#10 - Personal Branding

In this episode of Being Boss, Kathleen shares why it’s important for creative entrepreneurs to blend who they are with what they do.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Kathleen Shannon: 0:04

Get your business together, get yourself into what you do, and see it through.

Emily Thompson: 0:10

Because being boss is hard, winning work, and life is messy. Making your dream job of your own isn't easy.

Kathleen Shannon: 0:18

But getting paid for it, becoming known for it. And finding purpose in it is so doable.

Emily Thompson: 0:24

If you do the work, being a podcast recruiter for Emily Thompson.

Unknown: 0:34

Welcome to episode a personal friends.

Emily Thompson: 0:41

Today's episode is all about personal branding. And I get to pick Kathleen's brain about what it is that she does for a living. If you've thought about why having a personal brand is important, but don't even really know what it is, then this episode is totally for you. Because Kathleen has actually grown her business around branding solopreneurs and coaching them, and how to blend more of who they are with what they do, which is personal branding. So I'm going to be asking her lots of questions, and she'll be giving us lots and lots of answers on what it means to have a personal brand. Are you ready for this?

Unknown: 1:23

I'm ready.

Emily Thompson: 1:25

Are you sure?

Unknown: 1:25

Let's do this

Emily Thompson: 1:26

thing. Okay. All right. So to get started, how about you just tell us what a personal brand is?

Kathleen Shannon: 1:33

Okay. So I know that that's like a, it's become kind of a catchphrase that people are, right, like personal brand. And so you might think that it's something new, but it's not. You might think that you don't have a personal brand, but you totally do. Because a personal brand is simply a layer of who you are. And it's that outer layer. And it's the outer layer that really lets people like your peers, your boss, your dream clients, your dream followers, your friends, it's what lets them know what you're all about, and what they can expect to learn and get to know more about you if they care to venture past that outer layer. So whenever it comes to like, what is a personal brand, it's really using who you are as a person to sell what you do. I mean, whenever it boils down to it, so kind of like Beyonce. But we're not all Beyonce, unfortunately. And my old boss, whenever I worked in advertising, he used to tell me that a brand is a promise. And that it's how people, it's how you deliver. And it's how people know what to expect. And so in advertising, it's whenever your website or your billboard, match the interior design of your brick and mortar store, and the personalities all align. And so whenever it comes to your personal brand, I really think it's just showing up as yourself 100% of the time in working life so that you can deliver on the promise of who you are and what people can expect.

Emily Thompson: 3:18

That sounds dreamy. I, um, I love personal branding. And I love branding in general, it's one of those things that I get just really geeky about. I love how personal brands give creative entrepreneurs, the ability to create a business around simply who they are, which is really easy and kind of genius to do or not easy. It's relatively easy. So let's talk about why this is important. Because we can talk about, we can talk about talk about branding and you know, turning your passions into a business and, and blending who you are with what you do. But But why like, Why? Why is that important? Right?

Kathleen Shannon: 4:01

So, I mean, most of us like if you've worked a day job, and you've wanted to quit because you're not feeling fulfilled, or you want to start your own business, because you don't want to be stifled by the man. And, you know, you're quitting your jobs that you can live the dreams that you can make the dream, but I still see so many creatives playing by the old rules, even after they start working for themselves. They're still hanging on to those old notions of what it means to be professional. And so a lot of this ties into our older episode, and redefining professional which I think was our second or third episode. Um, so go back to the archives and check that one out because it directly ties into what we'll be talking about today. But because people are still playing by the old rules, they're attracting the wrong clients or they're not attracting any clients at all. And they're still finding themselves unfulfilled. Now instead of being their own boss, they have lots of other bosses, which is every single person that hires them. And so I think that whenever creatives can just own it and be themselves, they have so much more of a fulfilling and rewarding career doing what they love. So, yeah, I mean, I think that that's really why it's important. I also think that whenever you are who you are 100% of the time on and off the clock, you create really great opportunities to forge genuine relationships, which leads to real trust. And that cultivates a spirit of collaboration, which usually results in enthusiastic approval on your projects with your clients, it leads to things like us creating this podcast together, I think that's what bringing your personality into what you do really does for your business. And all the creatives I coach, they perceive that they won't be hired if they let their true colors shine. And it's just the opposite of true. And I think that everyone just needs to give their potential clients more credit to treat them like the humans they are, and they'll respond with the same respect back. So yeah,

