 Hey, good morning everyone and welcome to Tuesday tea. We are Talking about the importance of personal branding today, but I need to start off with a confession that this topic has me spiraling in a thousand different directions today Just got off a fabulous clubhouse room about Personal branding and talking about the differentiators in your personal brand So we're actually gonna talk about that as well here today just because it's fresh and top of mind So I'm not gonna veer from kind of sort of my agenda in talking about the importance of personal branding But I might get through those reasons Those compelling reasons to create a personal brand And talk a little bit about what I was learning in this clubhouse room about differentiating to create your brand So I've been Yesterday as well talking a lot about personal branding with a couple colleagues were doing a session for an upcoming conference and And one of the recurring themes that came up around personal branding and helping people with their personal brand Is the fact that it's a very abstract concept. It's not something that you can See touch feel taste hold You know a personal brand is something that happens organically Whether you like it or not you are creating a brand What we talk about when we talk about Teaching and learning more about personal branding is now you you're making your brand intentional But you had a brand even before you decided to make it an intentional exercise In your life and of course the reasons we we want to be intentional Goes back to the importance of personal branding and I think first and foremost is When we're intentional about personal branding We then control the messaging that might be said about us Certainly when brands control the messaging and it protects them for That people say things that they want them to say about their brand or their service So controlling the messaging is a big thing for us And I guess the best example I can give is when you Google your name looking at those first few results when you Google your name and ensuring that whatever message is in those first few results is An accurate reflection of what you wanted amplified through your personal brand Now with social media our social media profiles actually do pop up near the top So if you are on LinkedIn LinkedIn is going to pop up near to the top of your Google search results So that's where people are going to go to learn more about you So now it goes back to the importance of having an up-to-date LinkedIn profile and you controlling the message That's amplified through your LinkedIn profile. So that's kind of the one of my top reasons always for Creating and developing and continuing to look at your personal brand is to control the messaging Number two is the important for the number two important thing about personal branding is it actually humanizes your product and Whether you're an entrepreneur and you're selling your own solo products or you're an entrepreneur working in an organization the product you sell is a It's a thing. It's not a feeling emotion filled Person it's not something that you can personally relate to it is it is a thing Now brands do a great job of evoking emotion with their products and I guess a great example is a Piece of Tiffany jewelry coming inside the little blue box that definitely would evoke an emotion in me If I received one of those little blue boxes but the thing itself isn't something that we can communicate with and When you have a personal brand now you have something that you can communicate with And I think for sales professionals. This one is so important regardless of what you're selling be it a piece of Tiffany jewelry or be it a piece of industrial equipment you have a personal connection with the person that sold you or Works for that company and someone that you can talk to about that particular physical Product so humanizing your product is a big thing Whether you have a product or your service and that's of course why we create a personal brand is it does bring a human side? to rather an Intangible intangible thing number three for Reasons why it's important to have a personal brand is it helps you stand out from your competition And this goes back to the club whose room that I was just in prior to jumping on This call is talking about your differentiators in your chosen market and Finding what those differentiators are and so here are some of the things that were shared in the room that I hope are will help you Figure out what helps you stand out from your competition? So there's really two fields of competition, especially if you're an entrepreneur and you have a product or service in an organization So there's two things you need to look at is number one. What sets me apart from my competition? internally So what sets me apart? From even colleagues in the same space, but number two what sets my product or service apart? Now the industry that I'm in deals a lot with hotels and destinations So this is an easy one. What is the differentiating factors for my hotel? What makes my hotel the best choice for such-and-such a person? so going back to this clubhouse room the one thing they or a couple things that they mentioned you should start doing is of course identifying the strengths and Now two-fold you're identifying the strengths that you possess as a salesperson or as an entrepreneur in your space But they're also identifying the strengths that exist for your product or service and what makes them better And I would say that this is an easy task and perhaps it is easy, but I can even speak from being in my own industry I don't think it's communicated nearly enough Because if I was ever tested on what the differentiating factors were between hotel a and hotel b I'm not sure either of those hotels gave me a compelling story to tell So so that again now you've identified the differentiators But are you telling that story so that people remember it and they relay those differentiating factors