you know in my ideal client profile I might say to them listen, you know, I create content that helps founders get discovered and do business online I'm never going to pitch you. I will not pitch you because so many people are apprehensive about

messaging in the DMS, because they're worried about getting pitched. And so I just address it head on and say, I will never pitch you, but I will create content that is very interesting and hopefully useful for you. And if I can ever be of service to you, let me know. And that makes me feel okay, because I'm not feeling like I'm intruding on them. I'm simply stating who I am, what I'm here for. And I'm addressing the elephant in the room, which is.

Liam Darmody (14:17.788)
is this person gonna hit me with a pitch in the next five seconds? And so that's the way that I've typically approached it. And I just look at social selling as socializing as opposed to selling.

Christian Brim (14:31.214)
Yeah, I mean, I like the, I like the term you used old school and relationship because you know, sales 101 is people do business with people that they know, like and trust, right? And there's, there's decreasing levels of that in the virtual world. Um, and it, it seems to me that if, if someone has a need and you can help them,

Liam Darmody (14:42.796)
100%.

Liam Darmody (14:49.313)
Right.

Christian Brim (15:01.804)
that conversation will occur naturally once the relationship's there. But if you lead with the pitch, especially if it smells of desperation, which a lot of entrepreneurs are desperate and they're selling because they're like, I need to pay the bills and I get it, but that comes across. And what happens in sales

Liam Darmody (15:05.356)
Correct.

Liam Darmody (15:14.998)
Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (15:21.281)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (15:30.252)
psychology is your defenses go up, right? And, and now you got to chip away at the defenses and like overcome objections and like, you know, explaining like, well, no, that's not what this is. This is really what it is. And, if you don't have that relationship to start that conversation, then, then it's likely to go nowhere. But, but if, if you have a relationship where you've established with this person, even if it's just virtually, then you have that trust built in that.

Liam Darmody (15:32.544)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (15:58.85)
The defenses one are not going to come up as quickly or as strongly. But when you attempt to overcome an objection, know, someone says, well, that's too much money. You have some place to come back from. You're not just saying, no, let me explain to you the value. you're like, well,

I must have misunderstood what you said. Like you said, you had this problem. I let's go back to that and start there. yeah, because to me sales is, is it should be very natural if you're approaching it from the standpoint of. I want to help you solve your problem.

Liam Darmody (16:36.31)
Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (16:48.276)
right. That's right. Yeah. I think that a lot of people, a lot of people struggle with letting sales conversations happen naturally and on the, on the, on the prospects timeline, right? Because everybody wants to move as quickly as possible and close business as quickly as possible, but it's not about you, right? It's about

the prospect, it's about your lead and it's about the idea of is this person somebody that could find my services useful and is now the right time for them? Because if it's not the right time for them and then they spend a bunch of money, then they're not gonna invest the time that they don't have in it and that becomes problematic for the outcome of the partnership. And so you want those things to be aligned. Now I'm not suggesting that people shouldn't feel comfortable saying, you well, is there anything preventing you from wanting to start sooner?

Right? Like fact-finding questions, like just try and get as much information as you can. and if somebody was to say, well, you know, I have a bonus coming in the next two months. And that's when I think I can pay for your services more readily. You know, maybe you start sooner and then you have them, you build them half of it now and half of it later. Like you kind of come to the consensus, but the idea of selling somebody something on your timeline is the wrong motivation that you have to sell to their time.

Christian Brim (18:11.49)
Yeah. And to your point, you don't want to sell them something that they don't need. know, unfortunately, that's where sales gets a bad rep is because, you talked about psychology and I too am fascinated with the sales process. Because I'm an accountant, I gravitate to the pricing. I find pricing fascinating.

Liam Darmody (18:37.844)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (18:41.722)
And the idea that I can't determine the value of something as the seller, only the buyer determines the value. And trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole benefits no one. But the flip side of it is, you know, people make

Liam Darmody (18:54.934)
That's right.