Emily Thompson: 6:21

well, good. I have a question for you. Okay. And regards to what you said. So I have a coaching client at the moment, and I was actually talking to her about this just yesterday. So this is perfect time, you can give me some tips along with everyone else on like how it is they can really help her because she's, she's in the exact place that you're talking about where she, she came from an agency from a design agency. And she she left it with the hopes of like, breaking all the molds and like starting her own little her own little agency. So she could run it the way she wanted to. And she's doing really, really great. But she even asked me yesterday, um, how is it that you sort of step into the power of your personal brand? So the idea of creating a personal brand, and being who you are attracting dream clients, instead of clients from hell? Because I think that's kind of where she is at the moment. How is it that you take that step to go from, from, you know, the agency world, or corporate world or wherever world you're coming from, and step into a personal brand, because not all of us are as lucky as I think you and I are in a lot of ways that we sort of found our personal brands relatively easily. So any advice on how to take that step into into your personal brand? And

Kathleen Shannon: 7:42

yeah, well, where to begin? Because I think that you're right, it's one thing to say, you know, be who you are. But sometimes you sit back and you're like, Wait, who am I? Especially if you've been working for someone else for a long time. So I actually recently read something by Amy Poehler in her new book. Yes, please, which you have to check out. It's so good. So Amy Poehler says to find your currency. And I think that a really good way to do this and to identify your own personal brand, is a couple different ways. So one is an exercise I'm going to take straight from our personal branding ecourse, which was just previously in session, we're always running our E courses, though. So I'll include a link in the show notes, but is to pretend like you're inviting some people to dinner. And it can be people who are alive or dead fictional historical celebrity, it can be anyone It can even be archetypes. But imagine that you're cultivating and curating a really intimate dinner party, who would you invite to dinner? And I think it's really revealing to your own personal brand, the people that you invite. And so for me who might come to my dinner party right now are, well Amy Poehler because I think that she's hilarious. I would probably invite Beyonce, because of her stage presence. I just think that she's so amazing. I would probably invite someone like Bernie Brown, or Elizabeth Gilbert, like an amazing writer and speaker, because I'm always wanting to learn more about that. And so really invite these people to dinner and look at who they are and what you have to learn from them, what their expertise is the kind of advice that they would give you the kinds of things that they would talk about, and use them as examples like these are really aspects of you that you can aspire to become or that you already are and you just kind of need to like draw on that power. And so for your client, Emily, I would ask her to name those aspects of herself that would, or not even like aspects of yourself, but literally like, who would you invite to a dinner party? And then ask yourself, okay, what would Amy Poehler do? What would Rene brown do? And I think that's a really great way to step into that power.

Emily Thompson: 10:15

I'm like that I am willing to intergeo Yeah, I do know, I've done that exercise a couple of times in my life, I've, I've been through the braid fun. And that is one of the hardest exercises ever. Yeah, but it is, it's such a good one, it is such a good one. And I've done it a couple times, every time I sort of feel my personal brand shifting because as you grow, your personal brand will grow and it will shift and, and things will change slightly. And every now and then I I've actually taken out my cards a couple of times in the past couple of years. And and I always sort of revisit that one because that one is the one that really makes you think the most about what parts of yourself or what parts of the world I guess you find interesting. And that was like really feeds into your personal brand. your interests, like the things that are important to you, the kinds of people that you invite, that you would invite to a dinner party is just tells you what you find interesting, which is the outer layers of your personal actually the inner layers of your personal

Kathleen Shannon: 11:22

well, and it's both it's a lot of different layers. And it is again, just delivering on what people come to expect. And so, you know, even whenever you're inviting someone to dinner, you're inviting them maybe even just based on the first impression, but you get to know them better over dinner. And so and like you were saying, Emily, we take all of our braid method clients through this exercise along with a bunch of other exercises. But this exercise the dinner party exercise, and specifically helps us narrow in on the personal branding, and what we like to do and we take it a step further whenever our clients work with us one on one versus just taking the ecourse. And we really look at which aspects of their personality attract other people to them in the first place. And so looking at which aspects of someone's personality inspires other people, and then which aspects of their personality closes the deal, and reassures and delivers on what they promise when clients hire them.

Emily Thompson: 12:27

Give me some examples of some parts of your, like a dinner party or parts of your personality that would close a deal versus the part that would attract a dream customer.

