 Well, hello, I agree with afternoon and good evening. Welcome to Tuesday Tea. We're doing Tuesday Tea a little bit earlier today to accommodate my esteemed guest who comes from us all the way from Europe. Maret Pettavani is here to talk about how we can build our personal brands in our hotel spaces. Welcome, Maret. I've looked forward to this conversation for so many weeks. Thank you so much, Liana. Always amazing to chat with you. So yeah, I'm calling in from Switzerland and here is evening. So I don't have tea at this time of the evening. Well, I haven't been able to chat with you. Yeah, well, that's the thing. I need tea. It's only 11 o'clock in the morning in my corner of the world. But yeah, I mean, Switzerland, I was in Switzerland, gosh, it's probably 16 years ago. That seems like forever, but yet it seems like yesterday. So I think I'm due to come back and maybe visit you very soon. You should have come back. So yeah, so as you said, my name is Maret and I work in luxury hospitality here in Switzerland. I've been in a few countries. Actually, it's my 14th destination in life. I've lived and worked in several places. And now in marketing for luxury hotels. Well, and I understand. And Maret, from your bio that you provided me, I understand that you speak five languages and you started off with a PhD in finance of all things. So can you tell us a little bit? How do you jump from finance to where you are now? You know, I always get this question and I think having lived it myself. So it's my life, of course, right? So for me, didn't feel that strange or odd. I actually moved from finance to finance communications and from finance communications to travel, blogging while I was still doing finance communications and from there to hotel communications and marketing. So it wasn't like a jump from investment banking to hotels. It was more of an indirect route through communications. And interestingly enough, when you do marketing or communications in different industries, you realize it's not gonna say it's exactly the same. But very, very much the same, right? So the industry changes, but the concepts and the way of thinking and the way you set up campaigns and so on, isn't really different. Well, and what I love about that story is I think often when we're in this industry, the hotel industry, the hospitality industry, we lose sight of how transferable our skills really are and how the things that we do in our roles can translate to other industries very quickly. Now you did the reverse translation and you brought those skills over to our industry, but I'm hopeful that people are encouraged that no matter what it is that they're doing in their role now, those skills are transferable. You can do those in so many other ways. And I see a lot of people. And it's not surprising when you think about it, especially if it feels such as marketing and public relations and communications and so on. And especially if you think of actually any role, right? If you're leading teams, for instance, and leadership values, they're not exclusive to the hotel industry, right? So many skills that we learn, they are transferable. And I think we know that recruiters might not always know that, but I think if we are smart enough to realize that we can transfer some skills if we wanted to, right? I mean, so when it comes to marketing, you know, we're always on these clubhouse rooms, right? And there's so many clubhouse rooms on marketing, digital marketing, and it's always the same channels. No matter what industry we all use, like Facebook, Instagram, we all use emails. We all use websites. So when it comes to marketing, when you think about it, it doesn't really matter what industry you're in. If you get it right, you get it right, yeah? It's so true. And it's a great segue into what we're talking about today, which is a form of marketing. Cause a lot of us, we market on behalf of the brands that we represent or the hotel properties that we represent. And you and I are talking today about the number one brand that we should be representing and that's our own personal brands. And so you have a history with marketing and you've been doing it for so long, but when did it kind of dawn on you that it was time for you to even market yourself and create a personal brand in our space? I think I never thought about it and don't even think about it now. I think it just came very, I know we always tend to say, you think intentionally, but this is one thing I did not do intentionally. I am very intentional in creating the content. That's yes. Because you need to be intentional with that. It's not that you just wake up and all of a sudden, oh, I created some content. You need to be very intentional on the content that you create on the way you promote your content and the way you distribute your content, right? So that's all part of the branding process. But I wasn't intentional saying, I need to create a personal brand. And I think that came quite spontaneously. It's just that it's my character. I'm gonna say I like to show off, but I do like to talk about the things I do. I do like to share things and especially I like to share things that I think are useful. So from my social channels, I don't really talk about my personal life. I don't share personal things. It's all really related to what I do professionally or the things that I like to do in the world of marketing and hotels and business also, not only hotel marketing, right? I've always been like that. So I've always loved connecting with people. It's almost like a