 Hello and welcome. Excited to have you all back here today and I'm really excited for our guest Sarah Chambers. Sarah is the founder and CEO of Ellie and Nora Creative which I hope Sarah you're going to tell us about that name because I hear it's a great story but you're here to talk to us about why personal branding matters and I'm really excited for this as we move into the nonprofit show. We've done over three years of episodes and I don't think we've talked quite about personal branding so this will be good for us. I want to give a shout out to Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy for having this bananas idea three years ago. She thought it would last two weeks and here we are moving along quite strong but again thank you Julia for creating this space and place for us to nerd out for the nonprofit show. I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd, CEO of the Raven Group, honored to serve alongside Julia each and every day as the co-host and we are also honored to have the ongoing support, the investment and the belief and trust from these presenting sponsors so for those of you watching you can see their logos those of you listening I'm going to give a verbal shout out to our friends so thank you to Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University, Bee Generous, your part-time controller, Staffing Boutique, Nonprofit Thought Leader and the Nonprofit Nerd. Again these companies keep us moving and grooving in these episodes and we're just so honored to have their support. Hey I mentioned how long the show has been running so three years over 600 episodes if you missed any of our episodes or you want to go back and listen to what Sarah's going to share with us today you can find us on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire TV and Vimeo. If you're a podcast listener like I am I was just talking to Sarah about a podcast I was listening to today you can listen to the non-profit show wherever you stream your podcast so go ahead and queue us up there. Sarah welcome thanks for joining us. Oh thank you so much for having me I'm super honored to be with you today. I am so happy to have you I know you and I have connected probably it feels like much longer ago it's probably only but a few months but really excited to have you on for those of you that haven't met Sarah Sarah Chambers founder CEO at Ellie and Nora Creative. If you want to check out our website it is ellieandnoracreative.com. Start us off would you Sarah tell us the story about the company name? Yes of course I really love sharing the story because it is such a talking point when people meet me and they're like hey your name is Sarah it's not Ellie or Norris now I'm really confused. So when I started the company it all started around vision like a lot of organizations and companies do and my vision for the company was to be able to extend outside of myself to not be the Sarah Chambers creative agency because I had a vision for team and culture and creating something bigger than just me and it's really hard for people to really grasp on to something that someone else's name I think so my long-term vision didn't really support using my name and so when I thought about what do I want to name this thing when I want to commit to long term I really was reflecting on women who had inspired me in history and so Ellie is inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt and Nora is inspired by Nora Efron and I feel like those women have really specific and unique qualities that I thought were very important to the type of work that I intended to do such as working with values based businesses and causes and there was a lot of advocacy inside of both of them and Eleanor Roosevelt really worked in ahead of her time she was really a big visionary and Nora Efron was a brilliant creative she had the power of wit and observation and she didn't take herself too seriously so I feel like that's kind of where it came from and I can lean on women who have come before me to be able to help me create vision as I move forward into what I want to do. Thank you that truly gives me chills I know the stories on your website I haven't seen it on your website I just didn't dive deep enough I suppose what a great story I love that I would say you know if I were to name my company that it would probably be Amelia Earhart and Nadia Comenici. Oh good ones yeah oh I feel so blessed that we have so many women to look to especially as as we move forward there's so many inspiring people that we can look to to name not just name our companies after but really to frame our lives around. Absolutely and thank you for sharing that and as we move into this we're going to talk about personal branding and now I'm thinking of you know these two amazing women that you've named this company after share with us let's let's kick it off here you know Sarah talk to us about why personal branding matters for nonprofit leadership and maybe in particular the CEOs of the nonprofits. Yeah of course so it and this might not be true for everybody but in my experience in talking to CEOs and in high executive leadership in the context of nonprofit organizations a lot of them see themselves separate from their for-profit counterparts in the way that they conduct their business and the way that they show up because they really want to be in service of the organization and a lot of CEOs feel like if I step into the light and if I claim that space then I'm somehow removing that attention from the cause or from the organization that I support and really my message back to that is that this light that we're shining on ourselves it's not pie it's not like if I take some of the light away that that reduces some of the light that comes to the organization it's actually quite opposite and that people connect with people and not logos and not organizations and not mission statements they connect with people and if you think about your your development team if you have one that's the reason why we really have to have development team professionals inside of our organization that give your donors and your partners your advocate somebody to connect to that they feel I have an in at that organization it's really the same thinking for the CEO to be to have someone at the highest level of this organization representing the organization as a human really brings connection to the cause to the organization to what it is that you're trying to do in a way that the organization can't do on its own and so personal branding is really important part of really curving out and rounding out your communication strategy so I like to say it's not just a nice to have anymore it's actually a really crucial part of any communication strategy regardless of whether you are in a for-profit or a nonprofit organization and I just think that nonprofit CEOs and leadership tend to think of themselves as separate or not really needing that and that's not true they need