Kathleen Shannon: 12:40

I'll explain the so for me, for example, and the my dinner party, which like don't overthink it either to match. So the aspects of my personality that might inspire and attract other people to me in the first place would be who did I have? I had Beyonce, Amy Poehler, Renee Brown, and Elizabeth Gilbert. Um, so let's say probably the beyond say slash Amy Poehler would inspire and attract. So Beyonce she puts on a show. And that might directly relate to how I present my portfolio or even having a podcast, like just showing up and being seen putting myself out there. And Amy Poehler is hilarious, and she writes really well. And so I think that she's a good combo of both just being I know that she's a smart business person, right, like, So Amy Poehler herself, you can see which aspects of her inspire and attract and which ones probably deliver and reassure. And so she's probably like a hybrid of both. But people might be attracted to me because of my sense of humor or authenticity, the same kinds of things. That's things that Amy Poehler presents in her work, and then who might reassure and deliver and, like the Bernie brown aspect. And I think that I was even working. Renee Brown is one of my clients and I was working with her yesterday, we were on a call and she was like, Oh my gosh, this conversation has been so grounding and I was like, wow, for Bernie brown to say that this is grounding. I think that that is and whenever I think of her as Super grounding, I think that that is something that reassures and delivers whenever it comes to the work that I do with my clients. So doing stuff that is rooted in methodology and research and and you being organized, and not just this like flashy. Beyonce, right. Right. However,

Emily Thompson: 14:50

I think that that flashy Beyonce could definitely deliver as well. Um, so I think that's great. I think I love the idea of finding these sort of aspects of your personal brand. And, and becoming becoming clear, or at least like, I'm understanding, right how it is that that that each individual piece plays into a personal brand as a whole.

Kathleen Shannon: 15:14

And I think that if the dinner party is a little bit too complicated, or you don't understand how it works really simple ways to identify your personal brand and to step into that power, and maybe some even questions that Emily, you should ask your client that you're talking to right now is, what are people's first impression of you. So fill in the blank, people always think I'm blank when they first meet me, this is a really good way to identify what your currency is. So people always think I'm funny. People always think I'm grounded. People always think I'm organized when they first meet me. So what is it that what is that first impression? And then imagine that someone's talking about you behind your back, but in a good way. And fill in this blank. I've heard people say that you can always count on me to blank. And so like for you, Emily, what would that be? I've always I've heard people say that they can always come on me to?

Unknown: 16:20

I don't know.

Emily Thompson: 16:23

Let's see, I've always heard Lizzie, I've heard people say that you they can always count on me to tell it how it is.

Kathleen Shannon: 16:32

Yes, that is a really good part of how you show up like in your newsletters, you were always kind of like tough loving, but even then in your personal conversations, like whenever I know that I need someone to tell me like it is I'm calling you. So that is like a great way to identify that. Another one is to do like an apples to oranges comparison. So it might be I know that my buddy Sarah wishes that they could tell it like it is like I do. Or something that I've always gotten my whole life is people always telling me that they wish that they could pull off my crazy outfits or pull off my dreadlocks or you know, whatever it is, they're like, Oh, I wish I could pull that off. And so I can see that maybe the outward expression of who I am through fashion choices. And whatever it is a lot of a lot of people say that they wish that they could do that. So it's pretty easy to pinpoint. Like, oh, that's an aspect of my personal brand. Maybe I should leverage that.

Emily Thompson: 17:41

Yeah, I think that's also a really a really great way to sort of step outside of your box. Like I feel like a lot of people like whenever we're talking about personal brands, they're asking themselves, like all of these questions about themselves. But if you can step outside of that box and say, you know, how are other people perceiving me, as opposed to how I'm perceiving myself? Because I know how I'm perceiving myself right, I think I think that helps a lot.

Kathleen Shannon: 18:04

Well, and you have to do it though from like a confident place because I think that a lot of people get caught up in our perceptions that can go to dark places. And so whenever it comes to your personal brand, try and do it from a good place.

Emily Thompson: 18:19

Yes, are your personal brands not gonna end up very happy, right?

Kathleen Shannon: 18:24

You're not gonna attract the dreams. Alright, well,

Emily Thompson: 18:29

any other any other fun little?

Kathleen Shannon: 18:33

Well, let's think so another one is. So love you or hate you. One of the hardest things about really stepping into your power of your personal brand is giving people permission to not like you. That is the hardest. The hardest, because you want to be everything to everyone, especially if you're people pleaser. But you can't and so one of the things to ask yourself is I know when I blank, people either love it or hate it, and that's okay. It's just part of my personal brand. And so for me, it might even be the way that I tell stories on the internet, you know, and so it might be or talking about my kiddo or oversharing people might hate it. It might make them uncomfortable, but that's okay. It means that they are not my people.

Emily Thompson: 19:31

Yeah, I my big thing for this is his curse words.

