 Hey everyone, good morning and welcome to Tuesday tea. It is a beautiful Tuesday We had actually a great weekend of warm weather here in Kelowna. It's a little bit cooler in the last couple days But lovely day for tea, which I have here this Tuesday tea We're looking at personal branding tips for sales professionals in 2021 and I get it we're already a quarter in to the year So I really debated if this was the kind of blog post I wanted to do But at the same time the end of March signals a full year that I've Had to make a pivot from the industry that I came from which was the meetings and events industry so I've had a year I guess of observations and so that's why I was comfortable doing this post at the end of Q1 About 2021 and personal branding tips and here's the thing some things obviously have not changed at all But the things that I'm talking about today are things that we that have changed and so while the blog post and the the video do Dive into these seven considerations today. I want to look at them a little bit deeper and more importantly answer your questions or Have that dialogue with you. So I'm hopeful that you will Show up into the chat drop your questions into the chat And of course add some dialogue as we go through these seven considerations So without further ado, let's look at the seven considerations That I feel we should be addressing as we build our personal brands here in 2021 The first one is the belief that we should have an own our own personal brand And here's what's different between last year and this one on this one is that with all of the transitions especially for people who Have had to leave their place of employment or find new employment Now is the time to start creating a personal brand It may not have been something that you considered in the past But as so many people are going through this employment transition I think it's more important than ever to have a brand and have a brand that's separate from Your organization now the two brands can obviously be aligned Hopefully you're working for an organization that shares the same values Shares the same beliefs shares the same drive that you have But having a personal brand not only is going to attract business to you as a salesperson But in turn of course your organization is going to benefit So believing that you Can own and develop your own personal brand especially as you go through any employment transition Is key for your success as you head into 2021 So I would love to know if you are in an employment transition right now Be it you're looking for employment or you just got new employment if personal brand has been playing In your mind as you've been going through this journey number two is to know yourself and What 2020 did for a number of us was give us that great pause, right? We call called it the great pause of 2020 Where we had no choice but to step back from our chaotic lives we had no choice but to Stop driving kids to sports and stop going to all of the things that we had planned for ourselves as well We had no choice but to kind of Rest in our homes and in our communities and kind of wait things out And that great pause did give us opportunity to learn more about ourselves More about our family dynamics. That's for sure So that great pause I'm hoping we took advantage of that pause And it came out the other side knowing more about what's important to us I know I certainly did spending time with my family In particular my husband we both work from home But can go days without seeing each other because we're so busy with our work But that great pause where we were able to Get into the garden together a lot more often that was the knowing of thyself for me and I guess reordering my priorities How important my family was to me how important my marriage relationship was to me so knowing yourself and Determining what are those things that drive you? What is your idea of success? What is your idea of a personal brand and the things that you want to amplify? We really had opportunity to kind of take a step back I can tell you we've just gone into another round of restrictions here in british columbia canada So I think there's another pause here coming As we're no longer Doing in-room dining and so now we're kind of relegated to our homes and communities again So we're kind of in a mini pause right now Which for some could be a really great again opportunity to kind of take a step back Take some time to reevaluate what it is that drives you what you're passionate about and getting to know yourself better So that's consideration number two number three Is is critical when creating a personal brand because of the uptick on social media Because of what's happened is being consistent with your time and talent and here's what I mean by that When When the pandemic hit last year and we all went through this year The only way that we could interact with each other and show up with each other Was predominantly through social media And of then of course through these zoom meetings and phone calls, etc But social media sure saw an uptick in particular You see clubhouse now For apple users a great uptick in clubhouse LinkedIn had a massive uptick Through 2020 and when you show up consistently with your time and your talent regardless of your platform That's what's going to help help develop your brand So Because we were all online so much more than I think we were before um Giving of your time and talent in and the consistency in your scheduling I think is more important now than ever It's certainly this was one of the considerations that you needed to have before 2020 But it's more prevalent now here in 2021. That is for sure Here is the biggest uh consideration in my opinion the biggest consideration And the biggest learning curve for all of us when developing our personal brands in 2021 and that is mastering the virtual We've never been on video More so than we have in this past year and for some of us that was a blessing some of us that was an absolute curse Uh virtual is not comfortable. Um, it's not comfortable for a lot of people It takes a long time to get comfortable with virtual But given where we are, this is one of the skills that we need to master in order to amplify our brand And create connections with our clients our prospects Our colleagues our friends our collaborators, whatever