Founders Should Hear This Advice Before Planning Their Exit with Carrie Kerpen, The Exit Whisperer

What separates a business that grows from a business that gets acquired? 
 
In this episode, Cris sits down with founder, investor, author, and "Exit Whisperer" Carrie Kerpen to unpack the real lessons behind building, scaling, and selling an 8-figure company.  

Together, they discuss the biggest mistakes founders make when preparing for an exit, why visibility and PR can impact how buyers perceive your business, the role personal branding plays in increasing company value, and much more. 

Carrie also shares the story of building one of the world's first social media agencies, scaling it through years of industry change, and ultimately achieving an 8-figure exit before launching her next chapter helping founders navigate their own path to a successful sale. 

Whether you're years away from an exit or just beginning your entrepreneurial journey, this conversation offers practical insights on business growth, founder branding, PR, visibility, and building long-term enterprise value 

New podcast episodes drop every Wednesday, hosted by Cris Gordon, Head of Beauty at MMC.  

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📲 We'd love to hear from you: hello@hellommc.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My husband and I co-founded one of the world's first social media agencies in 2007. It starts growing very quickly. We stumble growth, okay? Like stumble. We are winning Fortune 500. We are losing Fortune 500.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

We know what we're doing successfully. I mean in all the years that we are. It was almost like the rule of someone don't have your personal brand needs anonymous with something you'll never stop. But the reality is now the consumer wants to know the people behind the brand, but also there's a value to building your own brand.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Exit equal a lot of monetary success, but it's also equal. We did do two different things that helped make us more sellable and accelerated brands.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

So first was today we sit down with Carrie Kirpin, the founder of the Whisper Group and the person known as the Exit Whisperer. She's an author, an investor, and the woman behind so many people navigating their exit plan and strategy. She created likable, built, scaled, and sold that business. And now she's teaching people the way forward on how to grow, scale, and ultimately sell their business to. You're not going to want to miss this conversation. I'm so excited for you to tune in. All right. So, Carrie, I'm so excited that you're here. And there's so much that I want to talk to you about. We've had the opportunity of getting to know one another in a few different settings, one being a very intimate setting at a dinner, and then like we hit it off right away. You are instant besties. Instant besties. I mean, come on, please. And now we're like texting every day. Yeah. And the thing is that I think so many people don't realize that when you are sitting next to someone at dinner, and when you say hello and you introduce yourself, that type of a connection can quite literally change the course of your brand. It could change your network. It's how we've grown in our own fields. But you've had such an impressive journey. And so I want to start by just you sharing a little bit of that journey and how you understood when you were what you were building and was the goal to exit.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