it just as much I love that and I love that you know you're all about this personal branding before we went live I just have to acknowledge the poster behind you or the the print behind you tell our viewers and listeners Sarah what that sign says behind you yeah I don't you can't quite see it it says no one is you and that is your power I love this one and then I also start a lot of my talks on branding with the Oscar Wilde quote that says be yourself everyone else is taken giant literary nerd that's that that is a such a good one and as we move into this and I love that we're addressing this it's so important for you know our community members to connect with people with humans as you said you know and that personal branding now I've had clients tell me before Sarah that they struggle with being the face of the nonprofit they feel like it's making it all about themselves so that's what we're going to talk about now is being the face of the nonprofit without making it all about yourself talk to us about this and how we can address this yeah so um this might be a little hard to hear so stay with me it was like a little bit of tough love um when people are scared about making it about themselves it oftentimes is not a fear that comes from taking away from the nonprofit it's a fear about being seen and so a lot of the work that we do inside of personal branding is very tactical and is very strategic but it's also very personal and so I would invite you to really dig deep inside yourself and look internally and ask yourself am I really worried that I'm taking away the spotlight from my organization or am I really just being afraid to step into the light to be seen to put myself out there for fear of what people might say or for being called out on something or you know and it's it's risky and so I think that that's primarily the issue that people take um even if they haven't quite figured that out or come to terms with that yet what about imposter syndrome do you see that as well in this space in particular with like not wanting to be seen worried you know that um I don't know people might not see me as that expert do you see imposter syndrome show up I think that imposter syndrome is always I would be so bold as to stake the claim to say that it's always going to be there we just collectively all get better at dealing with it so every person that you meet that you look at they are like wow they're incredible are doing amazing things like it's very very highly likely that they have dealt with that also and I think that a little bit of it is just getting out of your own way and if you truly truly care about the organization you're going to want to do what's best for the cause and the organization even if that means I have to take a risk I have to step outside of what my comfort zone and I have to be seen a lot of nonprofit CEOs are already doing this to some degree they're meeting with donors they're going to events they're they're existing as the face of the organization but in a really controlled environment and so it's really just about taking that and expanding your reach to digital as well to be seen and have greater impact and greater visibility and I I'm going back to your pi statement right it's like it's not pie there's plenty to go around if it is pie it's a buffet of pie right and it's it's just going to keep being set back on the buffet are you seeing that social media this digital space as it continues to grow is that a great place for us to play and be visible in this personal branding yeah absolutely so it just I think people get overwhelmed because there are so many different platforms and there's so many different ways to show up and they feel like I can't possibly create content across all of these platforms and show up everywhere and then also do my job and I would say like you don't have to so picking the platforms that are most relevant to how you show up naturally as well as where you think that your donors might be showing up and not just thinking about social media as like a young person's game I feel like a lot of I talk to a lot of nonprofits who are not leveraging social in a way that they could be because they have some maybe limiting beliefs around who is on social and the data just isn't supporting that anymore and getting your cause and your organization to be in front of more eyes this is an incredible time in history for nonprofits to be able to leverage content out in front of people and to get in front of people in a digital space and to not want to take advantage of that both organizationally and as a part of your personal brand feels like a massive missed opportunity yeah I think it could really hinder the opportunity for the for the nonprofit and I'm curious Sarah do you recommend this I know we're talking about personal branding for that C-suite the CEO you know do you recommend this for all individuals of the nonprofit as well as the CEO like what is too much what's too little what are you seeing as best practice there yeah so something that I kind of want to pull back to and then answer your question is that I think a lot of times we think about do I should I build a personal brand or is that worth my time and I really want to challenge that belief because the reality is that we all have a personal brand we have one I have one you have one and really the the question becomes do I want to let that personal brand dictate what is said about me without my influence without my input do I want to let the narrative create itself it's kind of like I talk about it like company culture you have an organizational culture and it's up to you to decide whether or not you're going to intentionally craft that and you're going to drive that forward with intention and purpose or if you're going to just kind of let it develop on its own because it will it will develop on its own and a personal brand is really just about your reputation it's about what people know you for and so people are going to know you for something and you just have to decide whether you're willing to step into the driver's seat of that narrative or not and that's totally up to you and so using that frame of understanding to answer your question everybody on your staff has a personal brand it's it's innate it's who they are it's how they're showing up in spaces both online and offline and so I would say that that's a personal decision for each member of your team and your staff to decide if they want to intentionally step into the driver's seat of that narrative and if so then it would be great to resource your team and your staff for helping them figure out okay if I if they do want to do that you know if they do want to share what their value systems are and what they care about and who they are in a digital space how can we empower them to do that in a way that might potentially also benefit the organization because now they're not just a staff member they're actually an advocate yeah that is so