Kathleen Shannon: 19:36

Right? Yeah, so exactly like, Emily you know it that some people hate it whenever you cause Yeah, I've

Emily Thompson: 19:42

gotten taken emails and it always like I always respond with you know, this is exactly how I weed out people who either love me for who I am, which I cuss sometimes, or you hate it and in which case I welcome you to go. I think that that finding Love you or hate you, in a personal brand is what takes it to that next level, like an ever lovable personal brand is not a strong personal brand. Like there's you're going to, you're going to what's it called not pick someone's bone. Saying I suck at these stupid little sayings, it's like, you're always going to

Kathleen Shannon: 20:27

get a hook in their craw.

Emily Thompson: 20:31

make someone mad, you shouldn't you should always be striving, I guess in some way, too. Do you own who you are enough that you're simply not going to make everyone happy?

Kathleen Shannon: 20:42

Okay, so I saw Jasmine star speak at all summit a few years

Emily Thompson: 20:46

ago sitting next to you remember?

Kathleen Shannon: 20:49

Okay, so that's the year that we met. Yeah. Okay. So going into that she was doing a whole presentation on personal branding. And I'm going into it, I was like, Who is this Jasmine star I know, tog refer and I knew that she had a like a huge audience and a huge following. And I was annoyed only because I was jealous. All that anyway. So she started talking. And I was immediately I fell in love with her so fast and so hard. But one of the things that she said that I will never forget. And she said it with like such conviction, I think that her dad is a preacher or something because she got up there and she was able to preach. But she said, whenever it comes to a personal brand, like I either want to attract you, or I want to repel you as fast as possible. And so I always think of that, like your personal brand should be attracting the right people, you know, the people that you want to attract or repelling the people that you don't,

Emily Thompson: 21:52

yes, I completely agree with that. And just just to like, give an example of how it is that you portray your personal brand and to like really actively repel and attract people. So we have cell slides that we send out to anyone who wants to wants to work with us, or contact us with interest in knowing more about how to work with us at Indy typography. So in these cell slides, we have one page and it's like, it's 10 beliefs that we have as a studio. And the last one on that we've actually had one or two people respond back about this is the last one is we do not believe in emergencies. Period, because we will never work well under pressure. And really when it comes to like an online business, like building a website, there is no such thing as an as a real emergency, like, no one's going to die if your email stops working for an hour. Like that is not a real thing. Right? And and that's one of our ways that we attract or repel people. So we attract people who agree that like, don't take life too seriously, right? It is you do what you can do. And we're repelling the people who are really uptight, crazy emergency kind of people. Right? And, and that's a really active way that we make sure that we're attracting the clients that are never going to email us with some sort of foe emergency that has to be fixed at midnight on a Tuesday.

Unknown: 23:19

Right?

Emily Thompson: 23:19

I'm not ever going to do that.

Unknown: 23:21

Right.

Emily Thompson: 23:23

Right in any other fun tips from Kathleen, on how to like help begin like unfolding what your personal brand is,

Kathleen Shannon: 23:32

right? So like for us, Emily, I think that we were able to find our voices. So that's another way to talk about like your personal brand is really finding your voice. And I think that it probably wasn't so easy for us to do that. Like we kind of trudge through the years of blogging to really find to find our voice. And so I really think that it's not just about your knowing who you are, but it then it's about sharing who you are. Sometimes it can be as simple as sharing the behind the scenes. And so, Marie Forleo is right now doing a big push for B School, which is probably closed by the time this podcast airs. But anyway, right now, Marie Forleo. If you're not familiar with her work, she's really fun, you should subscribe to her newsletters. And she was doing a big push for one of her products. And I got an email from her talking about how her website went down for 15 minutes on the busiest day of registrations for her. And I just thought it was so cool how she shared the behind the scenes of that and she has a great personal brand. And so I think that sometimes, you know, embracing your personal brand is really sharing the behind the scenes. It could also be as simple as sharing a link feeling more collaborative with your client and sharing with them. What really inspired you whenever it came to the work that you're doing. For them, it could also be just letting them in a little bit on your process or being honest about what you don't know or what you're curious about, or what you're still figuring out. I think that personal branding is a lot about, like having the courage to be enthusiastic about what you love. And not just super cynical about the stuff that you hate. Unless, unless that's unless that's your personal brand. If your personal brand is being cynical or skeptical, like that's totally cool. ownage and, and leveraging

Unknown: 25:34

Good luck.