So, like that's what I want to know. You got it. So I'll give you a little bit of the story. So, in short, my husband and I co-founded one of the world's first social media agencies in 2007. So if you can imagine 2007, when many of your listeners were probably baby, baby, babies, um, we launched a social media agency. And in doing so, because we were one of the first, we grew really quickly. There was very little you need in in many ways, when you hit on timing on something, there's very little that you actually need to do to start growing. But there's a lot you need to do to make it successful and start executing. Okay. So we build this together, we sort of fall into this. Um, the the business actually, just for backstory for your listeners, was started on our wedding day. I don't even know if you know that. Do you know this? Yeah. So my husband wanted a larger than life wedding. Mm-hmm. Uh, he's a big personality. And I might want them from the same cloth then. Because probably wanted everyone. Like, like Chris, I don't mean like his friends from high school. I mean like if he were on this podcast, he'd be like, Chris, I want you to come watch me get married. So I knew there was nowhere we could hold that or afford it. And so we decided to get creative. I had come from a brand background and decided that what would happen if we pitched the minor league affiliate of the New York Mets? What if we pitched the Brooklyn Cyclones to like buy out their night? So we went to the Minor League Stadium in Coney Island and said, How much is it to buy out your night? They said $6,000. We said, Great, could we resell in the sponsor? So like instead of Pepsi tossing t-shirts into the audience, one 800 flowers will toss bridal bouquets. It'll be cute and campy and fun. We'll raise money for charity and we'll get you some press. They thought we were nuts, but they were like, okay, try it. Now, granted, like this, we hadn't started an agency yet or anything. This is just two people who wanted to get a m the a really interesting wedding done and be able to meet his needs and not go broke doing it. I love that. I love it. So um we did it $100,000 in sponsors later, $20,000 raised for the National MS Society, and tons and tons of press. Okay. And we were not press people like you. Like we didn't know what we were doing. It just sort of happened. So after that happened, all of the sponsors came to us and were like, we would bet on you guys. This was exceptional. So that's when we started the agency. It was originally word of mouth. And then when Facebook opened beyond the college market in 2007, we were like, oh, that's the fastest form of word of mouth. We're a social agency. So that idea propelled us. Okay. So was I thinking about exit then? No. I was thinking about how can I afford to have every person he ever wants at the wedding. So we start, we grow, um, we start growing very quickly. We fumble through, okay? Like fumble. We are winning Fortune 500s, we are losing Fortune 500s. Like we we don't know what we're doing. We're hiring people, we're paid on a delayed cash flow, right? Like clients take like 90 days to pay. Uh-huh. We have staff now, we've bootstrapped this entire thing. It's terrifying. It's scary. Scary. Scary. So was I thinking about sale then? No, I was thinking about survival then. My husband then does start thinking about scale and sale. So he's like, you know what? I'm gonna raise funds and launch a tech iteration of this social agency. I'm gonna do social media for small businesses and I'm gonna raise funds. Let's like kind of incubate that within likable, the company, and then we'll set off and separate it so we can raise funds and you can run the agency. Okay. Um, so that happens in 2013. I take over a CEO. Originally, I was like holding everything together, typical woman. He's the face, I'm running it all. Okay. 2013, I take over, social media is no longer new, cash flow is still crap, and I am looking at everyone around me. And this is the era, now it's 2013. Gary Vaynerchuk is rising, and like it's like, oh my God, like what am I gonna do? I'm not loud and extroverted, I'm not male. Like all of these people around me, that's what it was. Yeah. So that's when I started thinking about how I could build it to be sellable. I started thinking about having something to be sellable more as a way out. I read a book called Built to Sell, which was all about it, it was a fiction and implementation, all about an agency owner that's like ready to sell. He has a multi-million dollar business. And the advisor looks at him and says, Your business is worth nothing. Like because of all of these different things, he goes through the process of making it sellable and then he sells. So I think to myself, I could make this business really profitable. I could build its brand in a way that separated it from the founders, like still do founder marketing, but also have a brand of its own. Um, and I could eventually get a way to get out of that anxiety. I think that was the original auspice. And then I ran it from 2013 to 2021 and then sold for eight figures.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Wow. Wow, that is so impressive. And I think, you know, it's interesting and it's a lesson for a lot of the listeners here because initially you create a company, usually, and it's out of either a desire, a need, a gap in the market, a problem that you had that you were solving for yourself. That's right. There's a slew of different reasons. And oftentimes we don't go in thinking about the sale. I actually had learned a couple of years ago to start thinking about the type of business that I had had when I had my agency. And it's like, is it legacy? Is it this? You know, I originally thought that my agency, my daughter was gonna take it over. And then and then she told me that she wanted to be a nurse, like her Gigi. And then I thought to myself, you know what? She's seven. I'm thinking she's gonna be my exit plan. And and perhaps I should take the pressure off of her. And so I think it's a lesson for a lot of founders and a lot of people navigating this world of business. Like, you still have to plan.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

You do. And the other thing that I think is really important that I try to get across, like we hear these exit stories and they're so impressive, right? The ones who go all the way. Yeah. Okay. The poppies, the solid course. Like, oh my god, like unbelievable. Unbelievable. It's like, oh my god, now it's in every stage, every press. Right. You look at that and you think, okay, that's what success is. But for me, I believe that life often happens and brand often happens, like who you are at the time in chapters. Who I was at 30 is very different from who I am now turning 50. And so if you can build your business and to have an exit plan, whether that's transitioning to your daughter, selling to an employee, or selling it to a strategic acquirer, you can then go to your next chapter. And to me, that is so freeing. Like exits equal a lot of monetary success, but they also equal freedom. And like it's just that that was the big unlock for me because when we originally built Likable, Dave was like, we'll sell this for a hundred million. This is gonna be a nine-figure exit. And like I just knew when I was running it, like I took it as far as I wanted to take it, and it achieved a level that was so far beyond what I ever had growing up. And I felt I was ready for something else. I was okay to call it, you know, and like doing that inner work first is so important.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Yes, no, it's so true. And I think that's listen, and we even think of like men and women and how they're navigating the worlds of business, sometimes can be done very differently. And I also think that like as female founders, there is a love for what we do, and there's this passion, and sometimes that passion, it's hard to break through because your business is like your baby. Yeah, and it's so attached. You're so attached to it. You feel like, am I giving up my baby? Am I am I ready for it to graduate? And you take it so personally because it's a part of you. And I think that's sometimes the challenge of people figuring out their personal brand and their business brand too.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Yes, well, that's why it's very important for two things. Like, I think it's essential to build a personal brand because your personal brand is with you forever. And it is important to build your business to be able to run and have an identity beyond your personal brand. So it's both together. That's what we did at Likable. And I know, like, when I first took over, that was very important because we were known as this innovative baseball bride and groom who were at the forefront of social media. Now I'm running it. Now there are many other voices. So, how am I gonna create an identity for myself that helps lead me to my next chapter? And also a rock solid identity for likable that could make it more sellable.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Yeah. How many um employees did you have at the time? 60.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Wow. Yeah, it was it was large at the time. Um, and it was, I remember I was sitting there in 2013. Like I went to give my like talk. It was the holiday party. And you I'm getting up there and I'm thinking, like, you know, you know what you have to do when you get up there. You're like, it's gonna be amazing. We're gonna be great. And then I remember I was sitting there thinking, like, you have no money. Social media is no longer new. And by the way, you're like a woman who like is not that excited about personal brands. So, like, oh my gosh, like we're dead. Like, I remember thinking that, but I had to step up. And if I didn't uh build my personal brand, it wouldn't have led me to what was next, and it wouldn't have built and pushed likable forward in a way that was meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yeah, and I want to talk about that because you did two things. Yes. So the likable, the name, the brand, and what you have built had its own IP, its own equity that essentially you were able to leverage as part of the sale. Yes. And then you have your personal brand, your book, your pockets, all the things that you've done, and you've done some things throughout the way to get to that point. But I think it's a great example of what you're speaking about. You built a company that also could function on its own because you had systems and operations built in and it needed to be able to be separate from you. So many founders, especially, I mean, in all the years of PR, it was almost like the rule of thumb was don't have your personal brand be synonymous with your business because then you'll never sell. You'll never sell because the brands won't want to acquire you. That was kind of like this idea that people had in their minds. So then they were like, I don't want to be too attached. I want if Estee Lauder is gonna acquire me, they need to know that like it can live on without me. But the reality is now the consumer wants to know the people behind the brand, but also there's a value to building your own brand. It's changed. I think it's changed.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