powerful what you said it's you know we all have a personal brand a reputation we can choose to take that driver's seat or we can choose to take that backseat and kind of just let it roll out without us guiding the course that was so powerful sarah yeah yeah I I truly believe that and especially because we as people who have deep value I'm just making some assumptions that as the leadership of an organization you have deep values and deep conviction for the thing that you're doing and so really what we want at the end of the day is for more people to come along and we want more people to join us in that effort and creating a change or building any sort of sustainability or moving the world in a direction towards our vision is not done in a silo it is done in the context of community and when you put yourself out there in a really intentional and authentic way you're inviting other people to join you in that community and join you in that cause and join you in that effort and they can't do that if they can't first connect with you and so personal branding is really about being brave enough to put yourself out there so that people can recognize who you are and what you're about and join hands with you in your effort to make big changes I feel like I'm talking to Brené Brown a little bit right now I mean that is probably the very best compliment you could have ever given me ever I'm going to write that down somewhere absolutely maybe the next poster but yeah well and I think too you know having that courage having that bravery we've talked a lot about on the show you know being the face of the non-profit you know oftentimes leaders are tapped on the shoulder and kind of not kind of they are recruited to another organization that's personal brand that's reputation and so I think you know it bodes well for so much I'm curious if we can talk now about how we should define and can define our personal pillars and get visible with those personal pillars that's a lot to unpack I feel but if anyone's going to do it it's going to be Sarah slash Brené Brown oh my goodness yes so those are kind of two different questions so I'm going to tackle this first part and then we'll kind of bring it back to visibility and I'm really glad I feel like you kind of teed me up and you didn't even know that you're doing it um with the idea that our personal brand allows us to be open to other opportunities so maybe you're being recruited to a different organization and so that really leads into the idea that you have to have a personal brand that has parallels to your organization but is not built on the foundation of that organization and so what that looks like is really crafting and understanding your personal values and who you are as a human and what you care about and how you show up in the world and better understanding that because those are the things that are not going to change for the most part we're always evolving as humans and so there is a lot of flexibility but when you craft a really strong foundation that is built on personal values that this is what I believe 100 of the time to be true this is who I am as a human this is how I exist in the world then it doesn't matter what organization that you're working with those values stay intact and so you can move fluidly throughout your life and yet you can still be continuing to build this reputation you can still continue to be building out on top of lived experience um lived experience on top of lived experience that continues to perpetuate and reinforce who you are and how you show up and so I think that it's really important for us to craft our pillars for our brand to say this is who I am and what I'm about outside of the context of our organization and so deciding who you are and also that's going to help you clarify what the next best opportunity is for you because if you have those clearly defined for yourself then an opportunity comes along and it might look on paper like a really great opportunity but if it's not in alignment with your brand values and who you are as a person then it becomes a really really profound filtration system for how you can really quickly and easily make decisions about what is good for you because you can say that's a really great opportunity but that doesn't really sit in alignment with what I want to be known for what I want to associate myself and what I want to move forward in the world and so I think that that's kind of the first the first part is really understanding who you are on your own outside of who you're working for in the moment. I appreciate that so much and that's I look at that often with my potential clients I look at their mission vision value statement to say okay is this in alignment right but I have to say Sarah it's taken me a long time to get there because early in my career and I shared 14 years right are in my in my business it was like you know money is green and I needed the cash and so just alignment I think is always a practice at least it is for me but I'm curious if you can now talk about that visibility piece of it because I know we don't have too much time and I want to make sure that we talk about you know establishing those pillars finding them being them and then also being visible with them. Yeah so that's really kind of the next step like you're building this foundation and that's really what we call brand activation so we operate in two kind of distinct segments the building of your brand and then the activation and so that visibility piece is really about taking that strategy and what you've decided kind of what we talked about with building your brand values and executing that in the world and the reality is is that there is not just one right path there's not one way to success when it becomes when it comes to visibility however I will say that the thing that matters most is consistency and so deciding where makes the most sense for you to show up again making sure that you check in with yourself and are aligned if showing up on video like terrifies you then YouTube probably isn't like the platform for you and there are plenty of others for you maybe podcast so deciding first how you like to create content naturally is it written is it audio is it visual or is it in person and really crafting content around how you show up naturally because it's going to show through if you're super uncomfortable on video it's going to look like you're super on of course you can practice and get better without intention but I would say start with the pieces of content and media that feel most natural to you so is it writing you can do blogs if it's audio podcast is a really great way to go if it's video video series is awesome and if it's in person then think about how you can craft community and create in person events that become that anchor of your thought leadership and then decide what are the social media platforms that can best distribute that thought leadership and that content so I want you