Christian Brim (19:11.01)
buying decisions that make all decisions, but buying decisions emotionally, not rationally. Right. And, and it comes from this, I've got this pain. I've got this desire that I want to fulfill emotionally. That's, that's what it is. And if you're good at reading people's emotions, it's easy to manipulate them in the wrong way. Right. Like

Liam Darmody (19:15.584)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (19:37.878)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (19:38.434)
getting them to buy something that they really shouldn't buy. And that's where the negative reputation happens. The used car salesman that's really good at manipulating. I go back to an older movie, Ruthless People. don't know, Bette Midler and I can't remember who all was in it. But there was this, it was an electronics store, right? And, you know, I think like a rental center or something like that, you know, low end electronics.

Liam Darmody (19:57.9)
Mm.

Christian Brim (20:08.11)
And the guy that was a salesman, he had this horrible conscience and like he just couldn't sell things because they didn't, he knew they didn't need them. Right. But they came in with a want because they wanted something. And this, this couple comes in and he starts pitching the husband and he goes full bore. goes, he said, if you can't fucking finance, he said, if you can't fucking afford it.

Liam Darmody (20:18.56)
Right. Yep.

Christian Brim (20:37.312)
You can fucking finance it. And it's so goddamn big that when you die, the barrier ass in it. And then his wife comes waddling up with a toddler in tow and she's pregnant and he just drops like he's like, no, man, you don't want this go. But the guy was jazzed, right? And that that to me is is the problem with sales is like, you can take that emotion and you can ramp it up where you can you can manipulate them into the sale.

Liam Darmody (20:43.02)
Ha

Liam Darmody (20:49.996)
Mm.

Liam Darmody (20:53.498)
and

Liam Darmody (20:59.211)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (21:05.826)
because they're so excited, so desperate, whatever. But then, you you see the reality and it's like, God, this is not, this is not what they need. And having that conscience, right?

Liam Darmody (21:06.006)
Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (21:16.022)
Yeah, yeah, the absolutely the worst thing that I think could happen to me is somebody agreeing to do some work with me and then regretting it like I think that is the The thing that would be the hardest thing for me to and unfortunately, I haven't had that experience yet At least not that anybody's told me

Christian Brim (21:30.658)
Yeah.

Liam Darmody (21:39.948)
And I know some people who say, we just get them on, get them on, get them closed, get signed the dotted line and let's get this going. And then they'll, they'll realize the value later, which may, may happen. don't know. But for me personally, I want somebody to be jazzed to start working together. I want somebody to be like, yes, I decided to work with Liam Darmody and it's a great decision. I know it's the right decision. That's why I'm doing it. Right. I don't want them to say, well, we'll see how it goes. I want them to be confident. So for me, uh,

I try and keep a lighter touch approach when it comes to that kind of stuff because people are adults.

Christian Brim (22:17.078)
Yeah. And, there's this thing, and this is what I struggle with a lot of times is the idea of selling them what they want versus what they need. Right. And, you know, you, you can sit there and you can say, you know, this is really what you need, but they don't really want to buy that. They want to buy something else. Right. And sometimes you can't.

Liam Darmody (22:28.298)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (22:40.907)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (22:44.746)
sell them what they want until they buy what they need, right? In our instance, I use it as an example, people, nobody wants bookkeeping. Nobody, absolutely nobody wants bookkeeping. Nobody wants to pay for bookkeeping, right? Yeah, like, well, if you want bookkeeping, you're a rare exception.

Liam Darmody (22:47.808)
Right. Yep.

Liam Darmody (23:02.155)
Really?

Liam Darmody (23:06.252)
Yeah, I'm like, I don't want to have to think about any of that stuff.

Christian Brim (23:11.552)
Right. so, but they do want some of the higher level, more valuable things to them. I say higher level, but I don't want to denigrate bookkeeping. like, okay, you want tax planning or you want profit first planning and you want to make your business more profitable. But we got to have the bookkeeping to know where we are. Right. And so,

Liam Darmody (23:37.26)
Right. Yep.