And I think any founder who in the past said don't have any personal brand knows that this has changed. Yeah. So we did do two different things that helped make us more sellable and accelerated brands. So first was the naming of likable. We named likable likable before the like button was actually there. It was, if you remember early days of social, which you probably don't, it was like a become a fan, like instead of like, okay, you'd become a fan. So we became likable pretty early stage because we had both worked at Disney and we were very into customer service. And so we were like, oh, look, you like content, you become a fan of a page, but look, look there, that thumbs up. So we became likable early and we trademarked the word. Okay. Okay, we trademarked the word. And so getting really specific around our IP was really important. Now I will say that a lot of founders say, Oh, my IP, my IP, I should sell for a lot. But if your revenue and profits aren't there, you're not going to. So I my revenue and my profits had to be there. But the fact that I had that IP was like the equivalent of an extra turn on a multiple for sale. So that helped accelerate value. But also what really helped accelerate value for us, I mean, when I was sitting there and I was like, oh my God, all these dudes are so loud on social media and I don't want to be talking about myself all day. I decided I was gonna start a podcast. And at the time, Beyonce's All the Single Ladies was out and it's top song. And I was like, what if instead of all the single ladies, it was all the social ladies, and we interviewed women at the brand level about their journey of like getting hired and growing in social media. Because no one was talking to those women, like at the director level, right? Yeah. But those director women were so grateful to be featured. And today's social media manager or social media director was tomorrow's VP. So I played a really long game there by building my brand through telling other women's stories, other women who were accelerating in their career to be decision makers for likable. So that became a funnel that was like um you you couldn't replicate it because the podcast was so strong and the relationships were so strong. And it gave me content to build my personal brand. And from that, I realized that I love telling the stories of women, which led me to my book Work It later as I was building. And that work it was the first step where I was like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna separate a little bit from my brand. So it's not gonna be likable. It's gonna be like telling broader stories, not gonna be social media. And that allowed me when when I did come to sell to really have like some diversity of personal brand to be able to like move on, not be only associated with Carrie from likable.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Yes, and also because there's an emotional, yeah, there's an emotional toll it takes when you separate from your brand. Yes, feel like you kind of lost yourself a little, so then you still have that thing that you've started to identify about yourself. Yeah, something that you enjoy and that you like that you can do moving into it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

So as I prepared to sell, I focused a lot on that. And then I had my team make sure my team was doing all the calls, all the client stuff, so that I was, I was just glitter. I always say I like to get the glitter, not the glue. Like I didn't want to be the thing that was holding it together. I wanted to be the glitter. I wanted to be like shiny, happy. I'm here, I can help fix a problem if you need it, I can help set a vision, but I'm not doing your day-to-day social media. That's like we're very similar in that.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

And and I think that allows us to stay in our highest and best too. And I think that knowing that about your business and what you need your role to be is very, very critical in building your brand. Yes. People underestimate the power of also knowing your role as either a founder, are you gonna be the CEO or are you gonna be the executor? Like pick what the thing is that you're gonna be best at and do that.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Or strive to do that if you can't do that in day one.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