to think about social media platforms not as the thing but the method to get the thing out there and so where does your content actually live where does your thought leadership live as its home base and then how can you use social to distribute it so I would say be really intentional don't feel like you have to choose all of the things all at once decide where your home base content should be what makes the most sense in terms of medium for you and then choose the social media platforms that are going to be best for you to distribute your message out into the people whose eyes that you want to be in front of and then make a plan to show up consistently over and over and over again because that is what creates trust and brands are built on trust trust rapport that return on relationship I'm curious you know with I feel so many things are so polarizing now you know that if we say something and offend someone or are we speak a political different as someone you know are we in our visibility Sarah making ourselves available for what do I say like social attacks you know like how do we play safe or do we play safe in that visibility of our personal brand yeah so I think this is gonna be like a gut check and there's not like one right answer for every single person but I'll share how how I think about it um I'm kind of I'm a risk taker you know that's about me um and I really make sure that when we're working with our clients that we are encouraging them to stand in their truth and to stand for the things that matter to them and especially in nonprofit space like sometimes organizations can kind of like not for profit can kind of slide under the radar about but we actually really encourage all organizations for profit nonprofit or otherwise to stand for something to take a stand and with that decide the things that you're going to take a stand on and decide the things that you don't have to because you do not have to go to every fight you're invited to and not every cause is relevant for you to create an opinion about publicly you can hold your own opinion so it's I think it's about deciding what makes sense for me to speak on and what I need to hold because we are authentic humans and we have so many parts of us but when it comes to deciding what shows up in a digital space we often feel like well I have to show every part I have to show every opinion I have to show everything and for us it's about hey if you spread yourself so thin and you share all of these different things anyways it's not even good strategy because people won't know what you're about or who you're for or what you're thinking or what you do because you've talked about so many different things so choosing intentionally the things that you want to be known for and showing up in those spaces consistently and then letting the rest of your life in your opinions remain sacred is really powerful I will say though that it's really tempting for organizations to want to hop on bandwagons for political and social issues and so like for example we see a lot of greenwashing that comes around when it comes around like April is Earth Day and so I see a lot of that or when we have history observance months such as Black History Month and so I would actually really invite you to dig deep and take a look at your organization's values and not just what is on the poster in your breakroom but how you actually conduct yourself and what your organization stands for and if you have practices in your business that are not sustainable and that are harming the earth there's so much transparency in the world right now and the worst thing you can do is be a hypocrite so be really careful about hopping on social and political bandwagons if that's not authentic to who you are as an organization if you don't have a diverse and equitable leadership team then please don't post on celebrating the history of the contributions of people in the Black community that's the worst thing that you could do you need to sit down and so I think that that's really hard especially for leaders who are not in marginalized communities to want to like leverage their community to say certain things but if that's not who you are as if that's not how you're showing up to be and I invite you to dig deeper into that for sure but really be hesitant to jump on bandwagons and use the opportunity to look inward to have conversations among yourself your executive team and your staff about how we can do better in these areas and then be really transparent about how you're showing up you have to be willing to take a stand but I would just say make sure that you're aware and cautious about posting content that doesn't truly align with who you are as an organization or a human yeah and with those pillars and thank you for going in that in that direction sharing that I know now it's such a such a divisive time Julie and I have talked often about you know over the three years the pandemic's plural that have taken place and I just love that you address this Sarah when it comes to our personal brand you know as it relates to the organization and for ourself it's so very important um to have that there all that you've shared today has been fascinating the time has flown by I just looked at my clock it was like oh no I have to wrap this up but I really just want to keep talking with you so Sarah Chambers founder CEO at Ellie and Nora creative please check her website out Ellie and Nora creative.com she's very active on LinkedIn you can see her personal brand in action on LinkedIn which I admire and I think is what connected us originally so thank you for for this Sarah um it's been phenomenal talking to you so very much I again want to thank Julia Patrick for creating this platform for us to talk about personal branding and I want to thank our sponsors that allow us these conversations like the ones that we just had here with Sarah Chambers so thank you to Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy Fundraising Academy with National University be generous your part-time controller staffing boutique non-profit thought leader and the non-profit nerd Sarah I really meant it like Brené Brown is is one of mine if I had a three-name company it might be Amelia Nadia and and Brené so thank you thank you so much for having me it was truly a pleasure I hope that it was helpful very helpful and I know our viewers and our listeners have found it extremely helpful hey if you want to share this conversation with anyone on your team please do that you will see us on all the streaming channels as well as podcasts so Sarah thanks again for being you that's your superpower I I adore your superpower for those of you that joined us today make sure that you are you and you use your superpower join us back tomorrow it's a Friday or as I like to say Friday ask an answer and uh we're gonna have a great conversation tomorrow until then we want to remind you to please stay well so you can do well thank you Sarah