Christian Brim (23:40.11)
You have to convince them sometimes. And sometimes it's, you know, like, okay, well, the bookkeeping is free. You're not paying for it. Right. Well, of course they're paying for it because you're paying somebody to do it, but it's, it's, it's how you position it. And I wonder if you run into that where you have to, do you have to nuance the need versus the want.

Liam Darmody (24:07.4)
you know, I think sometimes, people don't really know what they, what they want or need. And I do my best to suss that out and provide them with a recommendation based on what they're looking for. And so, you know, in some cases, if somebody says, I'm not really ready to commit to, you know, four week or an eight week, one to one partnership, but you know, I would like to jump into this segment and start working on this thing. Then I'll meet them where they are.

Christian Brim (24:33.272)
Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (24:36.46)
and say, okay, well, let's start with an hour. Let's do an hour one-to-one and see how it goes. then if you decide you want to know the rest of the tricks that I have up my sleeve, then you can always come back and do something more robust down the line. And oftentimes I find that that helps because they don't feel like I'm just trying to sell the highest ticket item. And I'm not throwing everything but the kitchen sink at them. I'm saying, let's meet you where you are. And then hopefully they find the...

one-on-one session really useful and they say, okay, yeah, you know what? Like I need to spend more time with you. So let's talk about, you know, your more robust packages. and that I find works. And I think, I, also think that it's important to educate people about really what you offer. think a lot of times people, when they get excited about sales and they want to try and close somebody, they, sometimes will,

Christian Brim (25:15.31)
Sure.

Liam Darmody (25:33.534)
Almost speed through it and not really help people understand exactly what they're getting for their money. Right. And that I think can be detrimental because you want them to be super comfortable with the decision once they make it. And so I lay it out very clearly. have, I have a digital course that's self-paced. That's much more affordable. have a cohort based learning experience for people who like to learn in groups. have a one-to-one coaching,

offering. And so I want to be basically meet people where they are as much as possible. And I try and have a solution for anybody that is looking for it within reason.

Christian Brim (26:10.68)
Yeah, yes. And as the infamous entertainer, PT Barnum said, always leave the audience wanting more. Yeah, absolutely. Because it is, it's much better to leave them wanting more and having delivered something exceptional and they see value in it than it is they bought it and they were disappointed because it didn't line up with their expectations. And I think that is key when you're dealing with

Liam Darmody (26:19.382)
That's it. That's right.

Christian Brim (26:40.896)
services in general, is, is aligning that expectation, you know, what, because, because to your point, a lot of times they don't know what they want, right? They have this emotion. I need something. I want something. but they're not real clear on it themselves. And so one of the most powerful sales techniques, my, my business coach actually teaches other coaches. and you listen to his calls.

Liam Darmody (26:42.688)
Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (26:51.68)
Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (26:55.286)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (27:11.264)
It's fascinating because he doesn't talk at all about what he does. Not a bit. All he talks about is what the person wants and clarifying it and then moving them into, what would it look like if you had that? And, so, you know, it's, it's very powerful when that person understands the transformation that they're going to receive.

Liam Darmody (27:15.412)
Hmm

Liam Darmody (27:29.641)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (27:39.446)
And they're clear with it in their head. there's the process and then they can envision it and they're like, okay, I'm all in as opposed to, well, pitching, this is how the process works or this is what I do. And I listened to his sales calls that he shares with me and I'm just like, that's just incredible.

Liam Darmody (27:39.596)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (28:00.556)
Yeah, yeah, no, there's an art form to it for sure. and you know, typically speaking, think the, the best artists in sales are the ones that don't really talk about themselves that much or what they do. They're the ones that are able to make it completely about the person they're speaking to. And they can think critically about, you know, how to change their responses on the fly and really make, make a compelling.

position as to why that person would want to work with them, but it's ultimately about the person you're talking to, not about you.