It you it takes a while. But the thing about personal brand that's so important is as you're gathering audience and as you're gathering people who know you, you can evolve what you want to be known for. And I think to me, that's what was so essential. Like for after I sold, I felt like uh, you know, I noticed this gap in the market, like that women were not exiting, and when they were, they were exiting for less. And why was that? You know, and so I started looking into that. And when I launched the Whisper Group, which was my next act, I was like, I have to change my brand. Like, I can't be Carrie, the social media girl. I have to be Carrie. She's out there closing the exit gap. And who is she? And how does she evolve? And how does she remain authentic to herself? Still be Carrie, the person they love to follow, but now um, they're following me for a little bit of a different reason.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

And if I didn't have that audience to start with, I probably never would have been able to evolve to this.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

And you brought them along on the journey. I think they came on like a big piece of when people are going through any type of transition. It's like bang, bring your followers along, bring your people along, your community along through that journey. It's okay that they see you have some of those moments of like change and evolution. Like we are evolving creatures. I mean, I've I've evolved seven million times in the last like six months. Of course you have. You know, we we have to like we evolve because we're so multidimensional. Yeah, there's so many things about us that are wonderful. We always will have like kind of a core goal and a core mission and and that thing that we're following. But there's these evolutions in our lives, in our careers, in our roles, whether it's founder, whether it's exiting. And when you can understand and start to get comfortable with some of that evolution, that's where the magic really happens because you believe in yourself. Yeah, you're very confident in knowing that even in the unknown, yes, you'll get through it. Yes. And I think that's really important as founders who feel that identity shift, you know? I do. It's and you've been, I mean, you've been such a champion of so many amazing women and so many brands. I think you've been behind the scenes and helping a lot of people navigate their brand building and their exits and all these things. You've probably seen some really cool and heard some really cool stories about how people are navigating their, they're building their businesses and then hopefully hoping to exit one of them.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Oh, yeah. We've interviewed over a hundred women who have told their stories of their exits, the good, the bad, the ugly on the Exit Wisp podcast. And I also have a community of exited female founders where they feel safe to share a lot of the intricacies, both the good and the bad. And like that helps us learn from one another in the best ways, and it helps us advise women who are looking to exit, which is really great. Yeah, it also is interesting to hear how so many of them approached brand, you know, because it's it's just brand is is such an essential piece of building to exit.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Do you is there a commonality that you see amongst multiple founders as you're interviewing them or advising them? Something that either that they've done wrong and needed help on, or something that you feel like the best brands are really doing right in their path to exit?

SPEAKER_00 18:10

I think on the wrong, it's almost always um difficulty focusing on or maintaining profit. Because there's two reasons. First, most businesses are evaluated based on their profit, right? So it's a multiple of their earnings. So that's first. But also when we're building businesses that are profitable, you have as a founder, have a better peace of mind. Nobody is more stressed than a founder who's terrified about making payroll. There's nobody. So you're not thinking clearly like you're not thinking about it. You're not, you're not. So when you're thinking about how to eat, you're not thinking about anything else. So so really making sure that you have a model that's profitable, even if you're not profitable from day one, like just how how you get there and a clear path to get there and a plan to survive while you're not. So that's that's the first basis in terms of what founders do right. The first is sound financials, right? We know this that any any business that's going to be acquired needs to make and acquire our money. And so we need to think about how you have clean enough financials to be able to show that. But I think when it comes to brand, I think it's really being able to easily articulate the ones who do it well, who your customer is, who is the person who is buying from you, who is he or she, what are they like? What do they do? How do they behave, and how do they interact with you? When you have real clarity on the customer, the psychographics of them, and and all of their general, like who they are, right? Their demographic, you're able to really work on how to grow in a way that others can't. And a lot of times we're scattered. We go all over because we don't know. Yes, I'll take this client, even though it's off focus. Yes, I'll do this. Yes, sure, yeah. Because why? If we're hungry and we need to eat, yes, we do what we got to do. And people get scared. So things that maybe aren't you. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

So it's by the way, yes, long term impacts you more. Way worse. It might be a dollar in the hand today. It's way worse. And it actually ends up impacting the bottom line of your business long term. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Always. Yes. So every time. What focus on building a profitable model first. Try not to waver. It's so hard in the beginning. Like I'm I have wavered a million times. Like, try. And then I think the really big thing for this is about know who your customer is and stick to it. And saying no is often makes you a far better business than saying yes to everything because you're scared. So that those are the big, that's the big theme I see.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

I, you know, I love that too, because I always say to people when we get into the PR seat and they have all their messaging and they're, I want to say this and I want to say that, and I want to be for this, and I want to be for that. And I'm like, why? And oftentimes they're scared. They don't want to alienate a group because it could be potential dollar. And yet I say to them, if you are for everybody, you are for nobody. Because the people that need you won't find you fast enough.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Because you're not clear on who you are, and you're not making a clear message to the world.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

And then I think it's so interesting because in your your job is so hard, like with PR, because you have brand and you have personal brand. And how do they like it's very challenging, even when building personal brand, to avoid the noise of like other people and what they're doing and competition and all of that?