Kathleen Shannon: 25:37

But then there's also like, I can just blab on all day about personal branding, but like, there are a few things like a few little things that you can do to really start leaning into your own personal brand. And one of my huge ones is, don't say we, if there's just one of you. So like, I see it a lot with other like web designers, like we can help you with your web design, we can help you find integrated solutions for your strengths strategically, like so it's not only saying we but also speaking like a robot. So these are two huge things you can do to own your personal brand is say I, if it's just you, I can help you with your website, and maybe use your own words like stop trying to sound like a robot, because jargon is not really impressive to anyone. Yeah, if you

Emily Thompson: 26:34

don't use it in everyday conversation, then it doesn't belong in your personal brand.

Kathleen Shannon: 26:39

Exactly. And I think owning your personal brand. Okay, so we have an eCourse on personal branding. And I included a section in there about your personal style. And I remember whenever I was developing the ecourse, I felt almost embarrassed to include this section like am I really going to be talking about like, what you were right, like, let's talk about clothes for a minute. And but that is like a as superficial as it might sound like how you present yourself to the world can be a huge part of your personal brand. And I was a little self conscious about putting it in there. But I wanted to because it's a conversation that comes up with my clients one on one. So I knew that it would be valuable in our E course to, you know, even if it's not like an explicit conversation with a client, sometimes it's like, okay, to get a to get an idea of what they're trying to share with the world or even how I design their logo. It's like, Okay, tell me a little bit about your personal style, like, how do you decorate your living room? Tell me more about your wardrobe? What are some of your favorite colors, and I know it sounds silly and simple, but it's it makes a huge impact. And in our last, the last round of our personal branding ecourse a lot of people commented like, wow, this, this part of the ecourse was super powerful. And so I think is really just giving people permission to have fun with what they're wearing. Or to have just one outfit. Like that's okay, too.

Emily Thompson: 28:11

And well, and on that to two things. One is I think that I think for people who are trying to discover what their personal brand is, they're not multiple years into it like you and I. So I feel like Usually what happens is the way that they can best relate, like what they're wanting, with what you're telling them is something like your style, your personal style, because that's really where it starts. So a couple of years ago, I, I, my my website, my God was blue and had flowers on it. And it was ridiculous, which is cool. But if you know me, you know that that is not me, by any means. So like as as my personal brand developed, the design of my like online presence has shifted heavily to really kind of what my wardrobe looks like. Because my wardrobe is one sort of reflection of my personal style. And if you're building a personal brand, then your online presence has to have that same cohesiveness or else it's not a personal brand. It's just a brand, which is cool, but it's not the same thing. And as far as like the outfit goes Danielle Laporte desire map, one of the questions that she has in there is, um, I think it's just talking about like, is it desirable and may not be desire map? I'll have to look into that. We'll put it in the show notes. But she asked the question somewhere in something that she did, where you know, if your brand or your website, were an outfit, what would it look like?

Unknown: 29:47

Oh, we see perfect,

Emily Thompson: 29:49

yes. And I actually put that on my questionnaire. And people answer it. I always get the best answers. And people can tell me all kinds of things about what they want their way website to look alike. But the answer to that question is what will guide the actual design of a website more than anything else like it? Because that's something that people can relate to so much more than this like website that they can't even touch?

Kathleen Shannon: 30:17

Right. And I think that whenever you ask someone, what do you want your website to look like? What do you want your brand to look like? They look for a lot of outside inspiration, which is totally fine. And well, that's a really good way, like creating a Pinterest board. And pinning all of those, you know, other designs and other logos. That's great for inspiration. But I think that asking yourself, okay, if your website was an outfit, you know, what would it look like? It's a really good way of looking inside yourself.

Unknown: 30:47

Yeah.

Kathleen Shannon: 30:48

For what you want to show to the world. Yeah. So I think I'm gonna steal that question from my

Unknown: 30:54

clients for it, and we share, we share a lot of clients

Kathleen Shannon: 30:59

though, too. And

Emily Thompson: 31:00

so it works. We talking about outfits

Kathleen Shannon: 31:03

from now on. I think that a really great example of someone who has really consistent personal style from what she's wearing to what she's sharing on her Instagram through her website is Shawna hater. And she's nubby twiglets. And I'll include a link to her in the show notes. But she's a friend of mine and a designer that I admire so much. And I think that she has an amazing personal brand. And she's someone to an example of someone who's not really putting it all out there. Like I know that she's married, but I don't know, necessarily what her husband looks like, or, you know, I don't she doesn't overshare. But she's still makes you feel like you know who she is. And so she's like a great example of a personal brand. And really, whenever it comes to identifying your own personal brand, like just think of other people that you admire that you know, personally, but also people that you admire, again, it comes back to the dinner party, and people that you admire on a grander scale, maybe celebrity or someone that's just a little more famous, and think about these people and really start to think like, okay, let's say I admire Gwen Stefani. What do I think about when I think about her, I think about those red lips every single time. And that is a part of her personal brand. That is how she's showing up. I think about her hair, I'm like her drop crotch pants. That is so Gwen's the funny. And so I think it is even something as little as that.