Christian Brim (28:35.234)
Yes, and I find that inexperienced salespeople tend to...

talk through the sale. Like, you know, a salesperson will know when you hear these emotional, w when you read the emotion and the emotions there and they're giving you buying signals, you stop like, cause the, the more, the more you add to it at that point, the, the, more you're decreasing the emotion and decreasing the chance of the sale. yeah. And yeah, yes. Don't talk to the sale.

Liam Darmody (28:44.478)
Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (28:55.755)
Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (29:06.248)
Mm-hmm hundred percent

Christian Brim (29:13.614)
Shut up. Pretty much, I mean, think that's our sales advice we're giving jointly, Liam here, is shut up and let the other person talk.

Liam Darmody (29:19.582)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Totally. Yeah. mean, give, give them as much information as they need. Give them, hopefully they've been following you for a while and you've been really generous with sharing what you know online so that they have a good sense for your qualifications to provide them with a service and ask them questions and make them feel like you're listening to their answers and invested in helping them solve something. Even if it's just on that initial call, right? Like.

I open up sales navigator and I show people all the time, like things in sales navigator while we're on our first discovery call, because I don't want to hold anything back necessarily. I'm going to show them that I'm interested in helping them from the minute we first start speaking, whether they're a paid client or not. And then my assumption is if they've learned something valuable in that 30 minutes and they, like the person that they were speaking with and they'll want to learn more. and, and I trust that that will happen. And sometimes it happens immediately. And sometimes it happens.

Christian Brim (30:02.296)
Yes.

Liam Darmody (30:16.274)
six months or eight months from when we had our initial conversation. But that's okay because the idea again is, when they're ready, you want to be in the forefront of their mind. And the way to be on the forefront of their mind is not to pressure them and not to jam a sail down their throat. It's to continuously add value and build relationships and connection that show that you're somebody that they can trust with their hard earned money and their learning experience.

Christian Brim (30:41.112)
So, you know, a lot of listeners to this show are in like the videography space or cinematography or content creation where that may not feel like the way to sell what they do, right? As opposed to a coach where it's maybe easier, I don't know.

Liam Darmody (31:02.698)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (31:10.946)
How would you translate what you said and what you recommend to somebody that say is a videographer? Like how would that conversation look different?

Liam Darmody (31:23.059)
Yeah. I mean, from my perspective, you know, a videographer has a set of skills that a lot of people don't have. And so that videographer should be showing those skills all the time, right? They should be putting out video content a lot on the LinkedIn platform. They should be doing how to sessions, right? Like maybe they create a, uh, you know, how to, for using AI video clipping tools so that people that want to learn how to do their own video can do it.

Christian Brim (31:47.086)
Mmm.

Liam Darmody (31:52.14)
The reason that that's advantageous is because it's still a labor intensive process. Even editing video on with AI still takes time and it still takes really close attention to detail. And it takes being able to sort of weave a story together. And that's a lot of time that a lot of people don't have or want to spend time doing. so in teaching people how they might be able to do it, but then also putting out this content that's way better than what they could do on their own.

Christian Brim (31:58.382)
Hmm?

Liam Darmody (32:21.684)
You're teaching them something, but you're also showing them that by working with a professional, it's a much better experience. And so they start to trust you because you're somebody who is showing them something new. and then they're also impressed with the work that you do because they can compare and contrast it. So I would be saying to somebody that's delivering a service like that. You need to be showing them what you know and showing them, the quality of the videos that you can create.

And how it can help people and talking about that at least, you know, two times a week on LinkedIn. And, know, preferably whatever other social channels you're on.

Christian Brim (33:01.304)
Would you recommend that they break down or diagnose an existing video that somebody else produced to say, here's what's wrong with it, like a critique?

Liam Darmody (33:17.104)
Yeah, I think you could do that. think, you you want to be mindful not to be viewed as negative or, you know, mocking somebody, right? But you could definitely break down something created, think, creating some, breaking something down that's created by a brand, for example, and then saying, this is how I would have done it, you know, and showing that compare and contrast. I think that makes a lot of sense. There's actually somebody on Instagram that I follow. I think he's on LinkedIn too.