SPEAKER_01 21:31

It's it's hard. And and founders come to me all the time and they they're they're comparing themselves. Like that's what I see.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

A little bit of um blinders on.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

A little bit and I have to literally put them on my clients. I'm like, guys, listen. Tell them to mute them. Yes, literally. I'm like, you have to, you know, also there's a comparison game. And when they're comparing them to their this person's success or that person's messenger, you know what ends up happening? You're like adapting a little bit of what everyone else is saying. And it's and so I was I'm like, we need to go inward first. Yeah. We need to go inward. And this is I literally just did a keynote on this about talking about authenticity, which is can be the most overplayed word if used incorrectly or used as like a marketing kind of pitch. But everyone's like, Chris, you're you are who you are all the time. Always. I'm like, you get what you get with me. Right. And it's because I'm so clear on the impact I want to make in the world, right? Like I'm so clear on my mission as a human being, right? For my family, for my kids, for the people that I can help. And so everything is funneled through that. Now, if it wasn't, and I wasn't as clear and I didn't understand what my core values were, my mission was the impact I wanted to make, then maybe I'd say yes to certain things, and I'd maybe do this and a little bit of that, and or I'd maybe look at some other woman. I'd be maybe I should be a little bit more like that. And all of a sudden you lose your way. You do. And what do you do? You lose time, you lose money. And you're distracted.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

And you delay yourself from having impact. I would, I, I would recommend, especially when it comes to personal brand, I had to put a lot of blinders on because I mean, the most excellent, amazing marketer of all time was Gary Vaynerchuk. He was launching Vayner Media at that time. Like if I had spent my time just staring at Gary Vaynerchuk, I would have been crushed. I just had to do my own thing and recognize that I'm not him and that I had to build that and I had to reconcile that within myself. I love it. It was really hard to do. It was especially with so much. I love that you recognize that it's hard. It was really hard to do. He was so excellent. Like he was out there executing everyone. And if I sat there and said, I can't be him, so I shouldn't do something, it would have been a disaster. I built an eight-figure great business that was profitable and healthy and sold for a great multiple. And if I had spent the time not building my own brand because I was so afraid of other people, I would have been crushed.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

You know, it's also, you know, something that I talk about all the time is that your superpower is the fact that you are you. That's right. Right? It's not the fact that you can go and morph into somebody else. That's right. There's like the Avengers for a reason. Everyone can be good at something. They don't have to have the same exact superpower. Find your superpower and lean into it so much, so unapologetically, that the right people find you and they find you so fast and they hug you and they like wrap you up with everything they love you. Right. And so it's what's really, really good that you say that because I think people are so scared. They're comparing themselves. We live in a comparison culture. I mean, everything. Social media, especially. Think about it if you're launching a CPG brand.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

If you looked at every single thing, you'd never launch. You would never launch. Forget about it. Forget it. You would literally never do it because there's so many voices around you that are so loud talking about how successful they are. And it's like, or looking so successful, just ignore it and do your thing. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Yeah. What do you think is one of the most important platforms for founders or brands or executives climbing the corporate ladder to get on in order to tell their brand story, whether it's their personal brand and or the business of their own brand? But is there like a recommendation that you have when you work with founders?

SPEAKER_00 24:54

My recommendation. So I used to do I did enterprise social, so I didn't really work on personal brand, but I do have a lot of women who are building who come to me who are building to exit and they ask me this question. And I don't know if it's right or wrong. My my answer is you build where you are most comfortable using and feel like you'll update the most. So for instance, I you know, I lean in, I'm probably on every network. In terms of where I lean in, it's Instagram and LinkedIn. I know LinkedIn returns for me for sure. Um, but you know what? I noticed that video didn't perform as well for me there. So I write text updates there. Like it's it's like I just test the networks that I feel that feel native to me and I feel like I can be most authentic on. If I blast everywhere, I am not as responsive or and I could hire, I could hire people to do it. Like it just it doesn't feel authentic in the way that I want it to. Like I could have helped you know, for sure. But I think it would be I like being where I spend my time because it feels more natural to me. And for me, that's Instagram and LinkedIn. I know a lot of people have tremendous, tremendous success with TikTok. I feel like for me, I'm not on TikTok as much. And I don't if I I feel like once I'm on there, I'm never gonna be off. You know what I mean? Yeah, oh yeah, I'm scared of the endless scroll. So I'm like, oh, I just want to it. No, I know.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