disease, I call it. I just love networking and connecting with people and meeting people. And so I've always been like that. Now with LinkedIn and social media and so on, now this is called personal branding somehow. So yeah, that's how I started personal branding without really knowing it. And the thing that makes me smile is because tomorrow I'm actually holding a lecture at the university on personal branding because the hotel's cool. Oh, nice, nice. And these are such a coincidence that your room is today and the lecture is tomorrow. And I'm like, well, I never even thought about personal branding and here I am now lecturing people about personal branding. Well, and some of the questions that you're going to get is probably for someone who needs to be intentional because it never came naturally to them. For someone who does need to be intentional about a brand, what's the first thing they need to do to kind of get started? I think it's amazing. And the first do, because I have a list of do's and don'ts when it comes to personal branding. And my very first do is do be intentional because I think you can be intentional. Yes, because I think about it. Like I think I'm doing a pretty good job at it without being that intentional or I wasn't intentional at the start, right? So imagine if you are intentional about it. I think whenever you're intentional in life and anything, you just do better, right? Yes, yeah. With this crew, that sometimes some things you just happen and you cannot be intentional about everything in life, things happen, good things, bad things happen. But if you can be intentional about personal branding, please do be intentional, especially nowadays. So I mean, I'm about 40, but think of people who are younger. Only know social media. Like they don't know the old days when you would actually type things or you know, you'd actually write a letter by hand and go to the mailbox and made it, right? Yeah, and if you don't have a presence, a good presence on social media, well, first you might not even exist in our industry hotel industry, like we find jobs via LinkedIn, right? I found my job now via LinkedIn. Well, I was contacted via LinkedIn DM and it's not surprising. This is just the way it works. You know, you get to know about jobs via LinkedIn. You get to connect with people via LinkedIn. We call it social selling, right? Yes. And also when it comes to ourselves. So there's a personal branding is the first step of social selling, yeah? Mm-hmm. Well, yeah. And it's interesting you should bring up social selling because it's something that I teach and train on as well. But in the hotel industry, it's still a fairly new concept. So I'm encouraged to hear that you're doing a lecture on personal branding and you'll probably talk about social selling and inbound marketing and all of those fancy buzzwords that kind of personal branding brings. But really our industry is just dipping there are toes into creating personal brands. Why? Number one, why has it taken so long for us to kind of embrace this? And number two, why is it like, what's the opportunity once someone can create a personal brand? Why has it taken so long? I think in the hotel industry it takes so long for so many things. I think this is just one thing we tend to be a slower industry when it comes to adopting trends. We tend to be on the slower side, right? It might be a good thing. It might be the good side is that maybe we let our other industries try things and then if we see that things are working we also get on that trend. So there is the advantage also of being a follower rather than a leader, right? When it comes to personal branding and social selling we are obviously not leaders in this, right? In this respect. To the question of, so why does it take so long? I think it takes long for everything in our industry, good and bad. That's funny. The other question is, oh, it's a reality. I don't like to sugarcoat things and, you know. Now the question of, is it useful, right? Well, try not to preserve brand yourself. Try not to. Try not to social sell. Just try it and you'll get the answer, right? You won't go very far. You won't go very far if people Google you and don't see anything about you. You won't go very far if people are interested in your products and services but not really sure whom to contact, right? So try it and you'll get the answer. You really won't go very far in business. Well, exactly. They say that people buy from people first and foremost. So when you have product like hotels and a good number of hotels, they all look the same and they all have the same features and they all have the same square footage in a ballroom and you're faced with the same choice. Most people choose the option where they have a connection with that property and that's where our personal brands come into play. So I'm excited to hear about the lecture tomorrow. I'm excited to hear the feedback that people give you about the brand and potentially some resistance. And I don't know if you have an answer for this but I get some resistance on the personal brand side when I'm speaking to people because I think people still believe it's the responsibility of the hotel brand themselves. And so that's the resistant is I don't need to build a personal brand because I've got the flag as the brand kind of carrying a load of that. How would you, how do you respond to people? It's two different things. Corporate brand is very different from personal brands. First of all, let's put it very simply. Let's say you spend the whole year