Emily Thompson: 32:37

I agree. I think I think that building a personal brand like it is it's such like buzzwords, and it's such a, it seems like such a big task. But I think if you can, like get away from all the nonsense of like, of, of what you see around you and drawing inspiration, but the right kinds of inspiration, really just finding people who share similarities to you. And pulling those into helping allowing yourself to recognize those things and other people and know that those are things that you relate with this helps will help you cultivate a personal brand more so than sitting down and making up who you want to be.

Unknown: 33:16

Right, exactly.

Emily Thompson: 33:18

Because if because I could do that all day long, I would definitely choose to be Beyonce. But I'm not Beyonce. I'm Emily and, and I do have a have a personal brand. And I take inspiration from Beyonce every day. But it's still very much so very much so my own. So it's about like finding those pieces and other people that you relate to, and pulling those into what you share outwardly.

Kathleen Shannon: 33:44

It's kind of like, if you, I'm trying to relate it to something like interior design, for example, like I want to have a really cool, beautiful house, that maybe I just don't quite know how to do it. So I buy some books, I buy some magazines like dwell and atomic ranch and stuff like that. And I look through it and I you can it's so easy to get lost in the whole picture of the room and be like oh highly do it. So what you'd have to do is you have to dissect it down into little pieces and say okay, they have a big oversized Fern hanging from the ceiling I need to get a plant into my house and they have a huge oversize law calendar. Okay, I should get a big wall calendar. Oh, look at how they layered these rugs. That's something I could do I have some rugs, I just need to layer them in a more interesting way. And so I think it is just that like looking at people you admire and you're so used to looking at the whole big picture because that's what a personality is. It's a you know who we are as people are very complex and layered and I'm not trying to say that we're anything otherwise, but it really is they setting it like okay, what do I love about that person? How do they show up in the world if I do Didn't know them, what would my first impression be? Um, and then I also wanted to bring up whenever it comes to your personal brand, is that really the whole point of it is to attract your tribe. And to really use like draw on that law of attraction by showing up as you are. And so I believe like attracts like. And I found that were like what I'm really personally into at any given time. And that's always evolving because my interest change. But like, for example, when I was pregnant, and looking into hiring doulas, and doing the home birthing, I was attracting a lot of holistic coaches and doulas and midwives who needed branding. Whenever I was deeply into my yoga practice, I've been hired by multiple Yogi's to help rebrand their studios or their personal brand. Whenever I was going through life coach training, I found myself helping other life coaches define their own brand and business vision. And like the most explicit, like hit me over the head, oh my gosh, like attract like, is, whenever I was super captivated by Bernie Browns message of vulnerability I had just read her book daring greatly. I was obsessed with it and changed my life. And so I did a blog review about it. And a lot of the themes that she writes about definitely show up in my own work like showing up and being seen getting in the arena. And so Bernie brown actually noticed the book review that I did. And she ended up hiring us to overhaul her personal brand and website before she went on Oprah's super soul Sunday. And so she was in the middle of like really embracing her own personal brand. Having come from a world of research and academia, she was ready to let her true colors shine, and not only by sharing her own stories on being a wholehearted and vulnerable, but like by simply wearing her worn in cowboy boots during her taping of super soul Sunday. And so it could be like just something as simple as that. But really, it is like, Who Who do you want to attract? And how can you be more of that? And not in the only good news, single white female, like just turning into someone

Unknown: 37:30

else kind

Kathleen Shannon: 37:30

of play? But but by letting who you are, what is it like my mom used to always say, I feel like personal branding always comes back to the advice that my mom gave me in middle school, which is like Kathleen, you know, you need to just be who you are. And it is so much better for people to like you for who you are, than to like you for who you aren't. Yeah,

Emily Thompson: 37:54

those who mind don't matter. And those who matter don't matter.

Kathleen Shannon: 37:58

Yes, there what other mom isms can we share on this?