But it can be so overwhelming. I think it's really overwhelming for people to understand where they need to show up. And do I have this personality on here and on there? And we take our clients through like messaging pillars and easily the exercise of understanding where they need to be. But I agree, I agree completely. It's like if you're already not comfortable with doing all these different platforms, then what it's gonna do is if you try to adapt all of them, you're actually like not gonna adapt any of them well. So do you do you like in the beginning, like uh them trying a little bit of everything and then seeing what feels so what we usually do is we try to understand exactly where their customer is. Right. Right. And then we try to have them adapt that version faster so that we can get to their customer faster. So we do a little bit of an audit, we understand the consumer. To your point, understanding who their audience really is. Yeah, and then we'll make recommendations. But it's also a lot of the work that we do with founders and with, you know, female leaders and executives and brand, personal brand is identifying like where are you the happiest and the most comfortable, the most confident. I need to keep my founders in the place where they are the most comfortable, the most confident, where it feels really them. Yeah. And that needs to be where 80% of their own time is spent. Then of course, to your point, we hire, we make the correct moves to make sure that they have a support system around being on the other platforms. But if they don't feel their best or they feel awkward or they feel like they're uncomfortable, not in the beginning. You're gonna feel a little awkward and uncomfortable in the beginning of doing anything, anything that maybe doesn't feel like it's completely first nature to you. But but if you don't feel like it's really for you and I'm pushing you to do it too much, then I'm also getting you out of your creative zone of genius. And that's not good. And that's the biggest difference in working with personal brands and with founder-led brands, right? Is that like you also need to take into account the person you're working with.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Yeah, that's funny because when I built Likable, it was all enterprise. So it's I was working with huge corporations, a lot of B2B. And so what so many times, like people would ask me for social advice, I'd be like, I don't know, you gotta ask someone like Chris. Because like for me, the personal brand stuff was something that I did naturally well, but I wasn't so scientific about it. I think I was like, okay, where are my customers? I think is right, and where do I like spending my time? And that's how I that's how I approached it. Um, so it's good to know that that is a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Yeah, you're and you're doing it. I mean, I see it even on your page now. It's like you're doing it really well. I think that you are so you. Oh, I mean, I can just like I I love it because the woman I see on social, I see here, I see sitting out to dinner, I see when I call you. It's like that is super, super important. People can call your BS. I mean, because the problem is people can call the BS of the people. You I can build any personal brand out there. You can put me, put me up to the challenge and we'll do it. If it is not who you really are, someone will figure that out and they will call you out for it in front of the world. And that is so, so important to understand about yourself. It's okay if you're not, if you're not naturally bubbly looking, I mean, like you're very like bubbly. Yes, you're introverted, but I would say you're an introverted extrovert. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think so. You have like your zone of genius, you're so clean. I mean, right. But I'm not sure. But if you weren't, um you don't you pretending to be that well glam.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

So how self-aware are you? So that's important. Self-aware. When I say, you know, it's so cute. I was on the way in here today and I was like, I'm going to interview with Chris. I was like, I'm so not glam. Like, I just like I'm just gonna do my best. I'm gonna do my best to show up on there. But like that's okay to be normal and acknowledge that as who you are. Yes, you know, and like that that's something about for me, I've kind of owned that, but I will tell you that I both have owned that and committed to myself to also, when I do go on camera and do that stuff, to show up and not be like hot mess express. Like I do my absolute best to show up in the most carry way that I could. Um because I think that's important too.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

You look you look great in the bigger thing, and that what I always say, it's like it's about how you feel. I even say that in the world of beauty. Like I've been working in beauty for nearly two decades, and beauty was never about the products, it's never about how, oh, so oh, let me curl my hair exactly the perfect way. Yeah, it's about how you feel. Yeah, and I think that that's a lesson that everyone can learn in just really being unapologetically themselves. All of these things are just tools so that you could feel like your best self. Yeah, it could be, yes, one person loves this, one person loves that. Like, I I just had a mommy makeover, and like I'm very open about that.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

So open, and it's such good content. I will share with you something funny that I did in so I did a TEDx uh like a year and a half ago. And one of the things that I talked about was my eat my alter ego that I call myself as ponytail carry. And ponytail Carrie wears her hair in a ponytail because it is a comfortable, but also um friendly and non-intimidating. So the thoughtfulness behind personal brand, what you wear, how you present yourself, if you maintain it as authentic to you and also with purpose, like it those little things really matter.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