But he's a brand logo designer. And so he'll take logos from, you know, big companies and then he'll just redesign them. And when you see what he does versus what they do, it's like, wow, like that, how did that guy do that? How does he think that way? and so anything that can kind of just show your creativity and show how you differentiate from something else, I think is a worthwhile activity.

Christian Brim (33:57.421)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (34:08.874)
Yeah, I mean that's, that's interesting. You mentioned that because we recently, relaunched our, our rebrand. And when my, my head of, of revenue came and said, I want to do a rebrand. was like, okay. I mean, like I didn't, honestly, I didn't see the need. I didn't see the value. but when she brought back what she had presented,

Liam Darmody (34:17.358)
nice.

Liam Darmody (34:25.568)
Hahaha

Christian Brim (34:38.218)
It was like, what, what she and the, and the creator had come up with. She, she didn't do it herself. She used actually one of her clients to do it. And, and I was, I was really kind of shocked to be honest with you because I'd never really thought of it at that level of like, and, so then I'm having him rebrand my personal website and work on my, personal rebrand and his intake form for a logo.

Liam Darmody (34:54.165)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (35:07.744)
Mind you, asked me questions about like there were like 10 different questions, maybe 12 questions, scale of one to 10. Do you, do you, how do you want your logo to reflect this, this aspect? And I'm like, I, I didn't even know that it was a thing like, right. you know, like if your logo could be a person, who, would it be?

Liam Darmody (35:29.386)
Yeah. Yeah.

Liam Darmody (35:37.374)
Mmm, that's a good question.

Christian Brim (35:37.474)
And I'm like, okay, right. And yeah. And, so, it, it w back to your point, I didn't know what I didn't know, but you know, you know, I, I thought you just hired a graphic designer on Upwork and you know, they, right. Which you can certainly do, but they're, know, it kind of speaks to the, do you want, do you want something just because you want something new?

You want something to change or do you really understand what it is that you want changed and and why?

Liam Darmody (36:11.308)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think the, I say this a lot, like my favorite products on the market are typically products that show me a problem I didn't realize I had until I experienced the solution. Right. So like Uber is a perfect example of that. When Uber came to Washington, DC, when I was there in 2013, I was like,

Christian Brim (36:30.786)
Yeah, yeah.

Liam Darmody (36:37.868)
What like a mobile app for black town cars? Like, why would I do that? Like, it sounds expensive, blah, blah, blah. And I had a buddy who was like, just try it, just order an Uber. And from that point on, I never went in a cab again, you know, because it was such a different experience. It was so convenient. And I think that small business owners have the same ability to wow somebody and get them thinking differently. If you can get somebody to think differently about a problem that they have,

Christian Brim (36:51.629)
Right.

Liam Darmody (37:07.158)
through an exchange with you and that gets their wheels spinning about like, wow, I hadn't thought about it this way before. That in and of itself is a tremendous value add to that person. And it puts you in a different light than other people that are just, you know, randomly going through the pitch, right? If you're actually giving them some thoughts and some actionable advice or some actionable ideas that they haven't thought of before, then they're gonna, they're gonna see you in a different light than everybody else.

Christian Brim (37:12.876)
Yes.

Christian Brim (37:23.939)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (37:36.588)
Yes. And I think that a lot of creatives are feeling the pressure of technology and AI. And of course they hear all of the sirens wailing that your job's going away. And I understand that. I understand that fear. And I understand that some people are going to say, well, you I don't need a copywriter. I've got chat GPT. I'll just, you know, do my own copy. And you can't...

Liam Darmody (37:43.456)
Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (38:01.226)
Right. Yep.

Christian Brim (38:05.686)
You know, the thing is you can't change what people think in the sense that like they they believe what they want to believe until they go and they use chat GPT to write their copy and realize that it's a regurgitation of everybody else's copy and there's nothing unique about it and therefore it's not compelling. And, know, to your to your point, they have to.