just posting and publishing about the brand that you work for, right? What happens after a year? You no longer work for this brand. Yes, yeah. It feels odd, like then all of a sudden you just change completely. First of all, I think it's a bit too, you want to show that you are more than your job like the first of all. I think that's very important, right? That's another also do in your personal brand. Personal brand is one thing. Corporate brand is one thing. And then you also have employer brand which is also a different thing, right? There you go. They coexist, yeah, they coexist harmoniously. There should be some consistency, right? Obviously if you don't work for a luxury brand and then you're a complete hipster in your personal branding, right? I mean, there needs to be consistent, consistency. But you are not just your job title. You are not just your workplace, right? And it can sound so fake if all what you're posting is just about your job, right? So personal brand is not just showing off that you have a fancy title and that you have a nice office with a nice view. It's a person, right? It's about your person, it's about your person. You can also never talk about your job. Well, it's interesting that you should mention people showing up on social media to talk about their jobs. The trend I'm seeing right now, and it is because right now in our industry there's a lot of movement given the pandemic, tons of people moving in and out of the industry. And what I see on social media right now is a lot of I'm at this new place. So we can send our congratulation notes because I'm at this new place and then they disappear from social media. And then they'll come back a year later, or I'm at this new place, do you see that? Exactly, I see it quite often. And the first words that come to mind every time I see that post is missed opportunity. You have a captive audience of sometimes hundreds, maybe thousands of people seeing your post and now we've left them again. And it's just missed opportunity. Let me say something, Dorianne. Let me say something. Maybe I should have started with saying this because you also asked me about the resistance, right? Okay. It can also be the resistance question, like it's for some people, it doesn't come naturally. So what I told you that I wasn't intentional on starting a personal brand, I told you, this is my character, this is how I am. You meet me offline, you meet me online. I am just the same. I love sharing, I love talking and I love adding some value, right? And maybe you can say I'm a boring person. I've always talked about the same things, you know? So like, I always talk about... I don't think it's that. So that's just like really who I am. You meet me also for coffee offline and I still talk about marketing and travel and business and you know, that's just who I am. For some people it cannot come naturally, right? So then it's the question, do I still have to do it even if I don't feel like doing it? That can be a resistance, right? I would personally say, I don't know how you see it. I would personally say, yes, make an effort. Don't want to take it because if you're not that type of person of always, yes, connect, let's have a conversation, let's, let's, let's. You don't have to do it that way, right? But you can find a way that works for you just not to be completely silent, not to be completely absent from all this social scene, right? Well, and I wonder if the words thought leadership, if that intimidates some people, because right now that it's a huge buzzword right now, not just in our space, but in everybody's space about being a thought leader, which is amplifying your personal brand really and sharing your thoughts on a topic. But people, there's a lot of people to your point where it doesn't come naturally and they really don't want to be a thought leader. And not everyone, not everyone is a leader first of all. Yeah. Not everyone likes thinking. So we need to take all of this in consideration, which I'm going to say again now, if everyone now became a thought leader that started live shows, that started, I mean, there would be so much chaos, right? So. It's a lot of content, yeah. But they can still find ways that it would, for instance, can still join like Facebook groups, for instance, they can still join communities that are closer to the way they function, right? To the way they think. There is a place for everyone, introverts, extroverts. You don't have to be completely extroverted like myself, or you don't have to be that loud person that always wants to share and talk. There are quieter ways of personal branding. So, I do think one still should maybe even try. You know, like I was always saying until April, May, I was saying I'm not a video person. I won't never do video. And then since, I don't know how many live shows I've done since July, I was like, you know, sometimes you just have to try things, right? And you might- You're great at video. Yeah, you're great at video. Well, and you're also great at audio, which is where you and I met is in your clubhouse room. And I've always been a firm believer that for the introverts out there who were intimidated by video, and I'm actually an introvert, clubhouse is a great way to start that engagement because you can sit and listen. And then of course, when, you know, you can start to practice going up on stage and stuff. So can you tell us a little bit about your clubhouse journey and what draws you to clubhouse? And I'm going to put your clubhouse club on the screen so people can- Thank