that looks like So mastering the virtual this it's almost a no-brainer but at the same time if you haven't taken the time to learn how to Uh capitalize on the virtual platforms. Um, this is the year to do so And number five, which is similar to number four is of course mastering social media um I've been on social media For a long time. I was I think twitter was my first social media platform Um, I was one of the early adopters with twitter. Um, I'm on clubhouse now not an early adopter Well, I guess you could call me an early adopter. I got on in january. It started back, uh last august So I have a comfort level with using social media But there are some social media platforms that are kind of fairly new to me. And so this is a learning curve for me Uh clubhouse for those of you who are on clubhouse It gives you opportunity to link back to twitter which check mark for lienne and also to link back to instagram Um, I wasn't really great at instagram. So now my learning curve is um mastering the instagram platform, which Is a huge huge project for me. So How you want to amplify your brand and when you decide what platforms you want to be on mastering that platform Is going to be key in 2021 because social media is not going away anytime soon Like I said, there just seems to be adding platforms So it's it's a great right now if you're in b2b like you like I am LinkedIn is going to be the platform that you want to look a little bit closer at Um, linkedin is really exploded over the past year. Um, again because of that employment surge and people looking for jobs Um, and now now there's a hiring surge again. So there's a ton of recruiters Um, capitalizing on linkedin to find talent to fill the gaps that may have been left When this all happened. So do you see what's happening? It's just this perfect storm of people coming to linkedin to be seen And to see people so this is the year for linkedin if you're in b2b my friends And if you've already mastered linkedin, there's these other platforms like clubhouse like instagram like facebook that you might want to look into um, so that brings us to number six. This is probably the The the most abstract I suppose of the considerations And everything that's happened over the past year the the big one of the most abstract considerations is to show empathy Um for one and for all so 2020 uh saw the rise of black lives matter Now here in 2021 we see the rise of stop asian hate. Um, even before 2020 we We were all on a learning curve of how to be more inclusive of people with different genders and different sexual orientations and showing empathy for everyone regardless of What they look like what flag they carry? Who they're married to who they're not married to is so critically critically important when Developing your personal brand For a number of reasons number one Love rules all right right number one Love is going to what's going to bring you success and happiness. It's not going to be hate. So that's easy one, but number two with um the awareness of The the need for compassion and empathy for one and for all With the introduction of cancel culture and you've probably heard that term And what cancel culture is is basically cancelling out someone who Exhibits hate in some way shape or form um, so it's an interesting dialogue the the dialogue of authenticity versus cancel culture But my hope is is that when Our authentic personal brands is a brand of love and compassion And so this one might be very easy for you Maybe you had tons of love and tons of compassion Before 2020. I know this one's relatively easy for me, but I have a lot to learn And so that's what falls under this consideration for me Is I have a lot to learn about some of these issues and how I can be more compassionate and loving towards all people into 2021 So that's why I wanted to include that consideration as well And number seven which falls very much in line with number six is just to keep your brand respectful number seven and keeping your brand respectful is more again about the amplification of your brand It's so critically important that The content that you're putting out there Does not harm hurt in any way shape or form And that you are respecting of all individuals in the content you put out there Again, this one might be easier said or might be easier for some people than others But so critically important as we all work towards Being a more loving and compassionate society in 2021. Uh, it's been a difficult year for everyone Difficult year for those who have lost family members Due to COVID-19 or otherwise and weren't able to celebrate their lives Through the funerals and the celebrations of life in person It's been a difficult year for My extroverted friends who have really struggled to get together with other people And I think about some of my single friends and how their situation was so So different from mine because I had a family and a dog and You know a bubble of other married couples that I could Lean on So being respectful To every person you come across you have no idea what they're going through on a daily basis That is definitely a key consideration in 2021 So I would love for you to uh drop in the comments any questions you have or Anything you would like to ask about branding considerations in 2021 These of course may change again in 2022 and I'm hoping that it does The one thing with our personal brands is it's always a journey Personal brand is not a destination. It is definitely a journey And there are some great sites to see along the way It's so exciting when you start to be intentional around your personal brand So those are my seven ways to be intentional About your brand in 2021 Again, if you have questions or you'd like to even drop in the comments, which consideration is most important for you In 2021 would love to hear that Thank you so much for joining me and joining me for a cup of tea today on Tuesday tea Next week we are I'm so lucky I am honored and privileged To be sitting down with my good friend Heather reed. We're going to talk about imposter syndrome How it's cropped up for us over this past year and some strategies on how you can uh help Help endure You can help battle imposter syndrome when it shows up in your life Thank you again for joining me. Have a great week and we'll see you next Tuesday same time same place Bye for now