Liam Darmody (38:27.169)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (38:32.951)
They have to experience themselves before they realize that that's not going to work, but it's a novel idea. well, I can just put it into chat. And the creatives are all locked up in fear about like, this thing is going to replace me. No, it can't replace you. It can help you do your job more efficiently, but it can't replace what you do.

Liam Darmody (38:41.868)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (39:02.498)
So tell me about your experience with that.

Liam Darmody (39:06.678)
Well, it's funny because I am, as much as I am a humanist and I'm a people's person, I love human relationships ever since I was young. Human connection was the most important thing to me. So I love engaging with people, I love working with people, I love collaborating with people, but I'm also an operations person. And so I think about efficiency and productivity and scalability and...

You know, when I think about how to leverage artificial intelligence in our day to day, think it, you know, there's some people who are looking at it from the perspective of, this is going to eliminate opportunities in my life. This is going to take my jobs. This is, know, coming after my livelihood. And there's other people who are going to say, okay, well, how am going to harness this technology to do whatever's next in the evolution of my, my business or my service offering? And I think that the people who are, are in the latter camp.

Yes, you're changing the way you might've done things prior to the past, but you're also exploring new horizons that you didn't know existed. So if, if I think about, you know, the videographer or the creator of the copywriter, you know, I'm thinking about it in the sense of if they can learn how to master using AI to quadruple or 10 X their productivity.

then all of a sudden they could take on 10 X the number of clients or maybe not 10 X, but like at least five X the number of clients. and they're just harnessing a new technology to think differently and you know, to, to, to give the client what they want ultimately, but how you got there, it just changes a little bit, know? And I always tell people, if you're leveraging artificial intelligence and you've taken the time upfront,

to think about really what you want that to be and how you want to use it and how you want the outputs that it gives you to look. And you've put in that work upfront, you're basically promoting yourself from a writer to an editor. And editors have far more bandwidth than writers because they're not having to go through the full creative process. So, you know, I, for example, have 4500 LinkedIn posts that I've put out in the last five years. All of that lives in

Liam Darmody (41:31.635)
And I say, want everything you put out to sound like this sort of amalgamation of content. And is it perfect? No, I always end up tweaking something here and there, but it definitely makes it easier for me to put out content at scale. That still sounds like me and still is my words, right? But it's just, I arrived at that at a different, in a different way, in a more efficient way. And I think that is one of the things that.

Christian Brim (41:34.947)
Yeah.

Liam Darmody (41:56.832)
those creatives need to start thinking about how can you take this technology that could take something that took you a week to create before and create 10 times that in the same amount of time and their skill and their eye for beauty and their eye for detail and their eye for, and their, ability to understand what the subject or what their client might want. That human element never goes away. What's changing is just the process by which they're creating their output.

And I think that is one way to look at it that is not as negative and more so how it can.

Christian Brim (42:32.654)
No, I think you're exactly right. And it goes back to something fundamental that I tell people in creative industries is that it's not, you have to stop thinking in terms of the skillset you have and be thinking in terms of an entrepreneur, which is how are you solving problems? I use the example, when I started this business 28 years ago, my business,

Liam Darmody (43:01.75)
Wow, amazing.

Christian Brim (43:02.926)
QuickBooks was not even a thing. was Quicken. QuickBooks has created this multi-billion dollar company and ecosystem. And back when Quicken and QuickBooks launched, my colleagues were like, it's going to kill accountants. There's not going to be any need for an accountant anymore. And the reality is that, and I'm not

Liam Darmody (43:06.54)
Mm.

Christian Brim (43:32.364)
really bagging on into it in QuickBooks that, you know, whatever. Although I do kind of refer to them as the evil empire. But, but.

Liam Darmody (43:39.008)
Yeah, I don't mind it. I don't, I don't mind if you do. My one of my best posts on LinkedIn in the last year was taking a direct direct jab at them.