you so much. So yeah, my clubhouse journey, my clubhouse journey started February 20. I remember I was on, I was traveling, I was on the train and I received this invite and I said, well, you know, why not? Let's try an extra app, you know, to waste some more time. Let's do it, right? And I remember the first week I was like, oh my God, this is so complicated. I can't understand how it works. Why, what is this thing? Why are people getting it? So the first week I didn't do anything. I was like, oh my God, what's this? And then I remember just one morning, it was a Saturday morning, very early quarter to eights. I remember I was like, I entered the room. I liked the name of the room. Yeah, and then someone invited me to speak. I was like, oh my God, you know, you start freaking out, they're inviting you to speak and you have no clue what to do. Then you said, you know what, let's get on stage and I don't know, I figure it out when I get there, right? And then, yeah, that's how it started. And then I really, really, really, really enjoyed it. And I think for all of us, we were spending way too much time on clubhouse at the beginning. You know, like a lot of time we would not sleep. We would not, it should be the whole time. Check there, I remember I would have clubhouse on or I sleep being just to listen to the rooms. Yeah. And at the start, it was like really a lot of time. And then, yeah, March 6th is when they allowed to open clubs that everyone could open clubs without having to request. And I said, well, yeah, I just, I think it would be good to have a hotel marketing club. And the nice thing about clubhouse, I think I really enjoyed it that much just because, as I said, I really love connecting with people. I really love chatting with people. I really love reaching out to people who I don't know and saying, you know, I heard you talk about this. Let's host a room together. You know, I saw, so I said, that's really how I am even like offline, right? I really love having conversations. And you know, I think of a question. Let's have a conversation about this. Let's have a conversation about that. Lovehouse is perfect for this, right? Well, and you know, and if I was to pick a word that describes you, Maret, the word I would think of is community. You do that so well on clubhouse, obviously, but now in talking to you here, community is just, it's part of you. You like to create community wherever it is that you go. And it's so fitting because you're, you are a community builder in an industry that thrives on communities. So you're in the right place at the right time, et cetera. And that's what I wanna ask you next is, hoteliers have an opportunity here to create community with their brands. Was that intentional that you is to create community or was that again, just a natural extension of who it is that you are? So it's definitely a natural extension. So I mean, years ago when I was very active, especially when the years I was travel blogging, I would organize Instagram meets with people from all over Europe. So I always love bringing people together to your point that this is an industry that brings people together. I would agree and disagree. I think in our industry, we like to give a lot of experiences to guests, right? Whether we are then actually building a community among us hoteliers, I would not be too sure, yeah? I don't care. It's a different community, right? It can be because there's very high turnover and a lot of people you change countries, you change cities. So it's not like where people are more stable and then you really build a very close society. So maybe a community, maybe that's why. So I think we could do a better job at building communities in our industry. You know, I agree, it's funny you should mention we can do a better job. I'm at the end of the year, I always do kind of like a business plan retreat where I look ahead to the next year. And one of the things I'm tackling on Friday is how do I want to contribute and participate in community? Whether it's through our professional associations or through associations that are even outside of our hospitality industry. So it's interesting that you should say we need to do a better job because even our associations within the industry, I think there's opportunity there to do even more for our association members. No, absolutely, I think they're, because community is very important. Community, let's also define it. It's not like having a network to reach out to only when you need a job. Right? It's not community. It's not the list of connections you have on LinkedIn. Right? It's people that you would spam when you need something. This is not community for me, right? That's why I say we could do a better job because we're very good at reaching out to people when we need something. But community is more about that, is being there also when you don't need anything, right? It's about sharing value for free. If you're giving time, you're giving your expertise, even when you don't need anything. That is for me, for me as community. Well, and then that goes right back to the value of having a personal brand and one's brand being about giving away of the knowledge that they have, whether it's a resource, a resource in one area or another, your resources are around community and marketing and bringing people together. And another person's brand is resources around how to have the best hotels stay possible or how to lead a team or how to manage a project. And so hopefully those brands will start to emerge from our collective