So ponytail carry showed up today for you. And how wonderful is it to be yourself and then be able to build a real relationship with somebody because of that? Like, you know, it's funny because I think so much of the work that we do, even in the world of PR, can feel like, oh, we're kind of like creating this archetype. The work that that I do very specifically and what I'm very passionate about is sitting down with my clients, understanding them inside and out as I'm helping helping them build their brand and understanding what makes them tick and what they love. I mean, and it could be such simple things. Like one of our clients, I was like, you know, you should wear more white or cream colors because it just works so well with who you are and what you stand for. You're like this ethereal, like this ethereal light in everybody's life. Yes. And by seeing you in that way, and she already was wearing some of it, but then like now she went fully into that like persona that ultimately we had like, yes, quote unquote, built up for her, but it was already who she was. We just kind of pondered, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

I mean, you you on this podcast, you do not know Dave Kirpin, my husband, but you know he only wears orange. Did you know that? I've well I've seen in some of the videos. Obviously, you probably pick up on it, but you might not know. So he wore orange shoes when he was fundraising, really funky orange shoes. And one of the investors who had he was at a conference hoping to meet an investor. And one all of a sudden, he was like, I can't find this guy. Like, uh, no one's gonna invest in me. And then he heard from behind him, like, I gotta meet the guy who's wearing those shoes. And it was the investor. Mm-hmm. So he ended up then adopting only wearing orange shoes, which then morphed into all orange clothes. And let me tell you, that's a little extra because he's a little extra, but he's known for it and he's remembered as the guy who wears orange. And so whenever he's at a dinner party, whenever he's at anything, they're not forgetting Dave Kirpin. So, like, there's there's something to be said about that and like the creams or the what colors are in it for you.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

It's like color everything, and it doesn't have to be all this like over the top glamour, this or that. No. What it has to be is like something that makes you feel you, that makes you stand out, but that also represents who you are as a person. I'm like, let's identify who are you as a person that probably that color. I mean, you know, there's a lot of color psychology in science. There's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

But and and if he's like very vibrant and says most persuasive, happiest color, there we go.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

There is color, I train my clients on color psychology also. And so these things are really important. I mean, I I literally work with the stylist, not because I'm like, oh, some bougie over the top extra person. Although maybe that a little bit, but that's a good thing, babe.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

We don't judge that. You think the non-fan, just so you know, the non-fancies, we don't judge that. We admire it, we think it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

It's just not fancy. Well, thank you. Well, thank you. And I do it because who I am and how I show up in the world, I really want it to signal to people that I take them serious. Yes. And that, and that so I dress a certain way and I like a certain thing. And also, it's because I'm not the best at picking out my own clothes. It really is also like kind of utilitarian. Like, I'm not the best at picking out my clothes, but I want to feel my best and I want to feel the most confident.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

And you should in every way. And like for me, I think what feels the most natural, and I think this is so weird as turning 50. Like, I I want today, today, okay, on my face and everything, to age like pretty naturally and gracefully because I want to feel that way in my body, and I want people who I interact with to feel that I am approachable and lovely. And like that, that's what for me, I know that's what I want the intent to be. So it's so crazy, like it's the exact same thing and a different version. We have our version of it. Correct. Yeah, correct. And to me, that's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

Yeah, and it's why I think like we've gotten along, and I think that there's always going to be people that aren't able to understand a certain part of who we are, and that's okay. And I always tell this to people my executives like not everybody is going to be for you. And not everybody's gonna understand. Yeah, and that's okay. Like, right, and that is totally okay, and you have to be okay with it, especially as you're rising and especially as you're becoming more visible. People are so scared of visibility because they're scared people won't like them with that visibility. I hate to tell you, if you want a more visibility, more people will not like you. They're not like you already, but they're not. The more just not saying it. Yeah, it's like you're just you're putting yourself out there more. So naturally the numbers are gonna show that there's gonna be a few more people that ultimately you maybe aren't for them. And that's okay because the people you're for find you faster. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

And you you as you come into yourself more, you care so much less. You care so much less about what people think of you and the bad, like the people who are like would make fun of you or anything for doing anything on social. It's really, it is really important. And it's you have to like like yourself and feel like that's like you have to like yourself, and you and if you're growing a business, it it's become an important part of it, I think.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

That was gonna be my last question for you. As you are navigating an exit or as you're building a business, you're building a personal brand and you're building a business. Let's say, yes, your numbers are solid, you have a good kind of path to scale, your revenue's in a good place. How important do you think the world of like PR and visibility becomes in that path to exit?