Christian Brim (43:47.953)
Well, what's really annoying, it's awful actually, is they on one hand say they want to cooperate with accountants and then they turn around and do everything they can to sell against them, right? And it's like getting in bed with the devil. It's like why would you do that? But in any case, my point was that, you know, 25 years later, I don't know if that's exactly how long QuickBooks has been out there.

Liam Darmody (44:06.337)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (44:16.468)
I'm going to tell you, and this is just.

my opinion, I don't think they've solved a damn thing. I don't think their customer, their customer, the business owner has any more clarity around their finances than they did 25 years ago. I really don't. And I say that to say, you know,

Liam Darmody (44:36.928)
Zero.

Christian Brim (44:45.89)
people in creative industries that are dealing with this existential threat of technology, slow your roll a minute because it's not gonna work out the way anybody thinks it's going to work out.

Liam Darmody (44:57.674)
Yeah, 100%. It's so funny that you mentioned that because when I, that could have been one of the things I said at the top of the call when you asked what my three biggest challenges were. Learning QuickBooks and the Intuit ecosystem was absolutely one of them. And you know, I was thinking, well I'll just go and use one of the other tools. There's another tool that is out there that I can't remember the name of, top of my mind, but yeah, Xero, right? From Australia. But like, there's so...

Christian Brim (45:19.938)
Zero. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (45:25.142)
There's so few people that are actually experts at zero. Like QuickBooks is just the industry standard. and yet like I had five different companies that I had set up on three different plans. And I was like, this is, this user experience is horrendous anyways, I digress. but yeah, you know, yeah, I think that is in terms of AI, we are just scratching the surface. Like we don't even know what it's going to look like five years from now, two years from now, like the, the potential is huge. I think that.

Christian Brim (45:29.432)
Yes.

Liam Darmody (45:54.38)
Creatives and entrepreneurs should just be doing exactly what you said. How can I get better about solving problems in a quality way as quickly as possible? And AI is going to help us with the quickly as possible part. I think the rest is still on us. It's our judgment. It's our skill. It's our thinking. It's our knowledge. It's our understanding of clients and what they want. I think the human element is going to continue to be incredibly important in business.

And perhaps more so now that we've got AI in the mix. and so you always want to lean into that. Like people generally want to work with other people for the most part. I think there's an element of trust there that is important and worth the investment.

Christian Brim (46:24.332)
I agree. I agree.

Christian Brim (46:38.988)
Yes, I, the way it was described to me and I was an early adopter of chat and I struggled for like two years. I was like, I still don't understand how I can use this tool. Like I, I, I just couldn't get there and I tried and I kept trying and I kept trying until Scott Chang. He, he, said, he said, think of it this way.

Liam Darmody (46:55.178)
Hmm. Yep.

Christian Brim (47:08.696)
Think of it as a hard drive with all the knowledge of human history on it.

Liam Darmody (47:14.496)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (47:17.361)
and a million different processors. But you're the computer, you're still the brain, right? And somehow that vision, that visualization clicked for me and I'm like, okay, now I can see how I can use the tool. Because I was still trying to find a use case for like, how is this gonna make my life easier? And I couldn't, but I had it backwards.

Liam Darmody (47:25.004)
Mm-hmm.

Liam Darmody (47:34.635)
Mmm.

Liam Darmody (47:40.918)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (47:43.72)
I had to be thinking in terms of, this is just an extension of my brain. And how can I make my brain more efficient?

Liam Darmody (47:49.932)
Correct.

Liam Darmody (47:54.764)
Yeah. It's so funny that you mentioned the computer analogy because I have literally used that exact same line of thinking with people. I'm like, think about your brain, uh, as the computer and the more stuff you store in your brain, the, the slower it operates, more, know, the, the less random access memory can be retrieved. Right. And so I view chat GPT as like the cloud for our brain.