Emily Thompson: 38:03

Like I probably a ton of them. I completely agree with that idea of like attracting, like, I have experienced the exact same thing in my business, as I have grown and evolved. And depending on what I'm interested in, and I had, whenever we moved to the mountains, and we were sort of decorating our first house, I ended up getting like four interior design clients. Because that was something I was like interested in and doing. I've also i There was also a time in my life where I was like, you know, I need to start like actually being a healthy person and taking care of myself. And I ended up getting like two or three ebooks from holistic nutritionist and an herbalist client, like I ended up getting like tons of like holistic, healthy people, clients. And similar story I, I went to a music festival a couple of years ago and came home and I blogged about how great it was and how my favorite band was this band called galactic. And like a week later, I got an email from them wanting to hire me to design a T shirt for this

Unknown: 39:10

so

Emily Thompson: 39:11

cool. Yeah, for their website. So like putting out those personal bits of yourself. Like the things that you're interested in, really does attract the people who are also interested in those exact same things. You know, if I'm if I'm blogging about interior design, or whatever, I'm going to be attracting people who are also interested in reading about interior design, or whatever they are.

Kathleen Shannon: 39:38

And so I think it's like not just being interested in something or liking something, but actively putting it out there. And so another example of that Emily might even be like what we're doing with a podcast and the things that we talked about. Specifically, I wrote a blog post around Halloween time about how like I want to be witchy like I wanted to draw on the magic Have the universe in a good way, no, no black magic here, I'm not selling my soul to the devil. But like, I want to be able to use like these woowoo, hippie dippie spiritual practices to help my business to move it forward. And it's something that I talk about a lot, even in our Facebook group, and we revealed to our audience there that we're going to be doing some secret episodes just for our newsletter subscribers. And so we're like, Okay, do you guys want to hear about the secret to landing more clients? Or do you want to hear about our like hippie, dippie woowoo practices that help us in our own business? And I mean, the response has been crazy. Everyone's like, I want to hear about the hippie dippie woowoo stuff, and I just wasn't expecting that. But I shouldn't. I shouldn't be doubting it. I mean, I should expect it because we're attracting our creative enough, pack it because we're putting it out there. That's what we're attracting. So I think that it's, I just think it's really cool how that happens. And it's not, like whenever it comes to a personal brand, it is not strategy. Like I'm not actively thinking like, Oh, I need to be this way to attract these people. It's really, like I said earlier, about simply being yourself and being brave enough to be enthusiastic about what you like, and sharing that not only with your friends, and your co workers and your creative colleagues, but sharing it with your Instagram followers, writing a blog post doing a podcast, like you've got to put it out there, you've got to share it,

Emily Thompson: 41:41

you do you have to or LTU, or else you will attract people that you don't like working with, like, every time I've ever sort of stopped to my personal brand still, like hunker down and really work on client work. And I'm not sharing as much online, I start getting inquiries from people that I don't want to work with that, yeah. But whenever I start putting it back out there, whenever I'm, I'm actively engaging as this personal brand. And again, not trying to attract anyone, but simply putting it out there. Because I'm in like online presence being is where we live, it is you but you do you attract, you attract the people that you want to work with and that you want to collaborate with, or that you simply want to talk to. And we talked a couple of episodes ago about you know, just receiving emails from people who simply love what you do. And those come whenever you're like authentically sharing who you are in the online or offline space. Whether that be straight up the things that you love, or maybe it's the kind of things that is going to make people not like you very much, which is fine as long as it's a good thing.

Kathleen Shannon: 42:55

Don't like for example, I write about meditating. And some my my work and how like meditating can really help you in business that might totally turn someone off they might think is really stupid. That's okay, is totally fine. Like I'm confident enough in in that, that I don't need approval from someone who doesn't like it.

Emily Thompson: 43:19

Right? Yeah. And on this side of things like my tell you like it, his way of being turns a lot of people off. Like that's I've gotten plenty of emails and had plenty of clients who didn't realize it quite quickly enough. That that I'm one of those people I'm not just gonna sit and take excuses or, or, you know, answer your questions and like the nicest way possible all the time. Like sometimes I'm just gonna tell you how it is because it's not sugarcoating. It's not personal. It's business.

Kathleen Shannon: 43:47

Well, and I think that whenever it comes to your personal brand, Emily, it's like okay, so people know you for being sale like it is. But then like, what is the next layer? Like what surprises people after they meet you and work with you and get to know you like, once you've kind of vetted out the people that might not like that you are not responding to emergencies at 2am. Like once they get to know you, it might surprise them, that you really will sometimes drop everything and tackle their project. And they really love and respect that. So it's kind of like okay, I know you Emily as a no nonsense, no bullshit, get her dime. But it might surprise people to know that like, once they get in with you, that you're so nice and caring, like you really care, right? Like

Emily Thompson: 44:40

and my thing is, my thing has always been, I'm not going to let people make bad decisions or uninformed decisions. And so a lot of times like in my work, what happens is, you know, someone come to me thinking they know exactly what they need for their website personally or something. And that is obviously my expertise. They're hiring me because that's my expert. So if they come to me and they want to do like, I don't know, some sort of flash nonsense, because someone just told them that that's kind of the thing that's going on.