community in 2022. Can I challenge you with a question though, Marat? Because it's something that I, when I was putting together some of my personal branding materials, our industry is very unique and you said it earlier. Our industry, we're in the industry of bringing people together. We're also in the industry of having experiences and for people to have an experience. Do you feel one can have a personal brand without social media based solely on how they deliver an experience to a client? So the person I'm thinking of is like the restaurant Somalia. Does the Somalia, can they build their brand solely on their reputation inside a restaurant and their reputation with the restaurant patrons or do they need to be on social to have that personal brand presence? That's an amazing question. So personal brand, just as corporate brands, people need to know you, like you, trust you. Now, social media amplifies all this, right? It makes it easier for people to know you. So if you're Somalia and you're very good, some people might know you but on social media more people can know you. There you go. Okay. To like you, some people can know that the guests that come, they know you and they like you because you're charming. You have a nice personality, yes. Now, when it comes to the trust factor, and that also liaises with the thought leadership you were talking about, there I really do think you need social media. The people can trust that you know what you're doing. And it becomes much easier when people see, for instance, the content you're putting out there. When people see how many followers you have, the way you engage with people, trust takes time. So it takes more than just one guest coming to a hotel, trying out your wine, getting to know that you exist. They know you're okay, they like you, they say you have a nice smile. But to trust you, that takes time. That takes more than just one visit. So to have the complete cycle of a personal brand, just a corporate brand or a employer brand, I do think you need social media notice. I love it. So that's what I'm taking away is without social media, you still can create that no one like, but with social media, it amplifies your efforts. It helps you play that long game of creating trust with our clients and our prospects. I love that. Thank you, thank you so much for sharing your answer on that. Okay, so before we wrap up, Moret, I always challenge my guests to share the three words that they would use to describe their personal brand. Now, I know you've done this exercise because you were featured as one of my personal brands in hospitality on social media. I can't remember what I answered, but I have an answer. I know, so this is why I'm telling you this, because you did provide me with three words. And now today you're gonna provide me with three words. And I would like to see how your brand has changed over the past few months. Because that's a big problem. It's a big problem to change. Yeah, so what three words would you use today to describe your personal brand? So definitely connections, collaborations, acumenity, the three Cs. Love it. But I think, because acumenity for me is also about collaboration. So not only connecting, but also collaborating. Collaborating, such as on these live shows, for instance, collaborating and hosting rooms, and then maybe also taking it offline, collaborating with projects. I think no one achieves anything by yourself. You can try doing things on your own, trying to achieve everything by yourself, but it's become so difficult. And why put yourself in this situation? I very much believe in collaboration as we are also making things more fun and more enjoyable. Well, it is always fun and enjoyable to spend time with you, Marat. And you do do those things so well. I've been honored and blessed to be able to be in some of your clubhouse rooms. Thank you for this opportunity to join me today. Marat, if people want to learn more about you, where can they find you? So clubhouse, clubhouse, LinkedIn, Instagram, and the handle is always the same as Marat Padovani. I love connecting as I said several times. So also social media is great to use with new people, new and old connections, always good. Instagram as well. Okay, I'm going to make sure that people can find you on the Instagram. I'm going to drop some comments into this video when we wrap up today. Friends, if you are watching this on replay, continue to send your questions and comments to Marat and I. We're going to be monitoring the feed in the weeks ahead and we want to make sure that we point you in the right direction if you're looking for some resources on personal branding. And if you're in Europe and you would like to learn more about personal branding, Marat's apparently on the lecture tours. So connect with her or make sure that you say hi to Marat and hopefully you'll be able to connect with her in one of her upcoming lectures. Marat, it is always such a pleasure to spend time with you. You are just such a bright light in my day and you're such a bright light in our hospitality community. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much, Leon. Thank you so much. You're welcome. And good luck on your lecture this week. I'll let you know how it goes. Perfect, thank you. Well, thanks for watching everyone. We will see you soon. Next Tuesday, we're talking to Carly Cunningham who is a corporate brander out of Vancouver, BC. So come back next Tuesday, November 30th at 1 p.m. Pacific. That is 4 p.m. Eastern to chat with Carly. We'll see you then. Bye for now.