back to your brand or Back to your product or service So the other thing that they mentioned in the room about differentiators Is that place of service and I know that's been kind of my platform and kind of my Hill the hill I'll die on is coming from a place of service before a place of hard sell And clubhouse and I don't know how many of you are familiar with clubhouse But it's an audio app where you discuss a number of topics and it is about discussion more than selling your product or service So it's about bringing awareness to your brand and the things that you do But not necessarily about the hard sell in these topic rooms so that's what I love about clubhouse is clubhouse is definitely a place of service and 90 to 95 percent of the people on clubhouse Either our listeners to conversations or they're coming from a place of service it almost stands out when someone is coming from a place of selling and so Standing up from your competition coming from a place of service, especially when you are in a sales environment or a selling environment That's definitely going to set you apart because while everyone else is Trying to receive and get the sale you are giving content giving value Giving of yourself and that will help set you apart So number four is a big one right now at least for my industry I can't speak for yours, but if you were in the meetings and events and the hospitality industry Having a personal brand opens the doors for top opportunities Which is so sad to say because it means that people are looking for employment But I can I bet my bottom dollar that again when setting yourself from Sending yourself apart from the competition when you are in a competition for a job position somewhere Having a personal brand being able to find someone's LinkedIn profile and be compelled by that story That will help set them apart when they're competing for a job position So that that's a big one right now for my industry and maybe it's not for yours But I I encourage you to look at it this way It might not even be that you've lost your job and you have to externally seek a job opportunity But it could be Recognition internally it could be job promotions Internally those are things that your employers and team leaders are going to learn about you as you build your brand And they're definitely going to remember that as part of what sets you apart from your internal competition for those job roles and that does leave me in to number five and that is recognition and recognition can look different for different industries different individuals But it could be as simple as those job opportunities that I mentioned It could be the offer to speak on your particular expertise maybe at an industry event Or conference it could be the opportunity to provide insights through a blog post or a podcast or a video series It could be awards and recognition whether those are internal awards Practices that your organization has or if the industry has awards mechanisms in place And extend awards and recognition to people in that way. So again Amplifying your brand will help attract those opportunities And it might not be high on your list But again, if you go back to number four and you look at the job opportunities and the internal opportunities and promotions having some of those Recognition things show up as things that you've been a part of and things that you have participated in Those are things your team leaders and your employers are going to see so if it isn't the recognition itself That drives you and a lot of people are not driven by recognition Fair but the recognition itself will help in other areas of your personal brand It'll give you more clout. It'll become that differentiator for you. It'll help you stand out from the competition so I hope that helps when talking about why Personal branding is so important to attract recognition opportunities and finally When having a personal brand it allows you to amplify and clarify your brand further and While that might not seem like an important pillar the opportunity to learn and and show others The way and and teach others about how personal branding has helped Influence your life That's another again recognition opportunity. It's an opportunity to set yourself apart from your competition And it gives you something to learn and so on how to grow I think we can all agree personal branding is a journey and it's a journey that never ends No endpoint There are certainly Destinations along the way and we can rest in our destination and take a trip around the city and see all the sites But soon we're gonna get antsy and we're gonna be on the road again to the next destination That's kind of my analogy for the personal branding journey Is it never really ends and you're always learning something new a lot of us? We're navigating and learning clubhouse right now and it's fascinating and it's Energizing and it's confusing and it's all of those things that keeps our brains sharp And allows us to test right testing is so much fun at least I find testing to be so much fun So We're testing all the way through our journey and then we're sharing those best practices back with our communities So those are my six reasons why I feel personal branding is so important Regardless of your industry. I hope you take the time To learn more about personal branding and to start to explore your own personal branding journey If you are a sales professional or an entrepreneur I just launched a personal branding quiz and you can find it over at Leanne Calderwood.com forward slash quiz And it shows you kind of where you are in your personal branding journey as it relates to the four seasons of the year So enjoy that quiz. It's you know a little bit of fun. It gives you some insights about yourself first and foremost Thank you for joining me on today's Tuesday tea. I'm going to go enjoy my team and Tea sorry and probably jump back into clubhouse. So I hope to see you there. Have a great day. Bye for now