Unknown: 45:09

I'll tell them no.

Kathleen Shannon: 45:11

But like I wait, wait, is flash making an ironic comeback right now? Is it like the,

Emily Thompson: 45:17

I don't know, I can't even like get into it. I know they were drawing too for a moment. And it was one of those things that I could not even deal with it. We'll see someday if it becomes magical again. But But flashes, that it's a it's a coding language that that is not very compatible across multiple, like, you can't see it on your iPhone and things like that. So whenever people come to me, and you know, they try to make decisions based on whatever they've read online or whatever, you know, it's my job to not allow them to make those sort of bad decisions. So yes, I'm tell it like it is. But telling it like it is equals, you're going to get exactly what you need. And people love that people love being being told, like, I'm not going to do this. And here's why. Like, I don't just say no, I give them very good reasons. And I give them very helpful alternatives.

Kathleen Shannon: 46:03

See, and in, in my work. And because I'm helping people uncover their personal brand, it's really all about helping them trust themselves. By letting them in on the collaboration and the process and the method along the way. It's really about asking the right questions in a lot of different ways. So they can start to feel really confident about who they are like that is my job. And it's my higher purpose to the people to be who they are 100% of the time. And so sometimes people start to like backpedal or second guess themselves whenever they start to look for external validation or go back to those old rules. And so that's where I hold them accountable. So that same way that you hold someone accountable to not make a bad decision whenever it comes to their website. Mine is holding someone accountable to okay, but wait, you said this, use a Why are you doing this, like there's like, pointing out those disconnects. And but also helping them see what's really rising to the top. I just like, want to close this out by really saying that by being yourself 100% of the time that you will see it pay off in both your bank account and in your soul, like in your creative career and doing what you love and really living that dream. Be yourself. Be yourself a second that are so my mom says just be yourself what the moms know, or what is it like, you know, in our people auditioning for the real world and they're like, how did you get into the real world? And they're like, I mean, on my audition tape, I was just myself. Like, that's what I did. And then I got on the real world. Did you ever watch the real world? Yeah, like i a lot of real I watched it from I mean, I remember like john the cowboy. Like, I think that was the second season in New York. And like Pedro, I really

Emily Thompson: 48:10

just watched it so that I could see they're like apartments

Unknown: 48:12

are like, they always have the best house.

Emily Thompson: 48:15

And the drunken like late night bed pillow talk. Those are always my favorite. Like they would put the cover over their head like we still hear you.

Kathleen Shannon: 48:26

Like your mic is on.

Emily Thompson: 48:27

Yeah. Anyway, regarding

Kathleen Shannon: 48:31

personal branding, personal is a lot like being in the real world.

Emily Thompson: 48:35

Yes, just being who you are, and you'll get all the screen time. Perfect. Less drunk though, please. Okay, if

Kathleen Shannon: 48:44

you guys have more questions about personal branding, and how that works. Please join our Facebook group. It has been so amazing seeing all the conversation happening in there if Emily and I can't answer your question direct. There's so many people in there popping in and talking to each other and answering each other's questions. Quite a community is growing there. So we'll include a link to our Facebook group on the show notes, and then our newsletter if you haven't signed up for our newsletter yet. Emily and I are working on a secret episode to send out only to our newsletter list so be sure to sign up at love being boss calm

Emily Thompson: 49:26

Yeah, and if if you are looking for personal branding for your business, I'm gonna shameless plug Kathleen and braid creative for her. Because I have worked with braid they designed in the shop RV branding years ago, and we still use it. Like a we still base everything off the stuff that they gave us all those years ago. I've worked with them multiple times with our clients. We pull them in on our indie band projects for people who need really badass personal brands. So if you are looking for personal branding break dot com give them a shout. They do amazing

Kathleen Shannon: 50:03

work. Thanks, Emily.

Unknown: 50:05

You welcome.

Kathleen Shannon: 50:08

I will thank you all for listening to being bossed from Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon. Find our Show Notes for this episode at love being boss calm. Listen to past episodes and subscribe to our new episodes on our website, at iTunes, on Soundcloud and soon to be on Stitcher. If you like our podcast show us some love by reviewing being boss on iTunes and sharing it with a friend. Do the work be boss and we'll see you next week. So you just kind of went like robotic on me. It was like I love Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple Apple.

Emily Thompson: 50:47

That was my remix.

Unknown: 50:48

Yeah.