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Oh, I think it can be essential. So businesses are valued usually for the most part on multiples of their profit. So you're gonna have a range. So let's say a company has a million dollars of profit and they're worth between four to eight times that number. Okay. I'm using a random number just because math is easy. They'd be worth between four to eight million dollars. That's a huge swing. Right? Yeah. Okay. So what makes the difference? Same business, same profit. What makes the difference? Well, some of what makes the difference is understanding what the PR is behind that business, the buzz behind that business, the interest behind that business. That is essential for businesses that are trying to trade at a higher multiple. Now, there are other ways that you can achieve that multiple too, like to get to that eight versus the four. There are other things you can do, but one thing for sure that you can do, which will also accelerate your growth, is investing in PR. PR is very important to me in building this next chapter. And it was important, it was important with likable, but less so, and the reason was likable accelerated early because of timing and luck. We we executed on it, so there was hard work, but also social media was coming up. It was a wave that was not stopping in 2007. So we we achieved critical scale. When Dave left, I needed to operationalize that scale. I didn't need to be the most popular or the most known. I needed to take our clients who we had, retain them, continue to win business like at a good clip, and then just really have the right fundamentals. That's what I needed to work on for this business, which is the Whisper Group, all about like really how to advise female founders on how they can get to their best exit. That's a newer concept. So I need to educate the market. So PR, both for the brand side and for Carrie, is very, very important. And and I think it's important to do both. Like it's not just founder PR, it's also business PR. Because you need PR beyond you.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's a it's an entire ecosystem. And that's what we tell our clients when they come. You know, so many people come to me and they're like, help me build my personal brand. I'm like, we need to look at everything. Yeah, we need to look at the comms around everything. Like we don't separate the person from their brand, we actually look holistically at all of them. You have to. Yeah, and because it's it's so critical in building that. But I appreciate that so much because honestly, it's obviously music to my ears. But I also think that it's such sound and solid advice for someone who is navigating an exit or trying to figure out what their path is for how they're gonna grow their business and brand because they are looking at a lot of different investments that they're gonna have to make and they're trying to assess which ones and at which point are going to be important. It's why, I mean, it's literally why we built our digital resources because we wanted founders to have access to PR before they're maybe ready to make that larger level investment of a PR retainer. You can now have a PR retainer, quote unquote, for a fraction of the cost.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

It's amazing. And really, like people look at PR for at getting new customers and also pissing off the competition. Like those are two things that they look at. But the other element of PR that's so important is that acquirers see it. Acquirers see it. Acquirers, you get on an acquirer's map. And that is what's really essential as you're heading to exit. It's not just like, oh, look, they hit Inc. 500. It's who are they? Are they known in the market? And did I hear of them before a banker approached me about them? It could be really essential. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Oh, I love it. I love it. Well, we always end with Branded Banter. Okay, I'm ready. One one answer, don't think too much about it, all right? This is because the anxiety. I'm ready. I know everyone's like, wait, hold on, let me think. I'm like, there's no thinking. No thinking allowed. All right. What is one product that if you lost tomorrow, you'd replace it by noon? Tula under eye.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

Um this beauty product? Okay. Aren't you proud of me that I have my beauty product? I'm so proud of you. Are you putting makeup on? Okay, Tula Under Eye the Brightener.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Oh, I love the love Tula, love Tula. What is one marketing standard or trend that you're officially breaking up with and never looking back at?

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Um what is one marketing trend that I'm officially breaking up with? I literally I'm muting every competitor. I'm not looking at them. I'm putting blinders on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm putting blinders on.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Blinders on, you heard it here first.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

I'm putting blinders on.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

All right, founder-led brand or celebrity brand?

SPEAKER_00 40:37

I prefer a founder-led brand. A celebrity brand is a leg up that's super but listen, a lot of celebrities mess up on their brands, but but founder-led, founder-led. Organic influencer seating or paid partnerships? It depends on the um are you a funded company, a bootstrapped company, et cetera. But I think authentic uh customers are the most important for organic social. And ideally, if you have good paid influencers, I want them to really love your product too. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

If you were launching a brand tomorrow, what's the first thing you'd obsess over?

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Product market fit. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

What is one word that will define the next era of founder-led brands?

SPEAKER_00 41:20

That's a great, that's a great question. The next word for founder-led brands.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Resilient. I like it. All right, amazing. Okay, Carrie, thank you so much. How can we connect with you? You can connect with me on Instagram or LinkedIn. Yay, look at that. I'm so proud of you.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

Go to we are the whispergroup.com, um, which is fabulous for the Whisper Group. If you're looking at exits, want to learn more about that. Or um you can also always follow find me on carry kerbin.com too.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Amazing. Well, thank you so much. I loved having you. This was so wonderful. I hope everyone felt like this conversation was completely educational, outstanding, and fun because that's how I felt. Oh, God. I love you. I'm so happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

This podcast is for informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies or positions of MMC or any of its affiliates. Guest appearances do not constitute an endorsement.