And we store everything in there and then we can go back and find it whenever we need it. Right. And, that frees up our brain to move more quickly and be less cluttered. And, you know, to a certain extent, think more clearly because we have this powerful sort of tool at our disposal that keeps us in check and makes sure that we don't lose anything. so I'm, I I'm incredibly, and I, I was the same way for the first year. I probably didn't use it.

Christian Brim (48:24.302)
Yes.

Liam Darmody (48:48.044)
anywhere near the way that I should. heard a lot of people say, oh, if you want to learn how to use chat GPT or AI, just talk to it normally like you normally wouldn't. I'm like, but what am going to talk about? Like, I don't, you know, uh, right. But, but, but now fast forward two years from now, I mean, I will literally go on a walk with my dog once a week and I just talk to the business coach that I've built in chat GPT. And I go back and forth about what's the future of my brand and where am I going with my company and what should I be focusing on next? And.

Christian Brim (48:57.506)
Right. I don't need a friend.

Liam Darmody (49:17.632)
That might sound a little bit odd, when you're a solo business, you don't have anybody else to talk to. Right. So, you know, it's like talking to a powerful tool like that is pretty incredible. Yeah.

Christian Brim (49:22.05)
I I don't...

Christian Brim (49:25.987)
There's

there's a business right there. Like someone could go do custom business coaches for solopreneurs. And it doesn't replace Liam. No, it, yeah, no.

Liam Darmody (49:36.064)
Yep. Yeah. I mean, I.

Correct.

Yeah. When chat GPT created, their custom GPTs, I created a personal brand strategist chat GPT custom GPT. And that's been used 11,000 times since then. and it was just me like being like, let's, let's see what, what is it? Let's see what happens. And I actually now get clients through chat GPT because they're using that specific custom GPT. So, you just have to experiment and.

Christian Brim (49:58.894)
Nice.

Christian Brim (50:09.538)
Yes.

Liam Darmody (50:13.302)
keep an open mind, you know, like there's, just so much power in these tools and you can customize it in so many different ways to make your life easier. it's a shame if people don't want to do it that way.

Christian Brim (50:25.602)
Yeah, and they're ridiculously cheap. I mean, they're getting cheaper. It's crazy. Absolutely insane. I think the statistic I was given earlier this year was the capacity in AI in general doubles every six months.

Liam Darmody (50:27.894)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Liam Darmody (50:42.452)
Yeah, that's insane. So wild. It's so wild.

Christian Brim (50:43.982)
That is insane. Yeah.

Liam, how do people find you and brand stand if they want to learn more about what you do?

Liam Darmody (50:55.968)
Well, the best place to find me is on LinkedIn. pretty much live there. I fit in with the furniture now. And there are only three Liam Darmody's on the platform and only one in North America. So that's how you know it's me. You can also go to liamsbrandstand.com to learn more about my services and my business. yeah, that's pretty much my online footprint right now. I'm also on Substack at liamdarmody.substack.com.

Christian Brim (51:17.76)
I wish I'd known that earlier because I would have gone down that rabbit hole. Because I'm new on Substack in the last few weeks and I'm like trying to figure out exactly again how to use the tool. Like what am I going to use this for?

Liam Darmody (51:21.736)
really?

Liam Darmody (51:25.437)
I love it.

Liam Darmody (51:30.09)
Yeah. I love subs. What's your sub stack?

Christian Brim (51:33.902)
Christian Bream.

Liam Darmody (51:35.276)
Cool. I will go and subscribe now.

Christian Brim (51:36.698)
yeah, I, I had a, I had a very good article I put out, last week. I'm interested in your feedback. I think I've got four followers, so you may be five. in any case listeners, we'll have those links in the show notes. If you like what you saw, heard, not saw, if you like what you heard, rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you heard.

Liam Darmody (51:46.848)
I will take a look.

Christian Brim (52:05.582)
Shoot us a message, let us know, and we'll replace Liam. Until then, ta ta for now.

Liam Darmody (52:12.421)
awesome I love it